Don’t forget to get crackin’ on themes!
http://www.ludumdare.com/wiki/ld14:themes

Alright, I’ve never done one of these Ludum Dare’s so I have no idea what I’m doing, but I’ll give it a good try!

I’m excited for LD 14, I’ll definitely have a go at it. I was also pondering what language or dev platform I would use. Java is my staple, but I’ve learned or mastered so many other technologies lately I thought I would give one of them a go. Let’s see, there’s XNA, which I recently made a game in, there’s Unity, which I’ve got a good amount of experience with, there’s Objective-C/iPhone, which is always cool because then it can be published, there’s Flash (I still haven’t made anything in AS3)… hmmm…

I don’t know at this point, but it’s likely I’ll go with Unity or the iPhone. Trouble with doing an iPhone game is that nobody can play it unless I release it on the app store, and aside from that being more or less impossible in 48 hours I still think the audience who could play my games would be very limited. Still, I’d love to mess around more with the iPhone – using the accelerometer and the touch screen leave some big possibilities.

Well, we’ll see…

Hey everyone,

Just a reminder that Phil Hassey and I will be at the Game Developers Conference all next week. Wednesday to Friday, you can catch us exhibiting our respected games at the IGF Mobile pavilion (unless we get bored of that). Do stop by if you’re at the conference.

We should both be back by March 30th (perhaps a little sooner). Try not to break the site in our absence.

Ta ta,

Mike Kasprzak (PoV)

Well, I’ve diarised it, and set aside a weekend, so I know I’m all in for LD14. The only question now is: Which language?

I’m learning Haskell at the moment, and the sheer perversity of writing a game in a functional language appeals to me. That said I’d probably get very little done and be enormously frustrated.

I could use Blitz Max, but I forgot where I even left my copy of that and it’s a windows version. Not sure what the compatibility points are for linux.

I think I’ll probably settle on Python. My C is too rusty to pick up quickly and run with, and PyGame looks straightforward enough to learn properly before the compo.

Hey hey,

Apparently that’s what we get for announcing the compo early.

It seems April 10th-12th weekend is Easter weekend this year, which is sort of a big deal holiday in North America.  So to avoid conflicts with various family get togethers, we’re going to push the compo back a weekend.

Ludum Dare 14 will now take place on April 17th-19th weekend.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

- Mike Kasprzak (AKA PoV)

Well, I am late, because I didn’t had the chance to work sunday, because I play soccer, so I finished it today. I know it doesn’t count but I’m posting the game here for you to try it and criticize positively and negatively if you want, so I can make better games.

The Destruction of Viruses + Yeti Fights Back ( my last entry ) = Yeti Fights Biology

This time I used XNA from Microsoft, but I will remake it with SFML and C++… Because I don’t know what dependencies are needed with the game. The images have the background around them, because I don’t know (after googling for it) how to mask a color in XNA, the XNA framework might be really good, but as for documentation it surely sucks. That is why I want to remake it with SFML/C++, and that way I can port it to Linux, sorry Mac users, I can’t compile for Macs..

Also, I don’t know with dependencies to deliver with the Exe so I recorded a video for you to see the final game. And I am giving the source code for curious people.

Video (YouTube)
Download ( src )

I just wanted to try something out and its my first time here at LD. Tried to Mashup galcon with minimalism, which I hope is legal.. Its incomplete though, it has a broken AI which I removed from the entry here.

Still not convinced whether I should post this or not. Maybe next time It’ll be better.

what didn’t make it to the game?

the AI Player sound/music, more levels and ending screens, options and obviously better graphics..

you can try it here..

Well my Mash up was going to be a mix between up between Escape From Anathema Mines and Boomshakalaka

The concept was trapped in a mine with a lazer to trigger sticks of TNT to explode and clear boulders, take out enemies and handy mirror/crystals to bounce the lazer around corners.  Oh yeah you were was supposed to have a light like the first escape from Anathema.

It’s been good fun so far and I will finish it off and update, just to see if it will be fun to play!

Features completed:

1. Level loading from image
2. Player moving on map, collision with objects
3. Lazer triggering dynamite fuse
4. Energy reducing
5. HUD working
6. Lighting of tiles, brightness

To do…

1. Dynamite exploding and clearing boulders
2. Lazer/map collision
3. Lazer mirror interaction
4. Head torch lighting up envirnment
5. Throwing Dynamite
6. Enemies
7. Exit working
8. More levels…ect

As I didn’t want to spend the entire competition playing through the LD archives, I picked three previous themes and used all of them.  I hope that by doing this, I came close enough to two things in there that it qualifies.  The three themes that I worked from were:

• Construction/Destruction
• Chain Reaction
• The Tower

You’re trying to build your tower into the green area at the top of the screen before your opponent builds theirs into the red area.  The arrow keys move the building blocks around the top of the screen, rotate them, and drop them, much like Tetris.  If you don’t build your tower sturdily, then some of your tower may crumble due to the extra weight you’re adding as you build.  If you notice your opponent building his tower sloppily, you can drop a few blocks on his tower to collapse his and give you a lead.

Pygame source code can be downloaded from http://github.com/kd5bjo/tower-wars/downloads .  The game can be run single-player (no opponent) with ‘python towerwars.py’.  The ‘–help’ option will tell you what you need to know to play multi-player.

I have not tested this on any platform other than Linux, and I have not tested the multiplayer over the Internet.  It shouldn’t be hard to make it work under Windows, but I don’t have access to a Windows machine to test on.

This is my mash up of Mr. Splode and the fireworks factory and Medusa’s lament.  Mostly I really liked the little purple guy and the setting of mr. splode, but it is satisfying to be able to walk all over any bad guys that you destroy.

both python and windows executable

python game.py should run the game, all the code is contained in the one module

pygame required if running from source

python Source:link

[alt link]

windows executable: link

Now available at: Zompire Dracularius

The screenshot:

Here it is!

It’s lovely!

Play it here.

This game is sort of like Frogger, except you can’t move backwards. Enjoy!

I had a lot of fun with this. I wanted to do a couple more sets of levels with other Kandinsky paintings, but I didn’t have time.

Coded in ActionScript 3 + TweenLite, with art stolen from Wassily Kandinsky, and animations created in the Flash CS3 API.

Only Forwards + Mondrian = Ondrian Fordrian

This is the first LD entry I finished. It’s a mash-up between Tower from LoneStranger and Lunar Fortress. What you have to do in this game is keeping the evil letters from reaching your tower by clicking on them. It’s really simple and it makes absolutely no fun.

Written in Object Pascal and compiled with Turbo Delphi, but should compile with FreePascal. Also, there are some performance problems. I got around 70 FPS on my MacBook and around 25 FPS on a Intel Essentials D945GCLF2 (Dual-core atom processor @ 1.6 GHz and GMA 950 graphic chip) board. For those who try to play it, have fun.

Here is the link: Windows Binary + Source (ZIP)

I’ve got my entry done .. It’s “strongTowlr“, a mash-up of mrfun’s Strong AI and PoV’s towlr series.  I also pulled a style theme from SpindleyQ’s CGA Quest.  Strong AI was one of my favorite LD games .. and the towlr series has been my on-going nemesis.  strongTowlr is a horrible marriage of good and evil.

Although it may seem impossible, several LDers have already been able to defeat it.  If you need emotional support, there are people in #towlr willing to help.  Dragonene gets the honors for being the first person to defeat strongTowlr (in only 140 tries!)

Have fun!  Don’t hurt yourself!
-Phil

P.S. As always, thanks to DrPetter for sfxr, and to the “festival” team for the voices.

Well I spent a couple more hours and got the basic functionality in. It’s actually pretty fun. And the artwork is beautiful of course, because it’s Kandinsky!

I’m doing all the animation in the Flash IDE rather than programatically, which I’ve almost never attempted before – so it’s fun, but I’m an amateur.

Two playable levels are up at http://davidrlorentz.com/files/OndrianFordrian_v01.html.

Well, this is a new one. I’m finished, or as finished as I’m going to get. I chose to build a game where the primary (indeed, only) mode of interaction is movin the mouse around and frantically clicking — and apparently something I did yesterday set of my carpal tunnel something awful. I can no longer play what I’m writing! Oh noes! Ah, well…At least it’s feature-complete, if somewhat lacking in content.

Download Turbulent Lake for Windows

Game is a mash up of Hamumu’s Still Pond, and some, err, other stuff. Yeah. If you find it frustrating, press spacebar to toggle ‘wimp mode’. Makes things easier.

Wimp.

There is now a doodad, and the doodad moves forward. You can see it moving forward in the screenshot below. As you can see, the game is already looking completely beautiful!

Woohoo, MiniLD. Not only is this an awesome if somewhat self-referential theme, it’s looking like I might finish an entry — something which I haven’t done in a while. Too long to admit. Ah, well. Like I said, it’s looking good.

I spent the first six or so hours of the Compo (at least, those for which I was at home!) playing old LD entries that I’d never gotten around to playing for one reason or another. Turbulent Lake is a mash-up of Hamumu’s sublime Still Pond, with all of the humorous juxtaposition replaced by flaccid meta-jokes. What can I say. The pretty is really starting to shape up, though.

It’s 10:30am here, folks — I think it’s time to go to bed, and leave the serious content creation for another day. Keep the pythons curling while I’m away.

Well, after a couple of hours playing old LD games (which tend to be amazingly good, btw), here’s my screwball idea.

Only Forwards + Mondrian = Ondrian Fordrian

In this mashup, I intend to mash extra hard, almost beyond recognition. In other words, I will be interpreting my inspirations loosely.

In Only Forwards, the avatar is always moving forward and the player’s inputs cause the avatar to turn left and right. In Ondrian Fordrian, the avatar is either moving forward or not moving at all; input consists of exactly one key, the MOVE FORWARD key. The player’s goal is to move forward as much as possible.

In Mondrian, the visuals are inspired by the De Stijl artist Piet Mondrian. In Ondrian Fordrian, the visuals are inspired by the Bauhaus artist Wassily Kandinsky. Or who knows, once I actually have a game maybe I’ll go with someone else, someone whose work is more gamey, like Mondrian’s friend Theo van Doesburg, founder of the De Stijl art movement. I totally just looked all that stuff up on Wikipedia.

In Ondrian Fordrian, the avatar is a Kandinsky doodad attempting to traverse the frightening, bewildering Kandinsky miasma. His goal is to move forward along his curvy, Kandinskic path. Everything moves. Some of it pushes him backward, some of it can hurt him.

Never Look Back. This is the second (way more boring) title for this game.  Never look back, Kandinsky doodad. The past is past, and the only way is forward.

I will be working in Flash with AS3. I intend to finish the game this weekend, but it’s going to be meager, for a couple of reasons. Chiefly, I have a lot of other stuff on my mind, plus the weather’s so damn nice.

This could only bring madness… or terror… or both!

Short Fuse + The Hairy Chestival.

I’m going for it!  This is rough mockup to get the idea down but basically instead of the old miner carrying the leaky powderkeg.. we have our miner taking up a different profession.  That’s right, he’s using the lawnmower (or is that chestmower?) from The Hairy Chestival.. only problem is that the lawnmower is leaking fuel like there’s no peak oil!  You have to mow down the dry grass (or is that… hair?) before the spark ignites your fuel mixture.  Oh yeah, for some reason the field is littered with explosive barrels that you can’t run into but that you have to destroy.  There will also be a fuel meter on the lawnmower that will run out I think as well (like the button to discard the powderkeg in Short Fuse.  I still have to work out exactly what the rewards are (do you really need one in a game so ludicrous?    ) and what the dangers are.  But, I have high hopes for this.. hehe.  I’ll be using Flash.  Either AS2 or AS3.. jury is still out for this mini-LD.