I’m trying to get set up on here to take part in Ludum Dare 19 in December. Quite excited to finally take part… Like everyone that posts on here for the first time, I’ve been following them for quite a while and finally decided to just do it.

I’m feeling a bit dumb though because I can’t figure out how to set my profile image on here.

KoryWazHere_ProfileImage?

I’m also not sure if I’m using the blog correctly, I will in future keep posts relevant to the games I’m actually making. Are there any rules for posting? If so, it would be very helpful if someone could point me to them

Update: Now using http://www.gravatar.com/ for my profile image – thanks pekuja

Will be up when I get it.  At least I tried right? I got a new idea. Gimme some time and I’ll post it.

Cancer Wars v0.1 – The Movie of the Game

Cancer Wars v0.1

2D Cure-Em-Up – Battle for inner space against slimy green nasties to cure cute patients using Nano Technology circa 2099.

Built using the Unity game engine, free to play online at http://CancerWarsGame.org.

A bit late for the last LD challege, and following the trend of DonationWare with 50% going to charty and 50% going to further development!

I don’t think it will be the next minecraft but fingers crossed…

Please try it and let me know what you think… and remeber to donate to charity!

More about the build process on my blog here

Kind Regards
Al
Arowx.com

Work, school, and personal studies are keeping me from what I really want to do. See you in about 9 months.

Date: December 10th

Start Time: 12:00 pm (central standard time, that’s where illinois is in right?)

Location:

Jemini Coffee House & Bookstore
112 East Main Street
Fairfield, IL 62837
(618) 842-6333

(if closed, at the local college library)

Requirements:

Yourself, a laptop if you have one (or other mobile device to make games), name tag

Agenda: say hi, talk about indie games, work on ludum dare prototypes, coffee, leave at or slightly before close, maybe a flixel workshop

And if I’m the only one there? Well, I always like coffee so I’ll have a cup or two and program a little bit.

Laters!

(oh, and the google map is wrong, I’m actually just east of leo french park. But there’s the internet  for ya)

Well, I certainly didn’t make the in October deadline, but I’m proud to announce that Endeavor has gotten a primary sponsorship from Newgrounds!

This was my first game put up for sponsorship, and it was a great experience. I got some great advice about Flash Game License from this site, including HybridMind’s suggestion to email sponsors directly, linking them to the FGL page. That’s how I got my Newgrounds bid, which was for twice as much as the highest bid before I sent any emails!

Since finalizing the sponsorship, I’ve gotten to work with the Newgrounds API, and have enjoyed integrating 12 medals into the game.

Endeavor will be released December 1st, exactly 2 months from the beginning of the challenge =D

I need your help populating the site with information!

We’re trying to obsolete some aspects of the wiki, by centralizing important information here on the site (ludumdare.com/compo/).

To start, I need someone to take over maintenance (and construction, heh), of these pages: The prior competition lists.

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/minild/

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludumdare/ (feel free to completely redo this)

If you need some information, the wiki can be found here.

I’d like to eventually put someone else in charge of the MiniLD’s: creating the submission pages, coordinating with hosts, etc. Lets get these pages cleaned up first, and then we’ll talk.

Thanks!

Definitely one of the cooler things that have cropped up lately are the gatherings during Ludum Dare events (Cambridge Indies, you guys rock). We definitely want to encourage more of you to do this.

So to help facilitate that, go add yourself to the map.

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/world-map/

If you see many people near you, it might be worth trying to organize something. This could easily get out of hand, so post a reply ONLY if you see some people near you. Try to include a list of nearby larger cities, so to make searching for your proposed event easier. If you’ve found a few people and are ready to start discussing a venue, start new topic and I’ll link it up here.

Or if anybody has a better way to randomly organize many little gatherings (with almost no effort from me), let me know.

Hi there! Long time no post eh?

Still, I am here with an idea. I’ll post the full idea and details later as I get them. But the idea is this.

A couple of weeks ago, I thought of all the indie news I see and hear and I realized something. I have not (or may have not paid attention to see) seen anything from my local area. Granted, I’m in a small little town in the middle of no-where, but still. There has got to be some other indie devs in my area. Right? Right? So, I had this thought.

Why not make a shout out to the depths of the internet of where I reach and see if anybody wants to meet for a cup of coffee or two and a jam session? So, that’s what I’m doing. I want to find out if there’s any, any other indie developers within my local area. Which includes my home state of Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky. Missourians are welcome too. Even though I live about 2 hours from St. Louis.

While I’m not expecting somebody from 150-200 miles away to get here in Fairfield Illinois, I’m hoping that there’s at least one or two other local developers. I mean, haven’t you ever found yourself wondering if there were other indie developers in your area? Well, I don’t want to wonder anymore. I’m actually hoping to meet at least just one other indie dev. Do any of you live near here and want to meet up? Please let me know!

I’ll post more details later, but, that’s pretty much the idea.

Yep, I need help. If you have what it takes to work on a Ludum Dare game that’s taken waaaaaay longer than 48 hours to develop, and you’re into iOS stuff, this might be for you.

Thanks!
-Phil

I’ve decided on what I’m going to do. The project I have in mind is one of two that I still have code to after my switch to Fedora. (Lots of long-abandoned stuff that I didn’t back up)

There is one thing. This thing, I’ve wanted to make it. I’ve wanted to make it since I played it on my TI calculator in high school. I’ve started, restarted, and started again. I’ve wanted and wanted. Want want want. Er… Sorry.

I am going to pick up my old Alien Breed clone and try to get it working, try to get it presentable. Try to, some day, get it finished. For the Mini-LD, I’ll settle for “working”.

I’m… Debating about starting early. But that wouldn’t be nearly as fun. You know what, I can wait. I’ve got something else to work on to tide me over.

Until then, Flash Breed can wait. I’ll post more details on the 26th.

Finally, closure. Closure closure closure. I’ll have my Alien Breed clone. I’m so, so happy.

Okay, I’m a fan of this Mini-LD theme now. Because I get closure. It’s not going to haunt me anymore. I’m… Getting way too emotional over this. But I get to have that finished and done with.

To ending the guilt, fulfilling a promise, and to making an old dream happen!

— Mr. Dude

I’m really looking forward to the upcoming Mini-LD for several reasons.  Firstly, I love it when the rules are relaxed.  Secondly, I have many unfinished game prototypes that I’d love to dust off and polish.  I think many Ludum Darers like me have a collection of half finished games, so this is one LD48 that really helps us give some TLC to our woefully derelict projects that are just begging to be finished.

The game that I am going to continue working on is one that I prototyped during a 48 hour game jam in September.  The jam was held in Victoria Canada and was called Orca Jam, held by Andy Moore of Steambirds fame.  I spent most of the time socializing and meeting fellow indie developers and in the ten or so hours I put into it I only produced a mockup game that was un-playable.

You can test out what I will be starting from here.  Don’t expect much – you can’t destroy the enemy tanks and you can’t die.  All you can do is move around and watch as the tanks automagically shoot their flamethrowers impotently at each other when they are in close proximity.

The goal is to create a turn-based strategy war game, and I hope to spend this Mini-LD fleshing out the concept and making the game actually playable!  Wish me luck!

I’m not… A huge fan of the Mini-LD theme this time around. Still, I guess I can do something with it.

I’m likely going to work on something that I haven’t actually worked on but have been meaning to for quite a long time. I’m not sure what it will actually be, but that’s my basic premise.

I’m thinking that since Fedora (Which I recently switched to) has SDL development stuffs for MingW, I’ll be using C++ and SDL for my game. I’m going to be using Inkscape for graphics as per usual and as3sfxr for sound. I’m pretty sure I won’t have time for music, though.

I have a few ideas in mind for my game (Likely a shmup, I’ve got several that I’ve wanted to make for quite some time), but again, nothing definite yet.

Peace,

— Mr. Dude

Woo hoo!  I had my first sale today!!!

Stacker - Bumps on a Log

Well, this is my first post, so, ‘Hello, everybody!’ I finally decided to actually participate in LD instead of just watch it and I’ve been getting myself ready for it.

Here’s what I have so far:

• I’m going to give HTML5 canvas a shot, since I wanted to use this LD to learn something new, but know enough javascript that it’s not a crazy risk (probably).
• I think I’ve finally settled on using the NetBeans IDE after having tried a bunch of other stuff. It’s not really meant for simple HTML and javascript, but you can sort of trick it into working. It’s auto-complete and syntax highlighting are great!
• I’m building out some basic javascript support libraries. So far I have basic input handling, sprite preloading, ticking and simple drawing.
• I tried to set up a basic schedule. I think reasonably I can expect to work 10 hours a day, since I’m not a college student anymore. An hour or two for design, 8 hours of engine and mechanics, 5 hours of feature completeness, 5 hours of bug fixing and polish. I’ll be curious to see how fast this dissolves into ‘just go as fast as you can’.
• I ordered a fancy pants ergonomic keyboard. I just can’t spend hours typing on those standard things without my hands falling apart, so this ought to help me even physically make it to the finish line.

My background is programming, so I’m a bit worried about the art. I’ve watched a lot of the time lapse and seen plenty of folks spend hours and hours on the art and end up short on the code. I think I’ll probably have the opposite problem.

I wonder what percentage of first timers actually manage to finish…

The game is edging closer to completion. I’d now say that the game itself is done, bar any tuning of the difficulty and the controls. There are still things to do, such as giving it a visible score and giving it a persistent score, but other than that it works reasonably well.

If you want to give it a whirl then you can download it by scanning the QR code from your Android phone. Note that it needs Android 2.1 or better.

I’d be happy with any feedback that you want to give me, so if you would like to leave some then please do so on this site, or here.

I had that game development itch. And with the next ludum dare over a month away, I decided to make a game this weekend to scratch it.

There’s been this little exercise in my head for a while now: how many people could play the same game on the same PC using 4 keys each on the same keyboard?

Theoretically it would be in the mid-twenties (~100 keys / 4), but that isn’t a practical solution. So ive settled with Five (cramped) players.

“Dude, give me that parachute!” is a physics-based game of tag set 15,000 feet in the air. Five Dudes, one parachute. The Dude with the ‘chute at the end of the game wins. There’s also obstacles and stuff. Still fun with < 5 people, any left over Dudes will just float about randomly.

PLAY!

Pic (looks better in motion):

I’ll be back for LD19!!

-DBS

October Challenge, complete!

Hey, Ludum Dare — my October Challenge entry, Distant Star, is finally out! It’s an old-school 4x space game, something like a mash-up between Master of Orion and pre-expansion Sword of the Stars, re-designed from scratch for the iPad. Give it a try!

Distant Star for iPad, on the Apple App Store.

On a slightly more sober (hic) note: if you play the game I’d really, really appreciate it if you left a review in iTunes.

The November MiniLD will be happening on the weekend of the 26th.  I’m announcing the rules now so that you have some time to think about what you would like to do.

The concept is Unfinished Business.

On the 26th, write a journal entry about a game that you created in the past, preferably a previous LD48 entry.  In the journal entry link to a build of the game in it’s current state, talk about where the game is at, and where you would like it to be.

Then, over the weekend do as much as you can to improve on your old game.  Submit your improved game after 48 hours, and be sure to link back to your opening journal entry in your submission.

The regular LD48 restrictions are relaxed for this MiniLD.  Do whatever you can to make your game as awesome as possible, as long as you still have the legal right to redistribute the game. (no copyright infringement allowed)

To submit:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/minild-22/

To view all submissions:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/minild-22/?action=preview

Anyone interested in a meeting up for LD19 in the DC or Northern Virginia Metro area?