In case you haven’t heard, on GDC Monday at 6 PM will be a free screening of Indie Game: The Movie available to all GDC attendees (well, the first 500 that arrive). After the movie, there will be a panel featuring the cast and crew. This event overall is expected to last until about 8:30 or 9 PM. For reference, the Independent Games Summit ends at 5:30 PM.

http://www.gdconf.com/news/gdc/gdc_2012_to_host_special_indie.html

Our original plan for the meetup was Westfield Mall Food Court right after, but they close at 9:30. We need a plan B.

From our last survey, it sounds like we’re going to need a venue for ~50 people.

Here is a new survey:

https://docs.google.com/dE5rVnZ3eXZXTHJ1VHdURFJaSVhIdEE6MQ

In the Old Survey:

• 68 people said they would like to attend a Monday Meetup.
• 58 people said they would like to attend a Friday Jam.

That’s a lot!

Visit the comments below and help us figure out what we’re going to do.

Hey Folks! We (Phil and I) will be at GDC this year, and want to know if you will be too.

https://docs.google.com/dG1lQmlXNkZ5X3BHalVmT3JZaVhGQWc6MQ

We’re looking to gauge interest in doing something “LD”. Fill out that survey and let us know!

So I’ve finally decided to share what I made during LD. I was running late, so I wasn’t able to finish it by the jam deadline, but did finish up about 5-6 hours later. You’re not going to find me in the set of 891 games though.

Fighting some Bats

You can try it here: http://www.alonethe.com/prototype/

- Best played in Firefox, in Full Screen (F11).
- F5 to reload (WHEN you die, MUAHAHA!)
- If using Flash Block or NoScript, enable Flash. It needs Flash Player 9+ for Sound.
- Arrow Keys, Mouse, or Touch Screen.
- Works on all current Browsers. Some may lack sound.
- Works on all current Mobile Browsers too! Best in Firefox Mobile (w/o Sound).

You can find an extended postmortem on the game on my blog.

Thanks everybody for making Ludum Dare 22 great!

The smoke has finally cleared, and by the end of 3 intense days we have a total of 891 entries (stats)! Holy cow!

For the next 3 weeks, we’d like to invite all participants back here to the website, and ask you play and rate the games. Visit the Rate Games page for a list of 20 randomly assigned games, just for you.

Left side numbers are Compo, Right side are Jam, number in brackets is how many ratings

The random list will grow over time if you need more, and you’re free to pick and choose what games you play. If we can get everyone to play at least their assigned 20 entries, that will give us a good baseline set of stats overall. And if you can play more, that would help a lot!

With Christmas next weekend, it’s understandable that people will be busy. I will be sending a reminder out to the mailing in about 2 weeks, so if you’re not already on it you should sign up. Then be sure to stop by January 10th for the results.

Ludum Dare 23 – April 2012 – ** 10 Year Anniversary! **

It’s pretty crazy when you think about it, but the next Ludum Dare event coming up in April will be our 10 year anniversary. Yes, we’ve been doing these silly events for 10 years now! Wow! Be sure to stop by in April for the big one! Lets break 1000!

Ludum Dare at the Game Developers Conference

Phil and I are regular attendees at the Game Developers Conference, so if you too are attending, stay tuned. Last year we did a meetup as well as an afternoon Game Jam at NoiseBridge. It was a lot of fun hanging out with with everybody. We don’t have our plans figured out for next year yet, but stay tuned!

You are all awesome

Thanks everyone for coming out and making this another record breaking Ludum Dare.

Additional Links

To tidy up the front page, here are some posts worth looking at.

• Post Mortem Survey by Breakdance McFunkyPants
• “The downloads of many LD games suck”, Packaging Tips, with Sos

I have enemies swarming you now, and a type of auto-targeting working.

Targeting the one in green

Next up is combat mechanics, though I have a bit of running around to do shortly, followed by some “end-of-compo” administration to do here on the site. Player is currently equipped with “Bare Hands”, and enemies with “Weak Bite”.

Fun fun.

I’ll be periodically updating the numbers through the evening.

Compo Deadline

6 Hours Left – 101 Entries
1 Hour Left – 370 Entries
30 Minutes Left – 433 Entries
20 Minutes Left – 449 Entries
15 Minutes Left – 462 Entries
0 Hour – 521 Entries
5 Minutes Over – 537 Entries
10 Minutes Over – 551 Entries
15 Minutes Over – 567 Entries
20 Minutes Over – 578 Entries
25 Minutes Over – 603 Entries ** NEW RECORD **
30 Minutes Over – 625 Entries
35 Minutes Over – 635 Entries
40 Minutes Over – 655 Entries
45 Minutes Over – 667 Entries
50 Minutes Over – 683 Entries
55 Minutes Over – 692 Entries
60 Minutes Over – 700 Entries ** WOW **
65 Minutes Over – 706 Entries
70 Minutes Over – 709 Entries
75 Minutes Over – 711 Entries
80 Minutes Over – 719 Entries
85 Minutes Over – 720 Entries
90 Minutes Over – 723 Entries
105 Minutes Over – 725 Entries
120 Minutes Over – 734 Entries (720 Compo, with 14 people submitting Jam early)

Jam Deadline

30 Minutes Left – 798 Entries
20 Minutes Left – 803 Entries
10 Minutes Left – 811 Entries
0 Hour – 833 Entries
15 Minutes Over – 851 Entries
40 Minutes Over – 866 Entries
60 Minutes Over – 887 Entries
75 Minutes Over – 890 Entries

Now that I have the “actually difficult” code in and working, I thought I’d do some benchmarking on weaker systems.

32 enemies total, brute force O^2 collision checking.

On any decent computer, I do ~30 FPS easy (~60 too), no matter the browser. On lower end computers though (Netbooks, Tablets, Phones), I’m getting the following performance:

32^2 = 1024 Compares

AMD C-50 Firefox 8: ~20 FPS
AMD C-50 IE 9: ~17 FPS
Intel Atom Firefox 8: ~10 FPS
Intel Atom Chrome 16: ~11 FPS
Intel Atom IE 9: ~10 FPS
iPad 2nd Gen (Safari): ~15 FPS
iPad 1st Gen (Safari): ~8 FPS
BlackBerry PlayBook (Webkit): ~10 FPS
Kindle Fire (Android Webkit): ~9 FPS
Nexus S (Android Webkit): ~3 FPS
Onda VX610W (Android Webkit): ~4 FPS
Nintendo 3DS (Opera): Too Freaking Slow

So I guess HTML5 Canvas 2D is less up to snuff than I thought. Ah well.

16^2 = 256 Compares

EDIT: Some tweaking later (less objects). With a proper partitioning in place, performance would be more like this:

AMD C-50 Firefox 8: ~30 FPS
AMD C-50 Chrome 16: ~22 FPS
AMD C-50 IE 9: ~29 FPS
Intel Atom Firefox 8: ~26 FPS Idle, 24 FPS Active
Intel Atom Chrome 16: ~24 FPS Idle, 13 FPS Active
Intel Atom IE 9: ~19 FPS
iPad 2nd Gen (Safari): ~24 FPS
iPad 1st Gen (Safari): ~17 FPS
BlackBerry PlayBook (Webkit): ~14 FPS
Kindle Fire (Android Webkit): ~25 FPS
Nexus S (Android Webkit): ~10 FPS
Nintendo 3DS (Opera): 1 Frame per 10-20 Seconds

So in other words, good enough to run stuff, but what you run on it still needs to be carefully designed. You can’t just spitball sprites and expected to get 30-60 FPS.

Just another shot showing the collisions with the scenery working.

Pushing the baddy in to two blocks... ya, you like dat, don't ya?

Back to the TODO list now ‘eh?

So hey, I finished up my collision code (right at the 24 hour mark). I have a bunch of functions for checking for the nearest point on an AABB, as well as triangular shapes I’m nicknaming “wedges”. So now, with that, I have all the collision tests I need. Phew! Math!

The nearest point on a wedge is always in the direction of the normal... except corners

To celebrate, I whipped up something nice for dinner.

Chicken a-la-King. Rice, chicken pieces, topped with Salsa. Bon Apetite!

Hey look! A FoodPhoto! It’s totally like I’m actually doing an LD again.

Phew! Some 4-5 hours ago I was tired, too tired to post, so I took a nap.

Here’s what I had then:

The Red Collision. The green circle means the other two are touching.

So as it turns out, the theme was absolutely perfect (and no, I didn’t rig the vote). I’ve been working on a commercial game for the past couple months called “Alone, The“, but it’s big, it’s 3D, and taking a long time. So during Warmup Weekend, I had the wild idea of doing a de-make of the game in HTML5. To be honest, I’ve never seriously worked in JavaScript before, so there was much to learn (and still learn).

So over a few hours last weekend, I managed to create some simple art, and get some tile-map rendering working. I put the code online in a slightly modified form as my basecode/library, in case I had a good idea for a Compo game. But I’ll be honest, I really want to make this demake of my primary project, and I like the page of art I’ve done so far, so to be fair I’ll be entering the Jam instead.

Eicking up where I left off, I now have map scrolling and object vs object collision (not to mention actual objects). I added some debug functionality to show the radius of objects, the radius of their currently equipped weapons, and the volumes of the per-tile collision. Right now though, I need to make object versus tile collisions work. I kinda wish I had spent time during the week getting all the collision stuffs working, but that’s alright. I’m jamming anyway. If I can get that done in the next 4 hours, that’ll have me in a good state for day 1.

So my goal for the 72 hours is to get a basic playable game working. It wont be very fun, but should be functional. I plan to continue working above and beyond Ludum Dare, but I should be able to get a very strong foundation working within the 72.

Stuff I’d like to finish:

• Dummy map, manually created in code (skipping random generation for now).
• Several enemies with very basic AI (if enter sight, go towards you)
• Basic Combat
• Several weapons to pick up (knife, sword)
• Multiple Attacks per weapon type (slash, stab)
• Barebones Inventory
• Sound and Music

Doable for sure, it just has to be done. The Ludum Dare website seems to be running great (at least I haven’t seen any problems), so my interruptions shouldn’t be too many (just a few hours tomorrow, and a few Monday). I’d like to have something playable by the time the Jam clock strikes zero.

Anyways, it’s 6 PM now, which means 3 hours. Back to work! Gotta finish the collision!

So yes, pending some catastrophic failure of the Ludum Dare website, I should be participating in LD22 too.

I typically do (highly portable) Native C++ development, but for a change of pace I’ve decided to try HTML5 Canvas 2D development in JavaScript. The past week (in what little time I’ve had), I’ve been building a small library of JavaScript code. Stuff found in my Native C++ codebase, ported over to JavaScript. You can find the latest snapshot on Google Code:

http://code.google.com/p/gelhtml/

And the demo app looks something like this.

Is it Towlr?

Good luck everyone!

It’s nearly time to kick off our latest and greatest event yet: Ludum Dare 22. Final Round theme voting now live, so go cast your vote for the theme. Prior results are here.

Like last time, join us LIVE in the #ludumdare IRC channel on irc.afternet.org for the Theme Announcement! Can’t make it? Follow us on Twitter, or sign up for the mailing list.

This time around there are several real world jams and gatherings going on over the weekend, far more than we’ve ever had. For a complete list, go here.

Also, since live video streams seem popular lately, we’ve set up a link on the front page for them. Find a complete list over here.

We’re running on a brand new server, introduced (unfortunately) half way through the last event. We (Phil specifically) went through and did a lot of optimizations to our site code. Removing excessive SQL queries, disabling unnecessary plugins, and making numerous other tweaks. We’re hoping this time we have it right. We’ll be keeping a close eye to make sure everything still works. If we’re lucky, Phil and I will have a chance to make entries ourselves!

On with the festivities!

(more…)

So I’ve been working on a Warmup game today. Typically I only ever write native code (highly portable cross platform native code), but for-the-heck-of-it I wanted to play around with HTML5 / JavaScript / Canvas2D. I’ve been under the impression that HTML5 has been “good enough” for a while to make most typical 2D games. I can’t really say without any certainty though until I try it.

So to contrast my 3D main project, I started a 2D demake of it in HTML5.

I’m using the C64 palette, but not to spec. I didn’t like how my art looked with double-wide pixels, so I’m keeping 1:1. Objects will usually be 1 color, sometimes 2.

Just a tile map renderer and and animated bat so far, but I have the ground work ready to do procedurally generated maps. The rooms are currently a bunch manually placed rectangular areas, and I run a post-process on the map file to add in the edging. Fun.

But now, sleep.

Surprise! Warmup Weekend!

Teacher just walked in, said good morning, and started handing out a pop quiz. You panic. You start regretting that you stayed up late playing games. The exam is next week, and admittedly, you’re not ready for either.

Warming-up for Ludum Dare is nothing new, but here’s us encouraging you to do it.

Between now and Ludum Dare 22′s start time, you should really make sure that your tools work. Make some art, import it, and draw it on screen. Make some sounds, import them, and play them on cue. If you’re using a new development tool, learn it.

Mr McFunkyPants proved it. Look at his top-3 “what went wrong”. If you’ll indulge me, you could attribute all 3 to poor preparation. Or to keep up the schooling angle “You didn’t study!”.

Bullet point summary:

• No rules or limits. This is practice.
• Learn your development tools! Write some code, run it.
• Make some art, get it on screen, make it move.
• Print some text to the screen. Print some text to a log (if applicable).
• Make some sound, get it in game, make it play.
• If you’re motivated enough, make your experiments in to a game!
• Make something that should take “hours”, not 2 days.
• Then package it up, put it online.
• No time or day limit. But if you have no other plans this weekend, why not?
• If you’d like to work with a theme, try this tool

If you like what you’ve done, feel free to share it.

Don’t worry, the quiz wont affect your grade. But be warned, the exam is all-or-nothing.

Viewers, look below. Participants, post a comment with a link to your live video stream.

Here’s a list of real world game jams taking place over Ludum Dare weekend:

• United Kingdom – Cambridge – CB Indies
• South Africa – Cape Town – Flier, SAGD Website

If you’re hosting a Ludum Dare related gathering, let us know! Make a post here on the site with details, and we’ll add you to the list!

More Ludum Dare Community News

And to tidy up the page, here’s more things going on in the community.

• Last day to do your “I’m In” video (optional but fun) <– DO THIS!
• Gift Exchange is on! Participants! If you haven’t already, mail your gifts ASAP!
• Crunching to finish your October game before LD22? Xmas Club!

Hey everybody!

*sigh* Well it looks like October is really finally done now. You know, I wish it was just 2 weeks (months?) longer myself. I’ll see if I can convince that guy that made Calender to make October a tad longer next time.

I am going to leave the submission form open for another day, just to be sure we catch all the timezones around the world. Submit now!

If you are finished you game but waiting around in submission queues, looking for a sponsor, or pounding away on those last minute submission bugs (and expecting to submit any day now), then I would like to encourage you to submit. We don’t require you have to earn your dollar by months end, but want you to have done everything possible in the time allotted to make it happen. And when you do earn that dollar, ‘cmon back and tell us all about it.

I sincerely hope this was a good month for you and your project. I’ll have more to say once we get all the submissions in.

Until then, crunch faster!

I’ve been getting a number of messages about opportunities people can utilize to reach the goal, so I’ve decided to collect them in one place. If you’d like to share one, post a comment below or send a tweet to @mikekasprzak.

Opportunities

• PC (Windows & Linux) – Desura – Looking for quality indie games
• PC (Linux) – Gameolith – 90% royalty rate until December
• Web – Intel AppUp – First 200 quality apps win $250 USD

Launching or Closing Soon

• All – Independent Games Festival – Highly regarded event with cash prizes, due Oct 17th
• PC (Windows & Mac) – Indie City – New Indie Games portal coming soon
• Web (Flash) – Flash Player 11 – Launching Soon (3D). Release Candidate Available

Marketplaces

• Mobile (Android) – Android Marketplace – Android phones and tablets ($25 one time fee)
• Mobile (Android) – Amazon App Store – Amazon Fire Tablet (First year free then $99 year)
• Mobile (Apple) – iOS App Store – iPhone, iPod touch, iPad ($99 year)
• PC (Mac) – Mac App Store – Apple’s built-in App Store ($99 year)
• PC (Windows & Linux) – Desura – PC Game and Mod storefront with a Steam-like client
• PC (Linux) – Gameolith – Linux gaming store with 70% and 80% royalty rates
• Web (Flash & Unity) – Flash Game License – Put your games up for auction
• Web (Flash) – Flash Portals – Too many to list. Many can be contacted directly
• Web – Chrome Web Store – Sell content to Chrome browser users ($5 one time fee)

• Mobile & Web (Flash) – Blackberry Developers – Phones and Playbook Tablet
• PC & Web – Intel AppUp – Windows and MeeGo (Linux) devices
• Mobile & Console – Microsoft App Hub – XBLIG and Windows Phone 7 ($99 year)

Payments

• Amazon Payments – Payments powered by Amazon
• BMT Micro – Long time favorite of many PC/Shareware authors
• Google Checkout – Payments powered by Google
• Google IAP – In App Payments by Google
• Paypal – Old Faithful

Resources

• Mobile – Streaming Color’s iOS Developer Revenue Survey

October is upon us, and it’s time to kick off the October Challenge 2011!

The October Challenge is a special Ludum Dare event I started last year. More and more people are making games today thanks to Game Jams and events like Ludum Dare. As a result, more and more people have declared “I want to start selling games too”. Well, it’s time to stop talking and start doing. Put simply:

That is your goal. That is the October Challenge.

Disregard all the usual Ludum Dare rules (no restrictions). Finish any game you previously made during a game jam, something else you’ve been working on, or heck, something entirely new. But we know you can make a game. Your goal, if you choose to accept it, is to not only make something, but to finish it and earn money from it. That’s all. No specific rules or platforms. Make good on that goal or promise to start selling games.

Finish your game before November 1st, and submit it to your respected market. That is the challenge. And once you earn your $1, you’ve done it! Easy as that. You’re now a pro.

I’d like to invite everyone to share resources and discuss markets and business models. I’ll help collect your links over the next couple days for others to find. If you need a place to start, you can check out this guide I wrote for last years event.

Also, do share your progress on your upcoming game with us here on the site. I’ll be opening a submission form soon to collect a list of completed games as they happen.

Keynote Invitation

What’s a Ludum Dare event these days without a keynote? Here’s me saying the same thing, in video, with strange editing and ambiance! Give it to your friends who HATE to read.

That’s all from me. No more waiting. Time to get started. Go go go!

Alright! Thanks everyone again for all your feedback.

After much deliberation, we’ve decided to start taking donations again. If it turns out that isn’t enough, we will investigate some of the other options. I’d especially like to thank everyone that contacted me directly about outright hosting, boxes, sponsorships, etc. We may still need you, but for the sake of the community, we’ve decided to try donations first.

To find out how we’re doing, or to make a contribution, visit the following page:

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

It’s important to us that Ludum Dare stay free for all. We don’t want anyone to feel obligated to contribute. But if you’d like to help us out though, it would be much appreciated.

We have control over our VPS, so we can raise and lower our plans as we need to. We’re currently on a $90 plan. There was some unexpected heavy Reddit traffic the other day, and with the October Challenge about to kick off, we’ll be keeping a close eye on this to optimize our costs.

Thanks again everyone. And now it’s time for me to go kick-off the October Challenge.