I got in the top 100 for humor! I got #76. This is a lot better than my last LD. Below I have shown my rating improvements. However, there are things that made me mad about the ratings. Not so much my ratings but just ratings in general. So I have some tips for those who haven’t been here very long.

Use “n/a”. Very often people will rate as one star when they should really rate as “n/a”. For example, this text adventure. It got rated better in graphics than my game. It is a text adventure, graphics don’t matter in a text adventure. If it doesn’t have sound, rate it as “n/a”. Same goes for graphics.

Read the entire description. It seems as some people don’t read the entire description. There is sometimes some important info in there. For example, people didn’t seem to realize there were only two levels in my game. Or they said restarting was annoying even though I showed a way to restart faster. Please, JUST READ THE WHOLE THING.

Leave a comment. There is nothing more annoying than people who don’t leave comments. I like to hear what you think. How am I supposed to know how I’m doing if you don’t leave a comment. Please, LEAVE COMMENTS.

Also, here is a rating comparison:

LD26 ratings

LD24 Ratings

And here is a timelapse:

I released a new version of my post compo! Here is a list of what has changed since release:
+ Added Music and Sound
* Changed player image
+ Added Easy, Medium, and INSANE difficulty (hard is what it was during the compo)

Click here for the entry page.

I also posted a video featuring the changes (note that the actual game looks much better) below. Oh and don’t forget to watch my timelapse.

And here is a GIF preview:

So far, I’ve played 50 games. On my first Ludum Dare, I only played about 15. So I’ve improved. Anyways, I’ve decided to give some of favorite games (in no particular order) to help you find some cool games to try out before judging ends.

Bipolar

A really cool puzzle game where you use magnets to solve puzzles.

I really enjoyed the gameplay of this game. It was very unique, and I think it is full-game material. I think this may be my favorite game.

Merkaba

A game where you have to find enough crystals to power your spaceship. But you can only turn left!

This was a simple but fun game. There were not really any enemies, but it was still challenging. I think NostraDamon could take this somewhere.

Cylinder

A game where you must get to the end of a cylinder/tunnel, and you get to turn the entire cylinder.

This one had unique gameplay. I would also like to see a full game from this one.

Mustache Armies

The game’s creators explain it best: “Each unit of your previous rounds adds up, replicating all the movements you made when you controlled it. Thusly, a massive army”.

I loved the graphics of this one as well as the unique, innovative gameplay. The sounds were also hilarious. Definitely worth making into a full game.

Of Guards And Thieves

A multiplayer shooter/stealth game.

Unfortunately there were not many servers or players, but it sounds like it is still being worked on, which makes me happy.

ProductionVille

A city builder.

Has room for expansion…

SDFJKL

Words can’t describe this one.

Too innovative to skip.

Potato Dungeon

A fighting game?

I don’t know what to say. I guess you will have to see for yourself

Well I’m too lazy to add anymore images, but some games you should definitely check out are:
Bridge Crosser
Screaming Cubes
TOOM
My Mini Castle
S.A.M
Tessitron
BASHLAND
Reversnake
And not to mention, my game XD.

So I finally did my post compo. The only thing left is to add the music that I made. But I’m lazy, so I think I’ll leave it.

What has been changed:
Added sounds (which mostly were created during the compo)
Added difficulty
Changed version in about menu XD

Well that’s pretty much it. You can find the entry here.

You can also see a speedrun (of the original) here:

Or you can see the timelapse:

I uploaded a speedrun of my game: MinimizeArt. This might help some of you who were having trouble. You can find the entry here. Also, don’t forget to watch the Timelapse.

The MinimizeArt entry page is here.
Ludum dare started for me at LD23 – Tiny world. From then until now, I have learned a lot and my games have improved. For one, I was actually proud of what I had made and my game was actually kind of fun. Before I continue, let me show you a timelapse.

Although my game was better this time around, not everything went perfectly.

What didn’t go so well
Messing around – I spent a great deal of time just sitting there, looking at what I had done. I would get something done, and I would just keep looking at it instead of coding.

Important things last – I didn’t do things in the right order, I ran out of time to make more levels (which is mostly the fault of #1). I should have added sound sooner in, made more levels, etc. Then the other stuff would have been a breeze.

What went well
Code – In the past my code was really sloppy. I just did whatever worked. But this time I stopped to think about my code. The end result was much nicer.

Lighting – This was actually the first game I’ve made with lighting, so it’s kind of a good thing.

Game was hard and fun – In the past, my game were about as fun as coding a Graphics driver in Assembly, and they were never hard either. But this time I actually enjoyed playing it.

So that is how my Ludum Dare went.

In my last post, I was working on lighting. Since then, I’ve added guards, functionality to see if you are in the light (so guards can tell if you are there), fixed a small lighting issue, and I also added animations. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to make those animated GIFs, so if one of you could tell me how, that would be nice:

If you want to try it yourself, click here.

So far, everything has gone well. My code is a bit cleaner this time. And my game also looks nicer:

As you can see, I’ve added lighting.

If you want to see it for yourself, click here. Now I will work on gameplay.

3 hours before the compo, I decided to quickly make a game. Although it is a pong clone and has bad AI, you can get it here

My pong game

This will be my 4th LD. YAY! I think I’m starting to get motivated to make something cool. Lately i’ve been working on, well, other things.
Maybe this time I will make something that is actually good. Every Ludum dare has taught me a lot.

My tools:
Language: Java
IDE: Eclipse
Graphics: Paint.net
Sound: BFXR
Timelapse: ChronoLapse
Competition: Ludum Dare (haha)

See y’all then.

return 0;

In LD 23 and LD 24, I did TERRIBLE! The games were buggy and not even that fun. I figured that this time around I would do better, but due to me getting sick, I didn’t have much time to finish.

If you haven’t seen the timelapse, here it is:

If you want to view the entry, click here.

What went right:

Speed – Because I knew I only had a little time, I seemed to work faster. Hopefully I can do the same next time and NOT because I only have a few hours left.

What went wrong:

Pretty much everything else.

Practice – I should have took some more time to practice between now and LD 24. I think I might participate in a few Mini-LDs

Didn’t use enough packages – I only made two packages of code so I spent a lot of time looking for files.

Graphics – I decided to use 64×64 tiles, figuring that it would look nice because of the resolution. But it didn’t. I should have spent more time on graphics. The tiles were just gradients. Nothing fancy about that.

After the competition, I made the mistake of not spending time on voting and my post-compo and instead doing other things, messing with my new raspberry pi:

I would have liked to play more games, but it’s too late now.

Besides, it’s not like I would have gotten a better rating.

here are my ratings:

I think I would have done much worse if I entered the compo as there are more people.

I think I’ve learned quite a bit for next time.

As you may know, I was sick on day 2 and day 3, so I didn’t have enough time to finish.
I do believe that with one more day I could have made something much nicer. I could have added sound, added the missing functionality, possibly even made more levels.
If you insist on playing the game, you can find the entry page here.
I might write more tomorrow, but for now, I’ll just give you the timelapse:

If you saw my previous post, you would know that I got sick on day 2. I felt quite a bit better today and I decided to get to work. And I have a slight chance of finishing.

Let’s see how this turns out. Now BACK TO WORK!

I worked hard on day one. I wrote two posts, but then I was gone! What happened?
The answer: I got sick
Day 2 and Day 3 down the drain
I might see if I can finish something up in 9 hours.

I got something done today. But not enough. I guess next time I’ll have to prepare more. I think I’ll have to go for something more simple, but I won’t quit.

I’m thinking about a game where you have to take over other robots, giving a disguise and giving their abilities to you.
I’m think that if you become the enemy, then you are the villain as you. Get it? If not, you’ll see what I mean later.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, you are going to be a goat

Because of certain reasons, I never uploaded my timelapses for the last two LDs. Until last night I decided to upload my LD #24 timelapse. So here it is.

This will be my third time.

I was first in LD23 and this time I might do the jam because of real life reasons. My tools:

Language: Java
IDE: Eclipse
Graphics:Paint.NET
Sound: Bfxr (and maybe audacity)
Timelapse: Chronolapse (if I get around to uploading it)

I’m looking forward to this one. Let’s see how it goes.

I was really looking forward to LD25. I’ve only been in LD23 and 24 and my games for both of those competitions were, how should I say this, TERRIBLE. I had fun, but the games were extremely buggy an not even fun to play.

So I was really hoping that this time I actually could make something that was at least decent. But then I found out that I had things to do on December 15. At first I was like: NOOOOOOOOO. But then I remembered that I could still enter the jam. I wanted to enter the 48 hour compo and I still loose a day so I basically only have 48 hours still.

But at least I get one day to plan my game out a bit or something. Plus I don’t have to follow as many rules in the jam.

Another thing I just realized is that the jam rules even say “This is helpful for those times real life gets in the way” and I guess this is one of those times.

When I was creating my game I was in a hurry because the competition was not only ending but I had to leave. Because of this I accidentally made the spawn rate of enemies too high making the game unplayable. I also forgot to put a cap on the fps so it renders faster than necessary. Would I be able to fix any of this? Please help.