miNOMalism is a minimalistic food chain ecosystem simulator, with you being its lowest part. However, thanks to pheromone distribution, you can control bigger creatures and keep the races from going extinct and thus the whole ecosystem in a balance.

You can play online or download a Windows version:
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-26/?uid=1163

Only a few people (outside the LD community) has played so far, saying it was fun and “damn, HARD!”

I’m pretty satisfied that we’ve managed to balance the ecosystem to be manageably stable and still quirky. Planning all the rules before hand in a strict manner with no loose ends probably helped.

This was my 10th anniversary Ludum Dare and 3rd Jam, but it was fun and exhausting as always!

Thanks to my teammate Eatacay, we’ve got a great music and some minimalistic graphics :]

After the first day, we’ve got quite fun game coming up:

It’s a minimalistic food chain ecosystem simulator, with you being its lowest part. However, thanks to pheromone distribution, you can control bigger creatures and keep the races from going extinct and thus the whole ecosystem in a balance.

There are no sounds yet, no title screen. The rules are explained at the link above.

We are Eatacay (concept, graphics) and Jarnik (gameplay, programming).

I’ve been busy the whole day coding the game, so I’m posting today’s food photos before going to sleep.

Lunch (was actually a breakfast : Turkey stew in cream sauce with dumplings (made by my übercool soon-to-be father-in-law)

Dinner: Pancakes with jam and whipped cream

My first Ludum Dare was LD15 and including some miniLDs I’ve participated in 9 LDs so far. So LD26 is a going to be my 10th Ludum Dare.

It’s also going to be my third team Jam – this time with an awesomely talented composer and graphics artist, who contacted me thanks to 1GAM.

Tools: haXe NME, GIMP

I wanted to devote just 8 hours to LD25, but eventually I ended up with just 2-3 hours, thus not finishing my concept and not submitting the game.

However, I really liked the theme, so I finished the game later.

Goatzilla vs Nuclear war:

The story: nuclear war is raging, goatzilla appears. Various nations are firing missiles at each other, while still building and improving their settlements.

As a goatzilla, you have three options:

• let the humanity perish (stomp all the houses)
• force the humanity to unite, then let them destroy you (stomp near houses to make them shift sides and unite)
• get killed early, keeping the nations separated

…for 6-8 hours.

Lately I’ve accustomed myself to devote just a few hours to LD instead of the whole weekend. You get all the thrill and excitement of the early game design and development, minus the afterward nitpicky coding and asset polishing – in case you’re able to come up with a brilliant and easily implementable idea. The reality was, I had often spent more time, around 12 hours, with the game, but at least I have a time limit to strive for.

I’ll definitely use HaXe. I am thinking of giving a shot to the new HaXe port of Flixel - http://www.haxeflixel.com/

Also seriously thinking of joining the http://onegameamonth.com/ challenge.

Detective Darwin is a private investigator, a single human stranded on a planet full of blobby aliens with sophisticated cycle of evolution.

Followed by his alien assistant, Mendel, and using his amazing skill of relation deducing, he solves various cases in order to fix broken families.

PLAY ONLINE

I could not resist and instead of making a simple game, I made it too complicated…

The core idea: aliens have certain properties (leg count, eye count, colors…), there are specific rules of inheritance for each of these properties. Your task, as a detective, is to find a certain alien within a given group, using these rules. It might be a long-lost children,  elderly parents or step-brother.

I had fun, might be fun for you as well, if you have patience to get familiar with the rules.

Created in less then 24 hours ( managed to attend an afternoon bbq session ).

Good luck to everyone else – even if you didn’t manage to finish your game, I hope you had fun, cause I certainly did!

After a delightful barbecue afternoon with friends, I’m back to work on my LD entry

Randomly generated aliens:

It’s 10:30 am in Prague, I’ve been pondering the game ideas since 8am and it seems I’ll be making a noir-styled evolutionary puzzle game

Obligatory food photo – yesterday’s sushi leftovers for breakfast:

… and it’s gonna be my 8th time (including 2 miniLDs).

• Code: haXe NME (rocks even more with every update)
• IDE: vim (I’ve managed to integrate ctags for haXe, so yay! code-aware autocompletion get!)
• Graphics: GIMP
• Sound Effects: SFXR, Audacity
• Music: autotrack

After two successful LD coops (with 2 different artist), I’ve decided to try it in a solo-mode once again.

Lately I’ve grown fond of aiming for a simple concept, that could be built within 6-8 hours, mostly succeeding. It’s enough time to build a simple prototype or toy, feeling like a part of a LD crowd, but it won’t eat your whole weekend.

Let’s have fun!

Hey LD, I’d like to share my moment of happiness / minor success story.

Clone Wolf began as my LD20 entry. Thanks to October Challenge 2011, I was able to develop it into a full game and release it on Desura, Indievania and Indiecity. Being the first game I was able to finish and release for purchase, it has been a kind of a personal milestone.

And now, thanks to awesome guys from IUPBundle.org, Clone Wolf has been featured in IUP bundle. The bundle has launched a few days ago, you can get 5 indie games ( Tesla: The Weather Man, Drains, Ichi, Clone Wolf, 48 chambers ) for $3.99 (including some bonus materials) – get it here.

So, Ludum Dare, thanks again for giving me the right kick to start developing games and introducing me to this awesomely crazy bunch of people who all the LD participants are!

This is a team effort by Yuffie (graphics), Jarnik (haXe coding) and automatons atrk&sfxr (sfx, music).

A team of professional thieves – Dino ( camouflage expert ), Fox (lockpick specialist) and Robot (explosives ace) are at your service to perform a perfect theft.

You are in charge of three different thief characters, each having a different field of expertise (camouflage, lockpicking, explosives).
Your goal is to traverse 4 levels without getting caught by guards, get a hold of (yet undefined) artifact and then backtrack through all the levels to the beginning.

Controls: LEFT / RIGHT – walk, UP / DOWN – switch character
The game is now feature complete, more graphics are to be expected in future days as  a post-mortem version.

I’ve decided for 1024×128, also teaming up with a skilled graphic artist. Here’s what we’ve got so far: (it’s FLASH, try it in your browser)

You are in charge of three different thief characters, each having a different field of expertise (camouflage, lockpicking, explosives).

Your goal is to traverse 4 levels without getting caught by guards, get a hold of (yet undefined) artifact and then backtrack through all the levels to the beginning.

Controls: LEFT / RIGHT – walk, UP / DOWN – switch character

The game is now feature complete, just waiting for more graphic assets to come in.

In several generations, your world will die.
Choose your own path – use your science or religion to find a way to escape the Cataclysm.

In a mix of a roguelike and a turn-based strategy, it’s your destiny to guide a single lineage of man in gathering resources, developing cities and researching new technologies.
As the size of your world is limited, you have to plan your development thoughtfully.

PLAY ONLINE: http://www.jarnik.com/pub/ld23/v14/

OST by @PetrAugustin : http://soundcloud.com/petr-augustin/ludum-dare-minilization-ost

Made in less than 48 hours.
idea, design, graphics, music – @PetrAugustin
coding, sfx – @jarnik

This is has been my first gamejam collab and it went really great! Though we’ve been working from remote locations, communicating only through Skype, we managed to sync our work quite nicely.

If I ever have a chance, I’d love to try gamejamming with people in the same room.

Our LD jam game has entered a second day and here’s a screenie of what we’ve got so far:

We have some infinitely scrolling landscape, a guy able to build and expand buildings, and a research&development tree.

TODO:

• sound effects, music
• implement effects of researched items
• difficulty tuning
• some backstory, how to play, title and end screens

Design and fantastic art by @PetrAugustin, haXe code by me (@jarnik).

It’s a first time for me teaming up with someone for  the LD and I must say, I’m overly satisfied – focusing just on code and mechanics lifts a great deal of pressure.

Onwards we go, good luck fellow LDers and jammers!

First, foodphoto ( radishes, buns and butter ):

We’re building a simplified Settlers of katan spin-off in rogue-like style called “Life of a man”. Wander around an endless plains (actually a tiny planet), found new cities, research and above all – raise your cultural potential.

Demo #1: http://jarnik.com/pub/ld23/v01/

I wanted to put a dog in boots into my LD entry. But because I’ve found a fellow teammate @PetrAugustin, I didn’t want to spoil our jam entry with my crap, so I’ve decided to make a simple warm-up exercise with Box2D and haXe.

Flash, click to play: (just a silly toy for now, can’t seem to get the legs fixed to achieve a proper sideway movement )

I like the idea and would like to expand it later – to let the dog jump over obstacles, get powerups to make his body longer in order to get over crevices, mouth-beam powerup, stomping on things… Lost of crazy ideas.

LD23 is gonna be my 6th Ludum Dare, but I’m overly excited as always

• HaxeNME – an extremely cool multiplatform framework ( HaXe -> Flash / Android / iOS / desktop … )
• GIMP – graphics
• sfxr – chiptune sound effects
• autotrk-c – automated chiptune music generator
• vim, git

As a personal sidequest, I’ll try to integrate a dog in boots to my LD entry. As I’ve found just recently, dogs in boots look extremely badass and should wear them all the time.

I have never participated in a Mini LD and wanted to give it a try, besides the theme seemed quite intriguing. Instead of the whole weekend, I have dedicated just around 6 hours to this Mini LD. I have completed all three of my personal goals: make a game in haXe, create sound effects from recordings and complete the prototype.

The game has 4 stages and is controlled just by the SPACEBAR.
I have thoroughly enjoyed making monster sounds

Looking forward for other entries!

A bit late announcement, but I am in. I am using Haxe, GIMP, Audacity and Flixel.

Here’s a simple one-button game I have got so far:

Two stages now, another two might come tomorrow.