Thought a few of you might be interested in another time limit compo. To keep it relatively short: GameJolt.com just announced a competition to push their ad revenue sharing program, which entered beta today. The contest lasts a week and the theme is “Shocking!”. Three winners will get accepted into the beta, and one will recieve a steam game. More information can be found on their forum.

Some of you may also have seen this via the gamecompo mailing list, if you’re signed up for that. I hope to enter the competition myself, though I’m a bit pressed for time.

I came up with the idea of making a shooter based on drawing arrows after seeing a concept sketch for another arrow game by fellow LD participant Sparky. In the week before the contest, I entertained the idea and tried to think of ways to make it “themeable”. I came up with what I thought was a great idea for “Rain” - falling stars, that you would use as ammunition. When I saw the theme “Advancing Wall of Doom”, I decided to keep the mechanics from “Rain” and just work the actual theme into that. In retrospect, this might have been a mistake. Read why after the break.

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Sadly there was a tiny bug in the final version of my game - the line “state = STATE_LEVEL;” was missing, so no pause screen would be shown between levels (although the code for layout and mechanics of that screen was already in there, as can be seen in the source).

I have fixed this and uploaded a new version to my site as both zip and webstart:

• Webstart
• ZIP file

Sorry about that!

UPDATE:

Sadly there was a tiny bug in the final version of my game - the line “state = STATE_LEVEL;” was missing, so no pause screen would be shown between levels (although the code for layout and mechanics of that screen was already in there, as can be seen in the source).

I have fixed this and uploaded a new version to my site as both zip and webstart. I realize that this may not be taken into consideration when judging the entry, but I thought I should at least upload the entry as it was meant to be (and as I was certain it was!)

• Webstart
• ZIP file

Sorry about that!

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ORIGINAL POST:

Okay, here’s the final version of “Sky Upon Us!”, my entry for LD14.

I tried to upload the zip file containing launch files for Windows, Linux and OSX to the blog. Sadly, Wordpress wouldn’t accept it even if I changed the file extention. Meanwhile, the game can be downloaded or started from all the following links:

• SkyUponUs.zip (Including Windows .exe and Linux/OSX .sh files)
• Java Webstart 1 (Java 1.4+, retroweave)
• Java Webstart 2 (Java 1.5+)

While the game didn’t quite turn out the way I hoped, I’m still happy with most of it. However, the gameplay does get a bit repetetive; excuse!

As always, any comments are warmly appreciated!

A screenshot from the game:

I’ve made some further progress, but I’m not quite sure where I’m going with this:

Well, it’s not much so far, but here’s what I’ve been working on:

I am in! Well, I have an exam on the day after, but I’ll do my best to study enough beforehand that I can comfortably participate in the compo… we’ll see how that goes!

I’ll be using either Slick, which is a hardware-accelerated 2d Java library, or ActionScript3 for this contest, I think. Or fall back on Java2D if I don’t want to use the others for some obscure reason.

I’ll be using some of my SlickTemplate if I use Slick, or my Template4k if I go with Java2D, I think. Both are very short, smallish templates that really don’t do anything besides setting up a frame and saving input states.

That’s all for now. Good luck in the competition, everyone!

[Update, Dec. 8 2008]

I forgot to provide the source code until just before the deadline, and my Internet connection wouldn’t work the last two hours before deadline. Anyway, here is the source:

Sourcecode (not very pretty, mind you. It’s rushed 4kb code.)

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I’m done!

My game is called Tekicars4k. My plan is to enter it both into LD13 and the Java4k contest. In other words, it is a 33 hour 4kb game with the theme “roads”. Thanks to the size limitation, there is a grand total of 6 levels available. It is available as webstart and as a CompoGameLoader ZIP file, which has .bat, .exe and .sh (so should work on any OS).

Webstart (note: this version may be updated after the contest)
Zip file

Some instructions:
The goal is to place blocks in advance so that each Tekicar reaches an exit of the same color, without colliding with any other Tekicar. Walls will turn Tekicars clockwise, roads will speed them up, and arrows will re-direct them along the arrow.

As soon as you click “Go!”, the test begins - if you pass, you reach the next level.

Note that the ZIP file is way larger than 4kb, mostly thanks to the .exe wrapper. The game JAR itself is only 4kb.

A screenshot:

I have a demo. You die somewhat haphazardly when objects collide, and it doesn’t tell you when you win (but you have when all the blue thingies have reached the opposite side). I do have win detection, it just doesn’t show anything. What else… Ah, you place roads by clicking the gray tile in the toolbox and then clicking in the world. Roads make objects go twice as fast. Restart the game by clicking [R].

Demo

I’m afraid I won’t be able to add a lot of maps though… I’m aiming to do this in under 4kb (so I can submit the game to the Java4k competition as well), and I’m almost out of space.

Screenie, in case you can’t try the demo:

Happy birthday negativegeforce!

I don’t really have the time to make games right now, but I’m in. I spent one full day studying though, so might run out of time too soon.

I’m going to attempt a themed 4kb java game within ~33 hours… many of which I’ll be sleeping. This should be interesting!

So far, I’ve got almost nothing:

I’m finding it hard to find the time to find a game idea.

If you didn’t understand that sentence, just read it as “I’m short on time.” Anyway, I’m hoping to be able to participate with a 24-hour game (sunday only), but we’ll see.

Also, I urge you all to play some Towlr before the contest starts.

Good luck to everyone!

This was my first Ludumdare entry, and not knowing just what I could manage in 48 hours I decided to stick with a simple idea and tools and libraries I’m familiar with. The original game idea was to make the player hit all the walls in a 2d space with a trickier-than-usual to control ball, although this didn’t quite work with the Tower theme. Hence, I decided to turn the walls into a scoring mechanism, and to make a tower to ascend or descend instead.

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There, I’m finally finished with my game for LD12 :>

____EDIT, 12:20 GMT+1____

Here’s an updated zip. The game is the same, but it has a slightly improved XML file for the compo game loader:
Towerball, CGL XML updated
_________________________

The final version is here: Towerball

There is also a webstart version.

For instructions, check out the readme.

7-levels in total, one featuring a somewhat dodgy owl. It’s really hard to do art on a 1/5 scale in an overly simple map editor!

Here’s a couple of progress screenshots to show how things have been coming along:

• Sketch
• First version
• Cleaner
• New look
• GUI
• Level editor

It’s been loads of fun doing my first entry for an LD 48h competition - I will quite probably be back for more!

I’ve gotten as far as having a demo to show. It’s Java webstart this time - will probably create an exe wrapper for the game before submission tomorrow. Try it if you like!

Well, I’ve something that’s working reasonably… and plays very poorly. It’s just too hard! The idea as it is now is to climb the tower using a limited amount of, uh, jumps? And touching as many walls as possible on the way up.

Bit late I suppose, but just to make things clear I’m using a really simple template for Slick apps which does nothing but opens up a window and listens to key events, that I’ve done beforehand. You’re welcome to it, of course, but I doubt anybody will find much need for it :>

I’m new to Ludum Dare, so I thought I might introduce myself with a short post. The plan is to enter the competition when it starts in a short while, although I suppose it still remains to be seen if I can find the time to do so :>

I’ll be using Java, and probably at least one of the below libraries:

• Slick, which in turn relies on LWJGL. Slick is a 2D game library using OpenGL.
• Phys2D, a physics engine for java (port of the same engine as JBox2D).

As for the game, I’m fairly convinced that whatever I make will be simplistic at best. But hey, I’ve heard somewhere that it’s participating that matters Now, I’m curious to see the other entries - good luck folks!