The October MiniLD is now over (as is October). Thanks to all who participated!

I’ll post mini reviews of all the entries soon.

MiniLD 13 is almost at an end, but you still have a few days left to decide to make an awesome educational game.

2009…

200 years ago Charles Darwin was born, 150 years ago he published “The Origin of Species”.

400 years ago Galileo was the first to gaze into the heavens with a telescope.

To help commemorate these important birthdays for Science, your task will be to write a game that’s not only fun, but also educational. Bonus points for teaching us about astronomy or biology (or astrobiology ).

Collaboration with non-programmer scientist friends is allowed and encouraged.

As I mentioned in my previous post, there is no fixed deadline this time; post a message just before you start and then post your game at the latest 48 hours after your announcement post. However since much of the fun of Ludum Dare is hacking along side others, I propose next weekend (9-12 October) as the preferred period.

Finally, since one of the really cool things with the real LDs that we (or I at least) miss during the minis is feedback, as compo host I’ll commit to reviewing all the games posted. (Unless there are a bazillion entries in which case I’ll review the first 20 or so.)

Unfortunately I lost my home internet connection so I’m not online as much as I’d like, but feel free to contact me either in a comment or by email (nils dot fagerburg at gmail) if you need any clarification.

Happy hacking!

- – -

Submit Entries Here:
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/minild-13/

View Entries Here:
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/minild-13/?action=preview

I decided to steal an idea from the 7DRL people for the October mini LD: while I will announce the rules sometime on October 2, the contest starts whenever you want in October. Just post a message right before you start and than post your game at most 48 hours after that.

Lunch was nothing special, just sandwiches.

Dessert was nice though: ice cream on a stick. And the photo also shows my desk area .

My game now has an intro , too bad it still pretty much lacks a game.

Breakfast is muesli with greek yogurt and honey, and a cup of tea.

Last night I went to bed concerned about the lack of progress I had made, however this morning I found I’m advancing quite quickly, so I guess I did make a lot of progress on the ’scaffolding’ code after all. Or maybe I’m just less tired.

Also I made a (-n awful) piece of music for my game. It really sucks though so I might not leave it in.

I just came back from a friend’s BBQ. It was very good and the company was excellent. On the other hand that plus a late start plus grocery shopping means I’ve made pathetically little progress on my entry. I’ll try to get a little more done tonight and work all day tomorrow.

First of all, my cake failed:

The turning plate thing in our oven is broken so I placed the cake mold on an oven-safe pie thing so it would turn, however the mold was too flexible and the batter spilled.

Next, breakfast (3pm is a perfectly acceptable time to have breakfast it seems):

I finally had an idea for my game . It’s not terribly original but oh well. Now I just need to make it.

I also decided to reuse some collision code from a previous entry of mine. I feel that since you’re allowed to get the same functionality in a library it should be ok.

I didn’t have any ideas so I decided to bake a cake.

I still don’t have any ideas that satisfy my minimum originality threshold, I may be forced to make something boring if I don’t find something soon. Also I forgot to preheat the oven for my cake.

Ideas I probably won’t use #53: a colossal cave adventure clone.

Anyway, since everybody else is, I’ll list my tools:

• emacs (aquamacs actually)
• python + pygame
• audacity and of course sfxr
• the gimp

It sucks to have very few ratings and comments on your game, so here are a few pointers for next time.

Platform
The most rated games are the ones you can play in your browser. Try making your entry in java or in flash and embedding it in a webpage for maximum exposure. If you don’t want to have to suffer the horror that is (Java|AS|Flash) at least make a binary release for Windows since most people seem to have access to that platform (I don’t so please also make an OS X version ). If you’re making your game in Python (or its pale imitator ruby , or any other interpreted language for that matter) you might think you don’t need binaries but you’re wrong, people aren’t going to install a different environment for every single game. Same for Löve games.

Dependencies
If you do only release as source, or if you only release for one platform, or dynamically link libraries, keep dependencies to a minimum. If all I have to do to build the game is type “make” there’s a better chance I’ll try it than if I have to install 13 libraries which each in turn depend on half a dozen others.

Screenshot
I try to play all games regardless of the screenshot (in part because my own drawing skills are easily surpassed by those of a drunk monkey with a pen) but if the entry requires more than clicking on a shiny icon to run, I’ll definitely spend more time trying to get an entry with a cool screenshot working.

Rate other games (and leave comments!)
While I am determined to try as many games as I can, I prioritize rating the games from the people who left comments on my games first.

Of course these “rules” aren’t set in stone. You can make a game for the Atari 2600 and still have plenty of ratings. You can also make a game with an uninspiring screenshot and win best overall.
Of course you could also cheat by making a ton of games under different names to rate your own games .

After several hours of screams, cursing, tears and mild violence towards inanimate objects I have a windows binary for your enjoyment. In case it doesn’t work for you, (which wouldn’t surprise me that much ) you can shove it up your…

Download

It seems there are a lot of games with the word “DOOM” in the title…

Anyway, here’s my entry. I decided to try something a bit different so I made three mini games that are all played with only mouse. The games are wrapped in a story mode and you can unlock arcade versions by winning the story versions. The sound effects are rather crappy so you can press “s” to toggle the sound.

Download (python + pygame)

I’ll try to make a windows binary tomorrow though I remember last time it was a rather painful experience.

I’ll post more comments and perhaps a post mortem later. Good night.

Edit: windows port: download

The 2009 7DRL is happening in a few weeks. The goal is to make a roguelike in 7 days (which is like years for hardened LD48ers like us ). The event takes place March 7th to March 15th.

Info here

I made an adventure game! It’s called CZQ because I couldn’t think of a name for it. I followed the usual rules (all assets made during the 48h) which means it doesn’t have any sound, feel free to sing while you play.

It’s quite short. The graphics suck. The menu and victory screen suck a little less because I made them just now at home with my Gimp computer.

Use the arrow keys to move around; bump into stuff to interact with it; press the space bar to dismiss a dialog.

Python + pyGame: download. No binaries, if somebody wants to make some I’d be grateful.

Comments are very welcome.

The first LD since I bought myself a tablet and I’m spending it away from home. Oh well, another game with crappy graphics from me (not that using the tablet would make them much better anyway, but it would be more fun).

I don’t really have an idea but I’m tired of not coding so here goes. I’ll start as soon as I post this, so I’ll have a convenient time-stamp. But first breakfast!

Later: here we go!

After lots of frustration and a visit to my parents’ house (they have computers with windows; what an odd idea…), I made a windows version. Hopefully it will work on other computers as well. It is exactly the same as the compo version except for some fiddling to get it to load the (default!) font. I also noticed an annoying bug while testing, but I’ll release the fix later in the post-compo version.

If you’re masochist enough to be using Windows check it out: Voyage (for windows)

Voyage is a puzzle game: slide the tiles around to make a continuous path to lead the red car forward.

My girlfriend gave me the idea for this game for which I am quite grateful. Roads wasn’t a theme I was psyched about so it isn’t my best work, but I think in the end it came out ok. Sadly I’m no good at making music and I feel this is a game that really could have used some. Maybe I’ll find some Creative Commons music for a post compo version.

More thought later, for now I bid thee all a fair night. 

Download Voyage (Python + pygame / GPLv3)

edit:

windows port

Peanuts!

My entry is slowly coming together despite a late start and lots of wasted time. Unfortunately I can’t write music and this game could really use some. :S

Mandarines are delicious. And my progress is blocked by what should be a simple problem.

Don’t get caught off guard.

I wrote a quick postmortem for Anathema RL. Read it here, on the game’s stunning iWeb-made page.

I finished my entry. Random and unedited thoughts follow.

Quick instructions: You are the “@”, use the nethack keys to move (hjkl and yubn for diagonal movement), t to toggle your light. Run into a wall to dig a tunnel with your pickaxe, make your way to the surface (”<” are the up stairs) collecting valuable gems on the way.

I didn’t get enough balancing in so chances are it’s too easy / hard. I wish I’d added an in game help thing (as it is pressing F1 will just tell go to go rtmf). I feel I did capture some of the original game’s essence (run away from the guards and don’t let your flashlight’s battery run out) so I’m pretty happy as far as that is concerned. Hopefully the learning curve won’t be too hard, which is a risk with roguelikes I think.

Codewise, feel free to look but it’s probably worthless except as an example of how not to make good software. One part I feel could have used more time was the cavern generator, it runs quite slowly (but not enough for me to take time to fix it) and I don’t fix the results for connectedness which is why I included the digging feature. I’m not too happy with that. :S

Anathema RL Python + Pygame