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

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!

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

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

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.

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 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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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!

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

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.