So, plenty of people are breaking the rules. Using pre-made content, not releasing sources, doing a team effort.

When LD started, originally, the rules were really loose – not set in stone at all. It was more about the feeling – if you feel like you’re cheating, you’re cheating, that sort of thing. Later, when things progressed, and LD grew bigger, the rules became more defined (and in some cases, unfortunately, slightly conflicting).

The more rules, the less likely it is for people to actually read them. As an example, here you can read the final ruleset of the TMDC contest I organized for about a decade. Lots of rules. Strict rules. Rules that define things exactly. Rules most people didn’t bother reading. Rules someone always complained about.

Which leads to this LD – and folks not releasing sources. The rule is there for several reasons. Primary reason is for people to check what you’ve done, maybe learn something. I don’t know how many people do, but that’s it anyway.

If you fear someone is going to steal the code you made in a rush in a weekend, you’re simply delusional. You’d be surprised how difficult it is to get people to use your GOOD code =)

Free code isn’t free. Just take any random third party library; you’ll find it takes time to figure out what it does, how to use it, and what the limitations are. And this is for code that’s designed to be used by third parties. Code, that’s not designed to be looked at ever again, written by you, in a weekend? Please.

So anyway, I’d propose we design a very small set of simple rules that are easy to understand, and then have a bunch of clarifying rules based on those. For instance:

• 48 hours, clearly defined start and end in a certain timezone
• Solo competition – everything must be done by you.
• All graphics and audio must be done from scratch. Fonts are ok, but only for text.
• All source code and content must be released, along with binaries.
• Pre-existing code is ok, as long as:

1. it’s available for everyone
2. it’s available well in advance (say, 2 weeks?)
3. it doesn’t contain any gameplay code

Now, we could debate forever about just about any rule there:

• Is it fair that the 48 hours fit some timezones better than others?
• Is everything done by you if you record sounds by some other person (with or without them knowing)?
• Is the graphics done by you if you take photos?
• Why can’t we use font ‘A’ character as the spaceship? (seriously, what’s the harm?)
• If you record your synthesizer that you bought with big bucks, is the sound “from scratch”?
• <insert any other edge you might get by buying fancy toys to do content with>
• What, exactly, is gameplay code and what isn’t? Is menu code ok? Is my level-data-specific A* ok? Is state machine code ok?
• etc.

And if we go back to “if it feels like you’re cheating, you are”, well.. different folks’ threshold for feeling guilty about these things are different, and the bigger LD grows, the more varied it becomes.

Someone suggested LD should have different categories for different things, like team efforts etc. I’d say no. If you want to, set up another event – it’s not rocket science! And if you don’t like the rules, nobody is forcing you to enter.. or if they are, please do tell us about it!

For transparency, I’ll mention that I did not do an entry this time. No time, sorry.

Well, tried to hack something together based on a nutcase idea, but giving up. Sorry!

On the positive side, you have one game less to judge =)

So, it would seem I might have some time tomorrow. Bad side is, I haven’t been able to think of anything sane so far. One insane idea does keep popping up, so I might do some research towards whether that’s plausible or not.

As the magic 8-ball might answer to the question whether you’ll see an entry from me; forecast hazy, check again.

Don’t forget to browse my “rules” for surviving LD:

http://iki.fi/sol/ldsurvival.html

Following these rules will maximize your chances of successfully making an entry. They also may ruin a lot of the fun, though.

Someone suggested that if I write a postmortem for my entry, it might complement the joke.. as long as it’s done subtly.

What went right:

- Um. At least some people seem to like it.

What went wrong:

- Should have included a getch() in the end so that people who click the game to start it have a chance of seeing the ending.

Here’s a little graph depicting the hits to my LD survival guide..

(click for full size)

So, I didn’t really have time this weekend. Too bad, the theme was great; I had some nice ideas I’d like to implement, and might yet. So, all I’m leaving you guys is the silly joke. =)

Instead of trying to do something and getting frustrated, I spent time with my wife and baby.

Judging from the screenshots, this LD seems to be a real success. I won’t be around much tomorrow (either), so good luck to everyone and make some great games!

It’s got to be the first time that we don’t get a flood of absolutely everyone whining about the theme.

But hey, ‘caverns’ is a great theme. At the same time, you can’t just take ANY game idea and bullshit your way to the theme (as is the case for most themes), and on the other hand, ‘caverns’ opens up lots of game ideas.

Roguelike.
Pitfall.
Scubadiving.
Underground platformer.
Dig dug.

And so on. I still probably won’t be entering, but it’ll be interesting to see what people come up with.

Several years ago I wrote this handy list of “rules” for surviving LD which you might want to browse through: http://iki.fi/sol/ldsurvival.html

I’m not sure if I’ll have time to enter this time. Probably depends on whether I get struck by crazy inspiration or something.

I probably should have aimed a bit higher – this one is a bit of a quickie, but between taking care of the baby and hosting some dinner guests, didn’t really have time.

DOWNLOAD (win32 bin + src)

alt download link

To compile, you need SDL, SDL_Image and GLee. Should compile as is on whatever without any odd compile options.

Here’s the help screen as the official screenshot:

I can’t upload the entry as part of this blog post (says “File type does not meet security guidelines. Try another.”), but here’s the download link from my temp server (same link as rc2 – in fact, it is rc2).

This game is just about done – release candidate 2 (same download link as before)

New stuff: Sound and some particles. It’s surprising how big a difference couple particles make.

If I have more time today, I may continue on this, adding sound etc, but here’s RELEASE CANDIDATE 1 of my quickie.

I won’t tag this ‘final’ yet.. I’m pretty sure I have a few minutes before midnight to re-tag this =)

Between some friends coming over for dinner and taking care of the baby, I may be able to whip something together. We’ll see if I finish this.. this is the slowest progress I’ve ever had in an LD =)

I have the first gameplay test here – draw the walls in the lighter green area.

Download here

Other screenies, time log and the above download here

It’s a board game for 1-3 human players, with AIs taking over the other 1-2 cars depending on how many humans there are. Cars can’t jump over each other, so if there’s no free lanes, you can block the traffic. Different routes are longer than others, and it’s possible to run out of gas.

Everyone plays with the same cards, only shuffled differently. Have fun!

Temporary download site:

http://users.evtek.fi/~jarikom/ld11_most_entries.zip

About 160 megs or so. Notes:

• Only entries with trivial download links included (rapidshare and links to home pages not followed)
• Doubtlessly missing some stuff
• Did not uncompress stuff this time, so have fun figuring out how to decompress all the various formats =)

As always, this is just a kick-start package and you should read everyone’s blog for updates, missing files, as well as food photos and timelapses. Have fun, kids!

EDIT: Great minds think alike – mrfun was working on a kick-start package as well. Here’s his link:

http://www.codedojo.com/temp/LD11_for_windows.zip

Tailored for windows, entries unpacked in their own directories, etc.

EDIT2: Keeyai set up a torrent of mrfun’s package!

Game in under 4 hours. Pretty minimal. Grab the final version here (includes sources). Needs SDL, SDL_mixer, SDL_image and GLee to compile.

Audio added, release candidate 2 available.

I fear most of the screenshots will end up looking like this.

Anyway, feel free to grab the release candidate 1, about 2 hours after starting..

And the theme is minimalist, like everyone who reads this blog probably knows by now. Bleh. That has no edge to it. Do something that does a little. Some ideas sprung to my mind but nothing .. interesting. Oh well, I guess I’ll think of something eventually.

I’m a finn, so the compo starts on early morning hours (4am or 5am or something). I do not intend to wake up for it. I’ll wake up when I’ve slept enough.

The point is, this way I get whole two days of competition time. The competition ends 48 hours later – or 5am on monday! Which means that if I really need to, I can crunch until the night (not that I intend to, mind) – I don’t have a harsh deadline at, say, midnight.