I am thinking forward to the next Dare. What is the rule on being part of two different teams submitting a game?

Situation: I want to participate in the compo by myself.  My son and his friends want to submit their own game for the Jam — but they have no programmer. The games would be totally different and not share any assets.

Can I submit my own game and help them out with programming for their game?

Susan

This not so much a post mortem, more a rambling of things I want people to know about my game.

My game was created by me, my son, his girlfriend, and two of his friends. (Ages 15-17) I was the project manager and programmer. The girlfriend was the artist. One of the friends was the writer, and my son and the remaining friend were music and sound.

The hardest part for me was to not jump in and do stuff for them.  I think I still railroaded them a bit so that we would have a game at the end of the 72 hours.

It was a learning experience for them of how adding extra characters increases the complexity exponentially. We started with 3 characters and ended up with 7.

Interesting tidbits:

• The main character’s name is “Dude” since nobody gave me what his name should be
• The sound effects of the mini game are me saying “pew pew” and “ow” into the microphone
• The mysterious floating number in the upper left corner is the body count

Spoilers:

There are no spoiler tags so read this at your own risk.

The back story is that the main character is a cyborg and he doesn’t know it.  After the accident, he was cyborg-ed up and sent back to the school as a field test. That’s why he has power armour in his bedroom.  The player is the voice inside the main character’s head. (The main character is going insane.) The accident short circuits something in his brain.  He starts having weird dreams.  Coincidentally, people start getting killed off and they are the people you have talked to the most. The three endings are Kill Everyone and end up alone, Insane Asylum (2 versions) where you are kept alone, or Get Cured and you return to your best surviving  friend.

The big hint to get the good ending: (Select the text to read)

Select from here: Don’t kill anything in the mini-game. Don’t let your insanity get too high. : to here.

Thanks for reading.

If you want to play the game: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=rate&uid=5150

According to the guide:

All participants that submit a game are allowed to judge. Games are given 1-5 star ratings in each category, or N/A where not applicable.

Does N/A = 0 or does N/A = not included?

On a couple of games I’ve rated, I gave a rating of N/A in Audio because I was on a machine with no sound and felt I could not rate them appropriately.  I though that my vote wouldn’t count for that category.  But does it turn out that I was inadvertently giving them a zero score?

Susan

Here is a timelapse of the first day.  The second day I was on my Mac and didn’t have the timelapse software.

Timelapse

There are some cool shots of me programming the mini game.  Also lots of me trying out various sprite editors.  Never found one I liked.

If you like dating sims with weird stories, come rate my game:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=rate&uid=5150

Susan

Edit – I can’t figure out how to embed my video.
Edit 2 – Thanks Andrew!

Once again, I am willing to rate your games.

But there is a few small caveats:

• I am terrible at 3D games.  They give me vertigo
• I hate platformers.  I hate jumping, I am no good at it.

I can run Windows, Mac, and Linux.  I am partial to story games and sims.

Susan

We have the work divied out and the skeleton of a story set.  It’s a dating sim, ‘cuz that’s the kind of game we all like.

I find it amusing that a couple of posts ago someone urged NOT to do a dating sim.

There is a plot affecting mini game written in pygame.

Susan and the Myzzy Team

This will be my second LD.  Last time I did the comp, this time I’m recruiting some friends and doing the jam.

Using Ren’Py or Javascript

Susan

I technically have a game.

http://www.thecatsweb.com/AllAreInvited/

I need to do the artwork and add sound effects and generally make it scarier.

Night all!

Susan

That is the name of my MidiLD project this weekend.

I have the beginning mechanics worked out.  NPCs can walk around. If they are insane, they open the windows and let the ghosts in. Oh noes!!! |(0.0)|

The graphics are from another visual novel I did last year.  I am hoping to redo them tomorrow.  Gameplay first!

Susan

This was my first Ludum Dare and it totally rocked.  I am a great fan of creativity under a deadline events.  I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo (Novel Writing), 24 Hour Comic, and NaNoRenMo (Visual Novels).

The Good:

Remembering to keep things simple.  The original story I came up with was much more complicated and involved things like timers and explosives.  I broke it down to the simplest elements.

I made my own event system. OK.  This is not that great an achievement, but I am happy with how well it worked.

The Bad:

End Graphics (The Lack of) I ran out of steam with the artwork and didn’t make any. The game didn’t feel complete without them.

Awkward interface.  Adding the mini map helped a bit, but it was hard to place yourself in the location.

Passage of Time not Apparent. Many people didn’t notice that the raccoon was slower than the cat.

What I learned:

You are much tougher on your game than other people are.  There is no need to point out all your mistakes to the people playing your game.

Play my game!

Susan

I have a confession to make.  I am platformer/3D incompetent.

If it involves jumping, I suck at it.  If it involves moving around in 3d space, I get lost.

About 50% of the games on my initial list were platformers.  I was very sad.

I’ve gotten through my initial list. (YAY!)  I would like to test some non-platformers.  If you have created a game that is not 3D and involves NO jumping, I will gladly test it.

I can test Windows Start 7 on Netbook, Windows Vista on Desktop, Mac OS 10.5, and an old netbook running eeebuntu.

I will not install things.  I cannot open rar files.

Susan

tl;dr I will test your 2d non-jumping game if you leave a comment

Time lapse up on You Tube with music!

Susan

Working in Ren’Py. You can walk around a lab and figure out how to escape.

I set up a blog to record my experiences: Creativity by Deadline

Susan

This is my custom framework for hidden object mini-game in Ren’Py.

http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=11246

Susan

I finaly found out about this BEFORE it happened.

I don’t think my husband is going to like it.

Game: Visual Novel using Ren’Py
Art: MyPaint/Photoshop/might spring for Sai
Music: Live recording/Audacity

Susan