During this Ludum Dare, I learned a lot about many different aspects of game development, and about myself. I didn’t enter the competition to win, nor did I ever think I might. My reason for entering was more of a personal challenge, and I managed to achieve my goal. That alone taught me a lot about my personal strengths and weaknesses, which I’ll be working on in the future. As a student working toward achieving an animation degree, I realized that beautification near the beginning of a production is vastly unimportant (to say the least) when compared to creating and shaping a great gameplay experience. While I don’t think my game is a jewel in any way, I appreciate the fact that I had the ability to go back and change things that I at first thought were going to be fun and appealing. These things turned out to be boring, and removing them seemed to make the game feel much more fun and playable. I believe this is an invaluable lesson to learn, for any game developer, and I’m glad I had the opportunity to learn it in this way.

For those wondering, my game can be found here:
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=8692

I managed to get it working on Windows, Mac, and in-browser.

Here’s are some screenshots:

Let me know what you think!

For a first, I don’t think I did too bad. I managed to finish in time and get almost everything into the game that I initially planned. In my opinion, it plays fairly well too, and is somewhat fun. I guess the point is, I had a lot of fun with the competition and I’m excited for the next one. This was a great 48 hours, full of adrenaline and intensity.

Anyways, if anyone’s interested, check out my game here:

I Need Someone

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=8692 

And here’s a screenshot.

Something I haven’t had much experience with is creating Enemies or AI. Add that to the fact that I’ve never written pathfinding code for 3D space, and you can instantly see the problem I may have in doing this.

Regardless, I’ve decided to give it a shot, so here I go.

Here’s a screenshot of what the enemies might look like:

I’ve decided to call my game I Need Someone, and it’s fitting given the theme and plot. I’m making great progress, with many thanks to the people who have helped me when I’ve asked questions. For a first attempt at Ludum Dare, it’s going very well.

So my game is going to be a first person adventure game, with collecting and fighting. I’m not quite sure yet what the enemies are going to be like, given that I don’t have much time to make them. (Feel free to leave suggestions in the comments ) but I do know that there are going to be a few different environment types, and two (possibly three) maps. It’s going to be black and white to make up for my lack of artistic ability, so we’ll see how well that works out.

Here are some screenshots so far:

This is weird to me, being my first time entering Ludum Dare. I’m not even sure if I should be posting here.

I’ll be using Unity to make my game, and I have a few questions for anyone watching.

Am I able to use the assets that come with Unity? (such as image effect shaders, and such.)

Also, am I able to use free, royalty free audio that I find online? Or does it need to be created from scratch?

Also, if I shouldn’t be posting questions here, let me know.