I’ve made a blog post on my website giving a few short tips on maximising your rating opportunity. For your convenience, I’ve reposted it hear, but you can find the original here: http://nova-fusion.com/2012/05/02/getting-more-ratings-in-ludum-dare/

I thought I’d share a few quick tips on getting more ratings, which I’ve picked up in my experience with Ludum Dare. Please note, I’m not putting this down as fact or anything, but merely expressing my own opinion.

Rating Games

Yeah, this one’s kind of obvious by now I’d say. Your “coolness level” increases by one per game you rate, and the cooler you are, the higher chance you have of getting rated. Games are picked for people to rate both by how high the author’s coolness is, and how low the number of ratings are.

Platforms

Making your game web-based should get you more ratings; users of all operating systems will be able to play it, and web games are far more convenient for the rater. The rater doesn’t have to wait for a download, or far worse, install various things in order to run the game.

If making a web game isn’t a good option, then make the game cross-platform. There’s a considerable percentage of people out there using Mac and Linux based machines who would greatly appreciate it.

Finally, never just hand the rater the source code and tell them to run/compile it. That’s just bad. Also, try to avoid requiring libraries/frameworks to be installed prior to running the game, especially ones that aren’t all that common.

Commenting

While rating games, try to leave constructive comments behind for the author. Not only is this helpful, but it can potentially lead others to your game. This is because people can click on your name in the comment you posted and be taken straight to your game page. It’s a nice side effect to being cool.

Conlusion

And that’s it. Hopefully it was somewhat useful. In summary:

• Rate other’s games
• Make your game for the web
• Leave comments while rating games
• Be cool

Alright, I’ve finally written a postmortem for Rock ‘n’ Slash, in which I talk about what went right and wrong. You can the blog post here: http://nova-fusion.com/2012/04/29/rock-n-slash-ludum-dare-23-postmortem/.

I uploaded the time-lapse for Rock ‘n’ Slash earlier today. You can find it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHrijodtOmY.

I’ve just submitted my game, Rock ‘n’ Slash. Here’s its page: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=preview&uid=3915.

It’s been quite a ride, though definitely more laid back and relaxed than last time. I’m looking forward to rating some games!

The main photo for Rock 'n' Slash.

This morning I’ve mainly been tweaking some visual things. I’ve added backgrounds to the title and score screens, and also added “shadows” to the text on those screens. I also added a very slight vignette to the game. Here’s a couple screenshots:

The game with a slight vignette.

The score screen with a background and shadows on the text.

As always, the test build is here: http://nova-fusion.com/games/rock-n-slash/game.swf

Well, it’s the end of day two for me. Since my last post, I’ve made the game easier, mainly by adding a second chance system. I’ve also added a version of the enemy with green eyes, instead of red ones.

Once again, you test the game here: http://nova-fusion.com/games/rock-n-slash/game.swf

And I’ll just post the last screenshot here. XD

This is the same as the last screenshot I posted

Since the game is essentially done, I’m releasing it for testing. You can find the test build here: http://nova-fusion.com/games/rock-n-slash/game.swf. Please test it out, and provide any feedback or suggestions you have.

In the meantime, I’m going to be experimenting with adding new stuff to the game.

I’ve been working mostly on sound effects and music since my last post. Both took some time; audio is a weak spot for me. The music especially took longer than I would have liked, but that’s just the way it goes.

The other thing I worked on was a background. It came out pretty good I think, though I am wondering whether its blurry, sketchy kind of art style conflicts with the foreground’s pixel art. Please let me know what you think.

The only visual thing to show off is the new background.

I’m making good progress now. The enemy spawning system is working pretty well I think, and the difficulty seems pretty good.

As I haven’t mentioned it before, this game is an arcade game set on a tiny island in the sky. It’s not the best match for the theme, I know, but that’s one of the only feasible things I could think of. Anyway, you kill enemies with using your gun and melee attack which raises your score. The simplicity of developing such a game is a very welcome thing right now.

As usual, here’s a screenshot of how the game’s looking so far:

The art and game world are essentially done.

I’ve been working on art most of today. I’ve done the sprites for the player and enemies, and have also started work on some tiles; the grass is better than I expected! The final thing I did was start work on a spawning system, though it will need some tweaking to make the game a bit more challenging.

Anyway, here’s a screenshot:

Grass, dirt, and sprites.

I think it’s about time I got some sleep; I’ve having slight hallucinations, like everything on the screen moving around, little flashes, etc. Anyway, since the last update I’ve added a scoring system of sorts (this will be an arcade game), and have tweaked a few other things.

Anyway, tomorrow is the big day, I hope it goes well!

It took we a while to get any idea at all, and I’m still not exactly sure where this is going. Nevertheless, this is a screenshot of what I’ve got done so far:

Getting some gameplay mechanics down, still not entirely sure where this is going.

Most of it is game mechanics and the like, the visual side of things will probably begin in earnest tomorrow.

Well, this is my declaration of participation. It’s my fourth Ludum Dare; hopefully I’ll end up with something even better this time. As before, I’ll most likely be using FlashPunk to make the game.

Good luck everyone!