I had entered my game “The Prisoner” for the All Talk mini-LD #27. Although it took some time (an additional 2.5 months — I had to rewrite the engine), I did finally finish my game. The final version can be played here.

Here’s how the new UI looks:

Okay, I, thePalindrome, wanted to ask which would be better, as I want to be prepared for my first (mini)LD…

Which is better, making the game with C++, or AS3?

I have experience with C++ and Java, I’m thinking C++, but it wouldn’t be web-compatible…

What would you guys say?

Heya

So I had to make this game for game-design-school instead.

You control a virtual-reality-submarine in several missions. Also, torpedoes.

While it is fun, it needs a few weeks of polish I couldn’t add due to time-contraints. Anyway, have fun.

Now this is over I can once again concentrate on the next challenge.

-Matthew

I haven’t really decided whether to enter into the Mini-LD, but if I do enter, here is what I’ll use:

• C++ (language)
• CMake (build tool)
• Code::Blocks (IDE)
• OpenSceneGraph (graphics/input/gui library)
• OpenAL (sound library, if any)
• Bullet (physics library, if any)
• Blender (modeling)
• Inkscape (images/textures)
• LMMS (music/sound)

That being said, I’m not 100% sure I’ll enter. I’m about 80% sure. Maybe 85%.

Peace, love, and fractions,

— Mr. Dude

Well… I said I would skip this month’s Mini-LD. But with a recent adjustment to my medication (true story, not a joke), my mood has stabilized very well and I think I can take the stress of a mini this time.

I’m not sure, though. Realistically, I will probably enter. Something will happen and I will ultimately wind up entering. I’m still not just dead certain about it, though.

I dunno. I’m kind of curious about what folks here think. I could not enter and keep working on my shooter or I could enter and take a break from it. I’ve recently redesigned large parts of the shooter (switching from OpenSceneGraph to Ogre, for example), so I need to redo a lot of things. The mini-LD could be a great break from that. On the other hand, I might well be through redoing things by the time the mini-LD takes place. Really not sure. Even then, it could be nice to take a break.

So… I’m looking for advice here. I’m probably going to enter, but I’m not sure.

Peace, love, and a touch of good luck,

— Mr. Dude

The June miniLD #27 (theme: ALL TALK) has officially ended with a bang! The results are in!

View all the stats for each of the 30 games here:
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/minild-27/?more=1

The gold medal for fun goes to Zed with his zombie/bacon adventure, Adventures in the Public Domain. Gold for gameplay goes to 31eee384 for his IRC hacker simulation, Secretnet. Gold for presentation goes to Jake Elliot for Last Tuesday, his eerie visual novel about a world devoid of people.

Other standouts include Zillix’s Acquiescence, Reltair’s Project Eidolon, Radiatoryang’s Polonius and smalldeadinsect’s Leaks.  There were 30 games created in all, and many not mentioned above that were truly awesome.  Check them out!

As one of the most active mini dares in recent memory and one filled with enthusiasm and positivity, I just want to thank you all for being such a creative, energetic and kind-hearted bunch of gamedevs. You rock.

Viva Ludum Dare!

I missed last weekends mini LD becasue I was working on the Thorntons chocolate discount code word search addon to the ‘Relax with Oonagh’ App!

Now available on Android Market and on it’s way to iPhone once the lite version clears apples review process.

Full version on Android Market

Lite version on Android Market

Unity Webplayer Version Online

But I think I should build a dialogue system as it would be handy for future games!

Keep those votes and comments coming! We’re going to close the voting after the weekend.

Remember, you do NOT have to have submitted a game to be able to vote/rate/comment. Everyone is allowed to rate the games!

So far I’ve been totally amazed by some of the games made for this miniLD. Definitely one of the more active miniLDs in recent memory. Must be the “summer vacation just started” effect. =)

Hello again!  There’s a new version of The Struggle for Humanity that you can find here: http://thestruggleforhumanity.weebly.com/download.html at the games official website. The new version offers slightly improved graphics and various bug fixes and changes. Also, once you have the altar and click on the demigod god power,  you can click on a lady and make her create a demigod. Once the demigod is middle aged, you can control it by clicking it and moving it around with the arrow keys. If a demigod is selected and you press C you can build Stonehenge.

Hope you guys enjoy the new version!

play it here!

I’ve never made a game with any sort of dialogue choices, so I didn’t know how to approach this.
Most dialogue-heavy games allow the player as much time as they want to make a decision; I wanted to make my game real-time, in the sense that conversations had to be responded to one way or another. After a bit of mulling over the theme for a week or two, I hit on the idea that’s represented in the game.

I kind of missed the mark from my initial intent. I initially wanted to give the game a lot more depth (I had 5 or so more screens planned with interesting decisions), with part of the goal being to illustrate the impact that having different companions colors the choices available to you. I also never came up with an ending that I really liked, so I pretty much just avoided one altogether.

With full-time job and a fully-booked weekend, I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to finish. I ended up putting a few hours in after work for a week, and then doing some touch ups and all of the art in one sitting. This game was definitely made in the least amount of time of all my games; maybe 15-18 hours total.

I’m very happy with the art style I ended up with. I deem it minimalist-by-necessity; I did it all Monday morning starting at 12:30am, with having to go to work the next day. I’ll probably use it in future ld’s, where I don’t want to focus on art much.

Thanks to Ludum Dare, I can now boast of my first effectively finished, self-contained game: Viking of Love.

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The “ALL TALK” June 2011 miniLD is officially over. It was a gigantic success and the support and community enthusiasm was overwhelming and far exceeded my every hope. Not only was I inundated in kind words of thanks and encouragement on twitter, but people seemed to really love the theme and enjoy themselves. The general vibe I got from people was incredibly positive, filled with humour and positivity and creativity.

The sheer number of games made BLOWS ME AWAY. I expected 5 to 10 games at most but so far there have been THIRTY games submitted! I’d say that for each game that was finished, two more were started but abandoned. Therefore, it is entirely possible that this little game jam affected a hundred people’s lives – hopefully for the better. I’m glad I left the entry form open a little later than midnight last night (the official closing time) – one last minute entry just came in.

[ RATE ALL THE GAMES! | View All Entries ]

Remember to be nice and overlook any rough edges: we had several first-timers join and what people really need right now is positive encouragement. Along with your ratings, be sure to leave comments telling the author what you liked and where there is room for improvement.

You can play all the games here – remember to give feedback for every game you play. In the next couple weeks you should have the much-sought-after rare and valuable Ludum Dare achievement trophies you deserve appear on your profile pages… but give me a few days to try out all your games.

I’m so grateful for and proud of all of you.  You guys rock!

Me and Eddie Cameron did a game based on Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Conversation.” I did art / design, and Eddie did code / design.

We got done with about 80% of it. We have a pretty good skeleton, but the gameplay needs some serious tuning and I still want to add character animations.

It’s a single player, multi-character FPS in Unity3D.

Basically, you have to eavesdrop / record a couple’s conversation as they walk around a crowded plaza — without them noticing. To do that, you have 2 long range “sniper” mics watching them… and a guy on the ground following them with an “aura” mic in a briefcase. Keep track of them and don’t lose them in the crowd!

Important stuff to know before playing:

*** A yellow arrow hovers above your target for 30 seconds as an aid at the beginning of the game.  After that, you’re on your own.***

*** Also, keep your briefcase guy out of the couple’s LoS, or else you’ll lose! They have really long LoS! ***

*** Oh, and there’s one huge exploit. See if you can figure it out! ***

Unity Web build, 7.1mb: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19887116/polonius1/WebPlayer.html

Entry: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/minild-27/?action=preview&uid=4369

I’m aware it’s not the best etiquette to not show something even if it’s unfinished, but hear me out.

I planned the entry to be based on my fully-fledged game as a prequel — perhaps to introduce would-be players to the universe of SoL and as such title it SoL: Plutocracy, where you play a dirty space pirate/merchant/hippy in the early years of Stardrive travel, before the war with the Stygians broke out and when Earth was still mostly a hegemonic plutocracy.  “Yes,” I thought, “that is brilliant!  The story meshes so well and considering the topic IS story-based, it’d be perfect.”

However, after building the game itself, I realised one thing: designing something entirely around dialogue in a game mostly derived from action is kinda difficult.  I wanted the meta-gameplay to be at least moderately fun or act as a diversion, but this would’ve taken longer than the 48 hours given.  I quickly realised all I had was really just graphical eye candy.  I can’t have that.

Regardless, I found this thoroughly interesting and challenging to give myself such constraints, as the last time I did a timed game challenge was well over a decade ago in the ZZT/Megazeux days (which a very select number of you might remember).

But I won’t leave you with nothing.  Here are a couple of screenshots:

The planets were textured with a Perlin noise generator that my team and I developed for SoL.  Almost all the graphics you see was procedurally generated.

I finished my game! It is called A Familiar Story. A “familiar” is a magic animal companion, such as a witch’s black cat. Familiars are used to boost the magic strength of their companions and have a history of being valuable allies. [VIEW MY ENTRY]

Click this image to play in your web browser!

Follow the adventure and friendship between two lonely young heroes. From humble beginnings, their partnership are all that the world needs to save them from an evil tyrant. Recruit allies and meet people and creatures along the way toward the boss battle.

This was created using art that I’d made previously. I created all the avatar art (cats, dragons and people) using Poser Pro 2010 and DAZ art assets. Most of the backgrounds were created in Vue 8.5 xStream.

I decided that my challenge for this weekend would be to build my first MOBILE game. Using Phonegap and jQuery, I created the entire game in HTML. Using Eclipse to compile a simple .java class, I packaged phonegap and my html sources into a non-signed Android .APK which is designed to be used on phones like the HTC Desire, or any Android 2.2 device with 800×480 resolution. It might also work on tablets and older phones as well. Because it isn’t a signed .APK, it is not yet ready for prime-time (it wouldn’t be allowed to go on the app stores, and you need to enable “debug mode” on your phone and “allow unsigned apps”).

For the Windows .EXE, I used Appcelerator Titanium to create a stub executable which is really just a chromeless web browser (using a variant of xulrunner).

For the web version, all I had to do was upload my HTML sources to my web server. The sound is done with soundManager2, which can use HTML5 audio but generally sticks with more reliable invisible Flash.

Although this is a very simple game right now – just some conversation and one battle – I am very proud of what I accomplished. As a tech demo for a future, more advanced RPG or visual novel, I think this is a great start. Perhaps I will flesh out the adventure, add a few more characters, implement game saves and inventory and a quest manager and craft a more robust RPG game like I’ve always dreamed. Who knows?

In any case, it was really fun working on this. Hope you enjoy it!

I scaled back some of the dynamism of the story, so it’s pretty linear, but there are still 3 different endings to see depending on your choices during the game.

Play ‘Last Tuesday’ here!

Ren’py is great! Glad to have learned a bit about that tool. I posted my source code on github as well, tho it’s probably a bit naive since this is my first time using Ren’py.

This LD was a really good experience for me. It’s the first one I’ve done & I’m glad I had a framework like Ren’py to use so that I ended up focusing on it more as a short-term writing challenge than a coding challenge. There were several moments in which I wanted to discard the story I had in order to pursue some new story that occurred to me & seemed more interesting in the moment but, because of the time limit, I had to just keep going on the track I had chosen. So that was an interesting constraint — I hope it made for an interesting game!

My time was fairly limited this weekend: between a distant wedding, birthday BBQ, and soccer practice, but fortunately I managed to find just enough time to participate in MiniLD27!  Choose words from a word find to progress through the dialog and story of Crosswind.  I had a bit more planned for the story than I had time to write, but feel this is a good start and really look forward to the feedback and comments of others.  I’m also looking forward to finding time to play through the other exciting submissions.  Thanks to everyone involved in making MiniLD27!  ENTRY LINK HERE



So I didn’t finish, but I do have the lion’s share of the structure in what I’ve managed to get done in two days. Turns out it takes longer to find and clean engravings than one might suspect. Anyway, you can see my entry for the contest here.

And rest assured I’ll be finishing this up. I can’t say exactly when, but inside this week seems like a safe bet.

It’s also worth noting that mine was the twenty-third submission to this miniLD… Ψ

So here it is… “Saving his code” 2d mini platform game. I managed to cut my ideas and move on. I had a lot of gameplay features, but it would take a lot of time, that i don’t have right now.

MY ENTRY

* Update: Monday 27th June (morning) – Lots of bug fixes. Should be a little easier to make it through to the ‘end’. Still no sign of grenades yet, though.

What better way to get into all this than a certain MiniLD #27, where the pressure isn’t too great and the theme is more fun than a fridge full of monkeys? This is my first hack at interactive fiction – I’m using Inform 7, for the first time, and it has taken me longer than I thought to figure out how it all works. Loving it, though!

Since around 9 on Saturday night, I’ve been badgering (badgering; to badger; do badgerific things) on a text adventure. I kind of strayed from the dialog centered chocolate experience, but there’s definitely dialog sprinkled around (like, say, nuts) so it should be a nice snack at the very least. Mmm. Snack.

It’s getting to the point where I don’t think that I’m going to finish this in time, so I’m posting up a link now just to be sure to get something in before the deadline…

My game is a remake of the first Call of Duty game in the format of a text adventure / interactive fiction piece. In 48 hours, given the fact that I’ve never used Inform before, I think I was dreamin’.

I call this – “Text of Duty”

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