I did very little to this program yesterday, but I will try and finish it tonight.

The level loader is done, and the levels are described with text files that can easily be edited. I aim to do levels similar to the famous LaserTank game:

- Levels are made by the player community.
- Levels are loaded/played sequentially.
- Potentially thousands of levels gives endless gameplay.
- You have infinite lives. If you fail a level, you always get to play it again.
- Any level can be skipped, so you can put your frustrations behind you.

To do:

– Collecting keys.
– Collisions with monsters.
– Conveyer belt logic.
– Collapsing platforms actually collapse.
– Sounds

Phew… Just submitted it with a whole 15 minutes left. If you have a free moment, please check it out.

Using long words make me feel smart

I’ll admit, the game itself varies a bit from the theme… It’s more “dealing with fear”, as opposed to “creating fear for the player”. But, I guess it still counts as “Fear”, right?

All-in-all, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. I mean, it’s completely different to what I’d planned to make, it doesn’t have any sounds, and it’s really short… but hey, I guess you can’t have everything.

So, i participated and finished my entry “In the middle of the road”

Here is a mini post-mortem:

What went right

Graphics: the pixel art is a great choice for people who can`t draw well. I had no problems making pixel art, and it was funny.

Planning: all the gameplay was written on two small lists of paper beforehand. I just did what I planned.

What went wrong

Sound effects: I don`t know any other way of making sound effects I want but using sfxr/bfxr. That`s why there were a little of them.

Gameplay: thought the idea seemed original, the gameplay spoiled it. All the item interacting was just some part of a game.

I also made a timelapse, but I will post it later.

Hello there!

This is my “Mini entry” for Mini LD #31. It’s called “height” and tries to deal with fear in an unusual way (but I will deal with that in a post mortem).

This is my entry link or you can play it directly on my website.

Forgot to post an “Im Done” message yesterday when I submitted, so erm, Im done! also I just updated it with some firefox specific fixes.

Play it! Me and my friend are pretty proud of ourselves. The game idea was ambitious and we had tons of outside work to get done.

Incase you haven played “Obscuro”, go now!

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/minild-31/?action=preview&uid=4843

It is an explorational game where you can switch time periods.

I now have a respect for people who work on making scarygames without going crazy xD.

PS. Do Mini-LD not get ratings anymore?? :O Just wondering

Well, I’ve had 5 hours additional sleep now after submitting my entry earlier this morning, so I better post this up now .

This is Catch 2122 (direct download for Windows), an action-packed zombie shooter with a twist.  It took exactly 48 hours.  Me and CWolf synchronised our start times for each of our entries and for me (living in Melbourne, Oz) this was at 6:00am on Saturday 21st and my system clock was reading 6:00am on Monday 23rd when I made my final save/commit.  I started out live streaming my progress at my justin.tv page but midway through my connection became seriously unstable and I couldn’t continue.  In hindsight I wish I had taken a time-lapse video but I didn’t have the tools set up.

Couple of people asked me why it’s called Catch 2122.  Well, the game does have a bit of an unexpected twist midway through, which is where the fear factor should come from (blasting zombies isn’t scary now is it?) but I don’t think people who have play-tested the game got far enough to experience it.  This twist is a bit of a Catch 22 scenario, but I couldn’t call it that, too over-used.  So it became Catch 2122, referring to the dates the game was developed on (21st – 22nd January).  I like to think it fits.

This is the first time I’ve done proper game dev competition.  It was a lot of fun, but also frustrating because, as I progressed, I knew the game would not be completed by the end of the 48 hours.  So tasks got prioritised and a lot of things got left out like the blood splatters, shooting animation + muzzle flash and zombie sound effects (Sorry Zeis, you made some awesome zombie sound effects for me, I could have sworn you were actually undead).  There was also a mouse-to-world alignment issue that I spent far too much time trying to correct and in the end had to fudge, it’s not perfect but had to do.

In the end, I am proud with what I’ve come up with in such a short amount of time.  It was good to have a proper challenge to stretch the skills as far as they go and I surprised myself in some areas (a pretty good story scripting engine kind of evolved from nowhere within the game code, it’s how I did all the triggered sequences).  I know I made excessive use of pre-made content, but this was a solo effort and I am certainly no artist.  The content is freely available and I will be posting up a credits list soon (another task that got chopped from the game).

Anyway, last of all goes out my thanks to everyone who supported me; my girlfriend who encouraged me to continue and put up with my uselessness over these 48 hours while making sure I still ate and generally stayed alive; and my friends from IRC (shout out to all of #deadworld @ irc.globalgamers.net) who all provided encouragement and ideas while watching the live stream.  However, a super special awesomesauce thanks goes out to Christopher Baklid (aka Inveracity), the Scottish sounding Dane who volunteered up his insane musical talent and created the background music tracks for not only Catch 2122 but also CWolf’s Dark Choices.  You sir, are a legend!

Right, I think I’m going to take a break from the computer for a bit so I can regain control over my faculties.

“It’s been emotional.”

My first ever LD game, The Platform Master, is now complete. This game is based on Platform Masters by Ulillillia, who has a whole page of his fears. I’ve based this game of his fear of mirrors

I am proud of the 2d mirror effect in my game

Entry page

Well I finished, this is probably my best finished game in the shortest time…

Go play it!  http://www.mediafire.com/?k6615rdjm4kwa9j

Or review the post: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/minild-31/?action=preview&uid=5287

Updated: Chainsaw level, zombie amount nerfed.

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/minild-31/?action=preview&uid=1626

Thanks to my friend @Funktimus_Prime for the genius title “Three Colours: DEATH”! Have at it!

Game Location -> Dark Choices

I finished my 48 hours with 9 minutes to spare then slept. This was a gruelling experience but one I’m glad I’ve completed. Now that I feel a bit more human I can talk about the game. As Jargon mentioned in his post we sync’ed our start and end times up and set at it. Since Dark Choices is set at night the lighting was crucial in getting the feeling right. It was a hard job getting the right look but I think I finally pulled it off ok. I used pre-made open source art work and Inveracity did an amazing job with the music (as per the rules agreed in the Ludum Dare IRC channel).

This game draws influence from Dear Esther, Silent Hill and Amnesia in a way. I find their way of telling stories is very creepy and that’s the kind of fear that is the worst in my opinion. By the end of the 48 hours I truly hated this game but I am very, very proud of my first ever Ludum Dare game. In fact, this is the first full game I have ever finished. Thank you for the support and I’ll see you in one of the future events!

Another fun jam.

I got the idea for my game Friday night, and really had to think how to do it effectively.

What went OK

I used my usual tools : VS2010, XNA 4.0 framework etc, so I got a lot done in very little time and without any problems this time with vertex buffers or other silly problems like that. Except when I inadvertently added instead of multiplied two transformation matrices.

My idea and goal was simple and effective. Not a lot of content was needed to pull it off, and the premise of the game is familiar to anyone.

Had a fun time jamming with FuzzySpoon and learnt a lot again.

What went otherwise

Exactly because the premise is so familiar, I tried to make the game not boring.

Also because of that, I had to make sure it looked and felt the part, so visually it was a challenge to get it right.

Animations. It was the first time ever doing animations in 3D. That took me a few hours to get right, and to get learn the basic implementation and usage.

Not enough people pitched up and took part from in our community.

So anyway, entry page is here : http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/minild-31/?action=preview&uid=8138

Yay! Finished another LD game in 48 hours!

Again, it was very fun to build it!

You Can Play It Here!

Slowly getting there, not long left though.

So that’s it – I actually completed my first ever Ludum Dare game.

The version of fear I was aiming at was more along the lines of tension than scariness. The entry is here and I hope to have the time lapse up within the next day or two.

What worked out

The best thing was that I actually managed to complete the game. I made a point of setting myself something reasonably small to do, which was definitely the right decision as I don’t think I could have done much more than I did. Looking at past entries, it amazes me what people can get done in such a short time.

In general I was fairly happy with how it turned out. It plays as I wanted it to play so that’s good enough for me.

What didn’t

Nothing really went horribly wrong, but what bothered me most was not being able to really spare any time for re-factoring and re-writing things to work better. I hate saying, “It’ll have to do like that.”

I was expecting my sprites to be much worse than they were, since I’m pretty terrible at graphics, but even though I consider them to be “passable” I’d have liked them to be much better. Unfortunately that would probably be beyond my abilities.

Sounds would have been good, but it’s not something I’ve done before and would have required some research in advance, so I decided to leave sounds out.

By the time the game was nearing completion I was running out of steam and really just wanted it to be done. It was a pretty tiring experience, but despite the fact that the last thing I want to do right now is look at any code, I’d probably do it again.

So, time passes with 1-2 things left to do, chronolapse launched and empty stomach.

I’ve made a boss that consists of 99% evil and I`m proud of him. I still don`t like how fearsome, or fearless my game is. Everyone else’s games look awesome, while mine is looking… not so awesome…

All the objects

I have never participated in a Mini LD and wanted to give it a try, besides the theme seemed quite intriguing. Instead of the whole weekend, I have dedicated just around 6 hours to this Mini LD. I have completed all three of my personal goals: make a game in haXe, create sound effects from recordings and complete the prototype.

The game has 4 stages and is controlled just by the SPACEBAR.
I have thoroughly enjoyed making monster sounds

Looking forward for other entries!

Me and my friend are working hardcore together on this mini 31. This is mostly practice but we are really having some good synergy.

Weapon of choices = gamemaker as it is super fast at creating games.

Heres a pic of our games so far:

I really should stop coming onto the site to have a quick look… Everyone else’s games look awesome, while mine is looking… not so awesome…
Anyway, first solo Ludum Dare of any kind. I’m normally just the visuals guy in the Jams, so I’m sticking to Game Maker for the actually game-y code-y stuff. I know a bit, and I’m hoping it’ll be enough to pull some sort of a game together.

Here’s a screenshot, about 16 hours in…

Hi, I’m pretty new to ludum dare but  i had a lot of fun making my game.To be honest i don’t think it’s that scary but It’s quite a nice little side scroller.

Here are some screen-shots:

p.s  you can beat the boss but theirs no wining screen.