When the date comes, I dont know how but it left about 10h to complete the games when I hit the Ludum Dare contests xD

Well, this time I knew that I wanted to make a different game , it resulted into this

you can play here:
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-26/?action=preview&uid=10960

some explanations…
The game needs two people, I think it is important to play with other person from time to time, with this videogame I want to help people to get friends more near

I made this game with ShiVa 3D engine, one of the 14 best game engines out there right now…well, time for you to evaluate!

PLAY :: RATE :: TIMELAPSE :: WALKTHROUGH

Minimalism exposes the essence of a subject, through eliminating all non-essential forms…

Essense is an atmospheric serene first person “puzzle”. Really cool for a relaxing moment before going to bed.

In this post-mortem, I’ll try to explain what things of the development process made me mad, what made me sad, and what made me glad.

I Suck At Making Levels

Yeah, now I know. Usually I don’t play puzzles, so it was a real challenge making one. I was trying to figure out good puzzles to include in the game, levels that would be fun to play. I guess I didn’t chose well, because…

Levels Are Really Hard

I think it’s a problem of communication. I wasn’t able to find an effective way to communicate what the puzzle was about. Sure, you have to grab the red cube, but what’s the mechanic of the level? That and some difficult controls (which I modified now), has led my game to be almost unbeatable.

Power Outages And Plain Bad Luck

I guess the world didn’t want me to participate in Ludum Dare. I have gathered a list of things that happened to me this weekend:

• 3 power outages of about 2/3 hours each.
• Computer broke the first 3 hours. I had to waste 2 hours fixing it.
• Laptop has temperature issues and I couldn’t use it to develop at all.
• Internet went down for about 3 hours.
• One of the outages corrupted my Unity project so I had to start again.

Lot Of Time Testing

If you watch my timelapse, you will find that I was spending lot of time testing my game. That surely was one of the reasons why my game is difficult: the more I tested my game, the easier it was for me, so the more I increased the difficulty.

But why I tested it so much? Well because the atmosphere was really cool so I played lot of time to hear the music, read the messages, etc. That’s because I was…

Not Organized At All

So I had to make lots of things, but I couldn’t make a list like my previous Ludum Dare. I don’t know why, I just didn’t think it was necessary. So I wasted a lot of time working on the atmosphere first (I had the music very early on), and not much time in the mechanics.

Unity3D Editor

So one of the wonderful things about Unity3D is that you can extend your editor to make custom tools. I created tools for the logic puzzle and the jumping puzzle, which allowed me to modify them quickly.

Parser

For creating the blocks in the dodge level, I made a parser that reads a simple script, describing how the level should be created. Then Generate creates all the blocks in the corresponding positions.

The first letter correspond of where the block will be coming from, North, East or West. The second letter correspond of what position the block will have, Left, Center or Right. If there’s an X at the end, then a Checkpoint is created instead. The special letter S is speed, and O is offset, both followed by a number.

Visual Handlers

For the logic puzzle, I needed something to tell me how was the level being connected. I figured I could do it using the Handles class, using a white arrow indicating a floor that turns on another, and a black arrow indicating a floor that turns off another.

Visual clues helped me know what’s happening. Click to enlarge.

Unity3D Pro Effects

So with Unity Pro it is really simple to add fancy post-process effects. I added vignetting and reflection, which lot of people told me it was really cool looking. I was about to add more effects, but that wouldn’t be minimal.

Easy Way To Make Music

I used Paul Stretch along with Audacity to remix a version of Four Seasons of Vivaldi. It was an easy and hacky way to have a beautiful dreamy music. I also was worried that it would be against the rules to remix a song, but I asked in #ludumdare and it was ok.

Minor updates and tweaks but more “Dark Tribbles”.

The storyline I’ve made up is you have to pilot a remote clearance drone throught the airducts and clear out the “Dark Tribbles”.

Link to LD48 entry page

This time I’m spending more time in polishing than to actual gameplay. I don’t know why, I guess I just felt like it. That’s why I already have an intro and music, but only 2 puzzles! Still, I really like how it turned out.

Every other game for Ludum Dare I was making 2D flash games, and now that the theme is Minimalism, I make a 3D game… Ironic, huh?

Update on the game.

I’ve imported the assets that I created in Blender into Unity and created a basic, minimal scene. Added a first person camera. Some 3d assets rotate on mouse movement. Sound was added. I created this sound by tapped on my computer, then another layer of clapped, and another of slapping my face. I’m not a music person, but at least I’ve created some sound for the game.

Here’s some screenshots:

Overall of the scene in Unity

The ‘title scene’ in game

Pathway in game

You can play this build in web browser here.

Windows users are also able to download the zipped version of the exe here.

This is early stages and I plan on working on it further tomorrow. At least its something.

It’s been twelve hours since LD has started and although it took a while for me to get some traction on an idea, I’m definitely happy with where things are at now.

My take on minimalism was twofold, one graphical and one conceptual.

The concept started off as me wanting to explore the idea of human connection which essentially forms the basis for the daily lives of every living thing on the planet. We all form connections to other living things, some good, some bad, and some purely neutral. This game explores the idea that there is a connection which can be better than the others, and you have to find it through a simplistic mechanic of simply walking up to a character and chosing to interact either positively or negatively, which impacts the connection you have with that character.

If you find the character which has the highest possible positive connection with your character, you win. However you have limited time and you also have to avoid characters you form negative connections with (or who start the game with a negative connection to you!) because they will reduce the amount of positivity you can use to interact with the other characters, thus not being able to win.

Graphics are single-colour simplified 3D objects with just ambient occlusion baked in, representative of the concept that I’m attempting to explore. Connections are represented visually through the use of three colours to indicate the state of the connection. The town in the screenshots is just a small representative of the style, the final one will be about 4x bigger and actually have things that resemble houses and whatnot, just for a bit of atmosphere.

And just a stress test of 160 characters, because.. well.. why not?

I’m not sure what this will end up being like, if it will be fun or not, but I’ll see it through to completion and see how it goes.

My eyes are quite literally watering right now that’s how tired I am

I get the feeling I’d be a lot more clever were I fully awake, but this is what I’ve got so far:

It’s a black and white game (minimalist…colors and…stuff…bluagh) where your goal is to investigate the only lit area.  Of course there are obstacles (though right now they’re always appearing in front of the player’s original orientation, not necessarily between the player and the light, which is something I’ll need to fix when I can think straight again).  So…tomorrow will be fixing the obstacle-creation algorithm and adding some sound…might actually be able to turn it into horror of some sort, especially when that first obstacle drops.  Jump scares…or something…and if I still have some extra time I’ll try and make the light randomly move away from the player so that the game is more than half a minute long or so.

(I’m so frustrated that the last time I was contemplating doing a Ludum Dare I ended up making this…when really I should have held off on it until this go around.)

Update on LD48 so far. The theme is Minimalism. I’ve given it the name SpotWalker. It was a random name and the only reason why I did this is because i created spots on textures. Anyway, so far I’ve done a page of notes with a quick sketch, created some minimal 3d assets in Blender (my 3d assets are usually minimal anyway), textured (again minimal), and exported these off as .obj. I now plan to import these into Unity and create a level. I think I’ll do something first person.

Check it out on GITHUB!

Here’s screenshots of process so far:

Notes taken from Wikipedia. Quick minimal sketch of my cousin playing games

Models in blender. More poly count with further back

Wireframe of assets

UV map texture painting in GIMP. Similar idea with all texutres

Textures applied to the models. Minimal!

Starting April 19, the 5th Hack-a-Jam Game Development Competition will begin!

This competition is held every 2-4 months, and this is the approximate 1-year birthday. Because of this, I am offering a prize to the winning entry. This prize is free advertising (one month), on both of my main websites, which have decent traffic.

What is the Hack-a-Jam?

The Hack-a-Jam is a game development event/competition where you must create a game within a set amount of time. The time given in each competition varies, as it could take two days, four days, or even just 30 minutes. Different from other game jam events, the Hack-a-Jam uses a multiple-award system, meaning there is no “Overall Best Game”. This allows for us to give awards to the best games, and not make a decision between two games which are equally amazing. The theme will be a suggestion voted on from the community through many different voting sessions. Another thing you could do to win certain categories is make things such as dev logs, timelapses, etc. You can them post them or links to them in the Posting section of the Forums.

What are some possible winning categories?

Most Psychedelic Visuals
Most Deaf People After Hearing The Game
Most extra items (dev logs, etc.)
Most Rage-free
Most rage-induced
Most Suggestive Content Without Crossing The Line
Shortest Game
Best themed
Most Things On Screen Without Lag or Crash

What are the rules?

Since we are a laid back community, you could probably get away with most of these rules (except major ones, like turning in your entry a whole 24 hours late…). Here are what I would like the community to follow, however:

1. All game content must be created within the set time. Note: You can use other music, placeholder graphics, etc. as long as you are allowed to!
2. Your game is not required to follow the theme, but would greatly improve your chances of winning. Unless almost every other game is not following the theme, it is almost guaranteed that your game won’t win anything.
3. You must work alone, and you must create everything included in the game.
4. All game creation tools are permitted, such as Unity, GameMaker, Photoshop, Flash, Paint, etc.
5. All external game extensions/DLLs are permitted. If you want to make it multiplayer (if you are using GameMaker), go ahead and use 39dll.

You can visit our website at http://www.hack-a-jam.com/. From there, you will want to head over to the Posting section, and sign up for an account (you can use Google, Facebook, etc.). Good luck to everyone!

MiniLD 40. Wow i am very proud of the effects of my obviously insane shader programming…. .  So i started programming a lwjgl enginee a few months ago and decided to try and finally write my first 3d game.  having decided to create my own engine instead of using ogre3d or something has been extremly funn.  For example i wrote my own thing that when it makes a triangle for your 3d shape(everything is made of them) it creates a texture atlas which stores all of the shapes img data which was pretty funn although how useful idk maybe one day ill make it so you can draw on them ;D boring stuff anyway ive made this litle scene which im pretty proud of having only lindtt rabbits with phong shading before :p So i was thinking it would just be an experience game where you kind of just walk around but its not rlly a game so i will think of some game mechanic tomorrow*yawn* oo my collision is appaliing, can any one tell me how bad an octree of AABB’s is ? i couldnt get OBB’s to work… something about SAT which was too complicated for me right now any help appreciatedd.  Also my shader “thing” turned out okay kind of wacky thing, all the graphical glitches are from me overlapping rectangless and cba to fix it right now.  But my first 3d ‘game’ neverthless and i hope i turn it into a game tomorrow.  Well after rugby in the freezingg ,ooo i feel for the frenchh today but england played some outstanding rugby in parts. Below is some more pictures of stuff i made my thing do earlier developing it and the triangle thing.

generating texture atlas for each object

start of my gui thing, there was text on it *facepalm* ill fix that glitch after this and make it work and look nice. You can resize it btw its not just a box.

.obj loader which is what i use to save and load my cubes in my game

Hello

I started making my first 3D game in Unity about 3 months ago and it is now (partially) complete. I created the models in Maya, the textures in Photoshop, and I recorded the in-game music on my.It was fun to make. It’s called RedGreenBlue and it’s about shooting ghosts with the right coloured pills (not bullets; ghosts react badly towards pills).

I am 15 years old and I stared learning programming a few years ago (I really enjoy it). The game will be available soon as a free download.

Here is video of what it looks like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls2ySVIe6sI

Natanijel: Ba(NO3)2

My concept was created in half an hour in which I was reminded about all those bad guys always trying to destroy the Earth but always lose the game and end up in jail or something. Not this time, this time you’re the villain is the idea and a game without winning is not fun. So, this time, you, the villain, will blow up the Earth starting with the two cities on your TODO list.

I planned to create a second “how did I do it” but I couldn’t find any useful new facts since the previous.

Obviously the heroes try to interrupt your evil plans but you found a way to lock them in the dockingbay where they try to cut the door. This gives you the time to go destroying the Earth. Sadly your station is not fit for such powerful ray and it starts to collapse.

Command your drones to repair the station as you try to blast Earth back to the medieval.

Tools used: Visual studio 2012 (code/c++), Irrlicht (3d), IrrKlang (Audio), Photoshop (2d), Illustrator (2d), Anvil (Audio), Audacity (Audio)

Download and vote for the game

I’ve finished up my Ludum Dare game, SCIENCE IS BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH (yes, in full caps), and I’ve posted a postmortem to my blog. Both are below!

Postmortem @ thomaspritchard.co.uk

Play / Rate the game @ ludumdare.com

In the end I decided give a try to the Blender Game Engine instead of Unity3D and sadly, I regret a little.

I’m learning a lot, but I miss a lot programing in unity than use blender logic bricks, they are usable, but still are very primitive.

But Blender have nice things, like, everything seens so smooth and make shaders with it is wonderful.

Was into the idea of this Charity Jam right from the moment I first heard of it. Maybe its the awesome theme, maybe its the fact that its for charity (which already doubled the initial funding goal) – Just noticed McFunkypants has increased the funding goal because of this, good move

Either way, I’ve gone ahead and started my day by donating, every bit helps, so I suggest anyone who is able to donate.. To donate!

Now for the game jam side of things. I like the idea of the template, but wanted to use the BGE (Blenders Game Engine) for this LD (as I do for most Ludum Dares), so yesterday I thought Id come up with my own 3D template, you can see the end result below.

Turn table of 3D Funkytron

*Edit* Removed gif, was unoptimized and bugging out my browser, click the pic above to see it^

This version was more of a ‘proof of concept’ for myself, as I wasnt sure how well the screen projection would work (if at all). So yes, that game you see on the screen you *can play*. Its effectively a 3D game, looking like a 2D game, projected onto the flat 2D screen of a 3D Funkytron in a 3D game world <- this is the kind of thing I think up when I say to myself “lets keep this miniLD nice and simple!”     -_-’

Everything worked as I wanted though, VideoTexture (the BGE module responsible for projecting that realtime display onto the Funkytron screen) works wonders.  Then, to further complicate everything, I decided it would be a good idea to use the Burster plugin with this game. For those who dont know BGE too well, or havent heard of Burster, its effectively a web plugin which lets you use run your BGE games in-browser. It complicates things because Burster has a bunch of restrictions, mainly on what python functions/modules you can use. A bunch of them are blocked for security reasons.

Thankfully, it works, so you can play this template version right now! Controls for the game, along with instructions and links to download burster are all on this page - http://www.delta-edge.com.au/GameTest/game_test.html

Feedback on if this works for you would be great! Also just basic feedback on how annoying/easy it is to download/install Burster and get the plugin running would also be handy. Thinking of using this plugin for future Ludum Dares depending on how it goes for this one.

The only downside to Burster is no Mac support, but 32/64bit Linux & Windows are both supported.

Also, as with any Ludum Dare, I’ll be providing the source code/files for the project, starting with the template (would be great to see others using this!)

Template download: http://www.mediafire.com/?qkfr3ijlfoqwkqz (Youll need Blender 2.64a to open the .blend file and edit the game) – This game is using the Blender Game Engine (BGE)

Download template^

Template scene setup

So thats all for now. The LD starts in <1min, so I have a game to make! I’ve got a friends going-away party happening tonight, so Ill really only have the next few hours and the final 24 hours to work on a game, most of today Ill be afk. And Ill post about what type of game Im planning later as well!

Let’s see, there is complex logic now, enemies generarion with ai states, spells, attacks, optimizations, etc
It is working fine in iPad 1.
I need to improve timing for attack and casting, maybe add a spell cast progress bar?, right now I am focusing in the particular cases of spells and attack phases, each model has attached an AI encapsulating the dynamics, sensors and the back of the behaviour of each actor, movements, classes issues and so on.

I’m reading a book to know more about RPG classes, the name is “Programming Role playing Games With DirectX” from André LaMothe – CEO Xtreme Games. Although I’m writing the game in Shiva with Lua and exporting with C,C++,OBJC,and so on, I love the way it handles the kernel of a RPG game, my game is special kind of hack & slash, with magic spells, mages, etc. so this book is helping me to focus on the balance and the classes definitions, AI and so on.

Here the pic:

I’m learning a lot of 3D and positioning, timing, frame syncing, fx creation, 3d art, …still a newbie crazy and hunger for more!

Here is the video from these days progress:

Now I could export the game to iOS 6.0. It works with iPad3 and iPhone5!
Bad news are that the game in iPod/iPhone 3G will not be available and in iPhone 3GS too slow…
I’m trying to make this better. Here is the discussion in our engine forum:

http://www.stonetrip.com/developer/forum/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=26748

Hey guys, here is the logo

and a screenshot from the game

This is the wizard character.

Running in an iPhone 4S with iOS5.1.1 at 60FPS, less than 10k polys for each part of the whole scene, it also contains  4 particle systems for the torchs, a HUD control to move the char and 2700 frames of animations for the model.

The initial scene has a camera trajectory that follows a helper like a trail and end up then with the logo and menu buttons to start the game.

All I can say is that I’m working too hard to make this game really good.

Submitted game SS

Wasn’t this time that I achieve the ideal that I’m looking for, but I’m glad with what I did.

Now is time to rate the others’ awesome games and study more to the next LD!

Game > http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-24/?action=preview&uid=11311

Full report can be read here > http://fred3erick.tumblr.com/post/30326712447/ludum-dare-24-final-day-a-little-bit-of-victory