Thanks all who voted and competed along with me! It was fun and exciting to finally join Ludum Dare, and I can’t wait to join again for the 10 year anniversary!

Once again, I’m going to honest (and critical) and try to make this mega-post interesting!

PLAY THE GAME HERE

My goals for Ludum Dare 22

• Before the competition started, I had some goals in mind that I wanted to make.

1. I wanted to make sure “Fun” was the best category, so that people could replay the game, and have a good time playing.
2. I wanted the gameplay to be smooth and the animations smoother.
3. I wanted to beat Notch in at least one category (knowing how hard that would be).

What software I used

• Unity 3d Game Engine
• Blender 3D Modeling Software
• Pixlr Photo Editor
• Cfxr Sound Generator
• Unitron Script Editor
• Garageband Music Creator
• Text Edit Text Editor

How I made the game

• I quickly had come up with an idea for each of the most likely themes before LD22 started. My theme for “Alone” was a game where you would be sometimes alone, and then all of a sudden, you would be crowded with people.
• After the theme was announced, I decided that the game would be first person (the easiest of all the persons) and that you would have to fight your way through endless hordes of cubes (the easiest of default shapes). You could only see the cubes when your glasses were on, but if you weren’t in a shaded zone when your glasses were on, you’d start burning. This was a way to keep the player moving, and a way to make them constantly nervous.
• I worked on the player controls and LockCursor, etc. But the gameplay does not complete a game. I needed an enemy. One that would appear only if your glasses were on.
• I whipped up a cube model and texture and soon came up with this:

• Whoo Hoo! Now I have a cube!
• Next I worked on making the cube look at the player, and then having it disappear when the players “glasses” (A semi-transparent plane) were off.
• By now my Unity Scene looked like this:

• Soon I got Health implemented, and then it started to look like a Test level.
• I kept at it, knowing it would soon look like a game.
• The cube could soon move towards the player, and deal damage at close range.
• The first “Shaded Zone” was created, (using a Trigger) and the player would not take damage while inside it.
• I worked on making the zone a little prettier, and expanding the floor plane. I added a skybox, and changed the ambient light to near black.

• All along I had been slightly working on a music track, but now I decided I needed to finish it.

• The level was extended, the cube had a spawn code and could replicate itself, and the textures for walls and the floor was created in Pixlr.
• I created a variety of sound effects in CFXR like jumping and enemy death noises (my favorite).
• I worked on making an in-game tutorial, by timing when the music starts with the same time that it tells you that there is no one there.
• The menu was easy, all I had to do was come up with a name and choose the font, and soon my game looked legit. (Sorry for the lack of photos here)
• I asked my friend if he could play a test version on his computer (a windows) and I’m glad he did. The font I chose was bugging out on his computer, so I changed it to something else, and it worked fine.
• Now I knew my game was compatible on Windows AND Mac

• I created another music track for the menu, a helicopter to go to as the goal, and a stats screen so you could try to beat your own score.

Rating Other People’s Work

• I specifically rated the games that had the fewest ratings and tried to give most of them a fair, solid score.
• Mostly I gave 3.0s when I thought something was average.
• For a few people that put little effort into it, I had to give some 1.0s.
• I was sad that Notch had not really implemented the theme and pretty much made a different version of Minecraft. (Most likely this was just because he wanted to, or he felt like it.)

How people rated my game

• I can thank my friends, family, and Ludum Dare community for playing the game and enjoying it, especially DontBeNoobish‘s Gameplay Footage:

• I was proud with how my game turned out compared to most of the other entries.
• People mostly liked the audio and innovation of the game, but there were a few things I could’ve made better (More enemies, options, etc)

The Results!

• Coolness – 52% Bronze medal | At first I thought that the bronze medal meant third place, but then I realized Coolness didn’t have the same rating system. Oh well, it was still good to see that my playing of all those low effort games went to good use!
• # 40 Community – 3.55 | Wow! Community? I didn’t realize I was that popular! I guess this rating makes sense because of all the excited posts I made with links to this game. I did a LOT outside of the game (Time-lapse, post mortem, gameplay video, tips)
• # 108 Innovation – 3.20 | Good, people liked my idea of the sunglasses and whatnot!
• # 113 Mood – 3.20 | I think the music accomplished the overall feel of the game.
• # 118 Audio – 3.00 | Once again, the music, but also the enemy death noises made this count.
• # 113 Theme – 3.33 | Well, you are sometimes alone…
• # 202 Humor – 2.29 | I wasn’t even going for this (other than the ReadMe) so I have no clue how it ended up higher than overall.
• # 323 Graphics – 2.67 | Although mine was one of the few 3D first person games, I guess people didn’t really like the low effort GUI and enemy textures.
• # 435 Overall – 2.50 | Oh no! Overall score seemed like an important one…
• # 487 Fun – 2.06 | Really? This was the category I was focusing on, but yet it got a 2.06! Yes, I guess I did better than almost half of everyone else, and I’m not complaining, but this ended up at the bottom of the list, when I had worked for it to be the top.

Comparison To Notch

• My goal was to beat Notch in at least one category, and it turns out that was too easy:

• I ended up beating Notch in 7 different categories!
• A comment on the community rating: Last LD, Notch won third place (if I recall correctly) in the community category, but now he received a #49! And I received a #40! So after all the years Notch has spent on Ludum Dare and Minecraft, and the entire fan-base he collected from the Top Computer Game Of 2011, I was able to receive a better score than him from 3 weeks of posting on Ludum Dare!

I send out a huge thank you to all who rated my game (yes, even those of you that got me that horrible “Fun” score) and hope to join again for LD 23! Please remember Rob Productions again for next Ludum Dare, and you can expect a post-compo version coming in time!

Links:

TIPS ON MAKING A UNITY GAME

POST MORTEM

TIMELAPSE

THE GAME AGAIN

My entry for LD22 (ISOLATED ASSAULT) was somewhat of a wave survival game, getting harder with each death, until you reach the goal, the escape chopper.

I had a lot of fun, and, after being my first time, I will most definitely do this again.

Here’s the “Proper” Post-Mortem:

How I Spent My Time

Timelapse here if you want to take a look.

Basically I came up with an idea while I was making the game. I had already pretty decided it would be first person. And also I had pretty much decided the enemies would be cubes. (Just to make it easier on myself)

I didn’t particularly like the theme, alone, but it was better than kittens.

Mainly I worked on getting the character movement to be as smooth as possible, that’s where most people messed up, to make the game fun and re-playable. I tried to make the sword animations as hectic as possible, just to make it look a little more stylish. I made the wall and floor textures 8 bit and repeatable. I made the music overdone, with a lot of instruments (using garageband) and very complicated. I did this because I remembered all those 2d games with catchy music but terrible graphics.

I implemented the theme by having enemies appear if you put on sunglasses, but disappear if you take them off. The catch was that in the sunlight, without sunglasses, you burned. So you had to find shaded “safe” areas to take off your sunglasses and regenerate health, while the enemies disappeared.

The sound effects were done in CFXR (I especially like the enemy death noises). The language I used was Javascript. The game engine was Unity Indie. The 3d modeling software was Blender. This cannot get any simpler.

I chose these programs because, well, they were free, and also because they’re proper towards making an indie game.

What I Learned

• The smoother the gameplay and character movement, the better
• Sound is a very important part of game development
• Don’t over-complicate things, keep your main code in as few scripts as possible
• Particle effects make the game seem more complete

What Went Right

• The music was mostly catchy and was repeatable
• The gameplay was smooth and the sword attacks blended together well
• The implementation to the theme (being alone, only when your glasses are on)
• The sound design was okay, especially with the enemy deaths

What Went Wrong

• There should have been more enemies
• The enemies should have been easier to fight
• There should have been more things blocking your path
• There should have been better GUI controls and being able to change the mouse sensitivity
• The level design should have been worked on better
• The game should have been longer

All in all, I think I did an okay job, maybe not the best, but it was fun enough to please my friends, and good considering the amount of time I had. (Less then 48 hours, more like 30, I had to go to some places)

Try it out here.

Quick update…I’m succumbing to the temptation to spend the weekend tarting up a non-game. Need gameplay, stat!

That said, I have prepared a handful of tools to help me get gameplay content in faster tomorrow, and I’m WAY ahead compared to my LD21 effort, “Fireflies”.

LD22 Work in progress

I posted earlier that was in for the Competition. Actually I want to change my plans a little: I’ll be part of this LD as an opportunity to improve my drawing and modeling skills.

I’m a full time game developer, and by developer I mean ONLY developer. I totally suck on the art side; I have the technical knowledge on Photoshop, Inkscape and Blender, but it stops there. When it comes down to creating something, oh please… run away.

I’m tired of only doing crap art. For that reason, I’ll stick on this LD and try to draw and/or model something minimally good for once.

And if there is still time by then, I may bake a game.

With the start of LD #22 in less then a week now, I’m getting my tools set up! I’ll most likely be using

• Unity 3d Indie (Experience: 1 1/2 years) : Mostly Javascript as the language
• Possibly Blender 3D (Experience: 1 1/2 years)
• Garageband (Experience: 2 years)
• CFXR (Experience: 1/2 year) : The BEST program for sound EVER
• Pixlr (Experience: 1 year) : Online substitute for Photoshop :p
• Unity Forums (Experience: 1/2 year) : The best weapon in my arsenal! My Page

Without a doubt I’ll be using Unity’s Standard Assets Source Code as no man can code without it!!! Also, I may use some of assets from Unity’s example packages such as: Lens Flares and The First Person Demo (demo is removed for some reason, I guess it’s obsolete)

Good luck to all, hope Notch doesn’t completely own us!

Here is the Timelapse for my Jam entry, for Ludum Dare 21, BEF.

I was using Chronolapse 1.0.7 on a two monitor setup, but some entire sections of the capture were just blanks, which was annoying as I did some serious modelling the first day, troops, tanks, aircraft and a ship (only the ship and french trooper appear).

This is a good example of how not to do a LD, don’t just model everything first at least model and develope or better still build the mechanics then bring in better models.

Play the game.

Well, that was manic. I had family stuff to do this weekend, but I didn’t wanna miss LD, so I’ve cobbled together what turned out to be pretty much the tutorial level of what I originally had in mind…

So here’s what I learned:

Don’t try to Ludum Dare on a weekend when you have other commitments

This is my messy/buggy framework (I always seem to find a bug to fix in it every project I make)

I will be using C++ with Ogre. Assets will be made with Blender and Photoshop.

This will be my first LD since LD18 so I hope to finish something this time, and get sound in which I have never managed before.

Hullo, I’m Scio. Nice to meet you :bows:.

This is actually my third Ludum Dare, but so far I have been totally asocial and never even introduced myself, let alone post the games, of which there was only one that was even remotely playable. Don’t ask.

But motivated by the trivial coincidence of this being LD #21 and being 21 years old myself, I have finally braved an intro. I am quite proud of that.

Let’s see if I can make a game too; shouldn’t be too hard. No pressure…

I will be working with the following tools, depending on how far I manage to go of course:

• The ever lovely LÖVE, if making a desktop game. This’ll mean lua.
• The ever…scripty…Processing.js, if making a web game. This’ll make it sort of javascript, sort of Processing.
• Inkscape, GIMP, and Mypaint for graphics.
• Blender for CGI: I won’t be making a 3D game.
• Sfxr (yay) for sound effects, and possibly Neil if daring to make music.
• My snazzy, Compiz-y desktop running Ubuntu Lucid Lynx.
• Certain other non-computational implements.

I will, almost certainly, not be able to make the competition deadlines, so I’ll focus on Jam instead. And I will try to come up with something fitting the winning theme, but if I can’t…I’ll just choose another one I like and roll with it >.>

As for participation: I will silently stalk the IRC, and try to visit the Hangouts if my connection holds. I don’t have enough bandwidth (or courage) to livestream my work, but I will set up gLapse which was thoughtfully made for this very occasion!

Furthermore, I promise not to get too nervous and go into zen-procrastination-mode like I usually do during rushes.

[Also: Did I go overboard with the tags?]

This will be my second attempt at a Ludum Dare now. Last time I wasn’t able to finish, but I learned a lot. Interestingly enough… most of the code I’d written as a framework for the last Ludum Dare, I incorporated back into my main engine. Actually it was more like… put my main engine into that framework. In any case, as a result, this time around I will be using:

• Coggoid! My engine itself that I’ve been working on for years.
• Blender, as it imports directly into Coggoid
• Sfxr and Musagi most likely for sound and music if I’m able to get that far
• Audacity for sound editing, again assuming I get this far
• A very old version of Paint Shop Pro, and probably a little Paint .Net for textures

I participated in two previous LDs and never finished them.  I stumbled on doing the art and content creation so I’m going to think about my art style ahead of time and aim for something with less content.  For the art style I’m thinking of going with flat shaded low-poly models if I’m doing 3D or attempt a pixel art style again. It depends on the theme of course.

• Unity (C# scripts)
• bfxr
• Photoshop
• Blender or Maya

It’s that time again! Emotions will run high, tempers will flare, and games will be made!

I will enter. This is something that I need.

So… what use?

Well, I’m thinking about Panda3D. Will probably do a shmup, but I’m not sure. I do know that I’ll be in the jam.

So, that being said…

Life is meaningless without passion. Without passion, there is no reason to continue. I have my passion, and I hope that you all find yours this weekend. Let’s see some fire out there, some magic, some love. That’s what this is about.

Peace, love, and a sense of purpose,

— Mr. Dude

This will be my second fullblown dare, and I really look forward to it.

As I’ve done earlier, I will be writing my entry using JavaScript. I will most likely be using ImpactJS or Three.js for my entry depending on the theme and what game I will be making. I’ve learned from my earlier mistakes, and will not try to learn a new library for this compo. I will also be using Paint.NET for graphics, possibly Blender if I go 3D. For sound I will be using the awesome BFXR. Music will most probably be generated using Wolfram Tunes, simply because I suck at music. If I get to make an explosive game, I will also be using the Explosion Generator. I haven’t used this tool before, but it looks promising.

Good luck to you all !!

Things to do: clear desk, tidy house, generally sort out anything that might prove distracting! Excited to have Notch rejoin us, and see how the G+ circles pan out.

I’ll be using the shiny latest version of Unity – the new drag-and-drop prefab workflow should really help keep the pace up. Also Paint.NET, Blender, and Audacity.

Must also clear my calender for the next month just in order to *rate* everyone. The magical 100% coolness is becoming really hard to accomplish!

Still got a lot to do, not sure if Ill have anything worth submitting for the contest come 0 hour. Its 2am here and Ive had another busy day away from my computer *sigh*

Anyway a quick update, the menu page is done and working, it loads the game, exits and looks pretty.

Pretty uninspiring title. But until I think of something better it’ll do. – Feel free to make suggestions.

I also have basic game environment done, nothing major but its all I can do for now. Need to get this thing in the air and some more gameplay!

So much to do! Im about to do my last 2 hours for tonight (taking me to 4am) and ill really try to cram in some gameplay. Then tomorrow Ill try to get up on time to polish and submit (hopefully), and since this is my first LD I really have no idea how any of that will go! *Eeek*

This is what I managed to do last night. Its amazing what mistakes a sleep deprived brain can make. I had a lot of issues baking AO maps because I had one silly button selected the whole time, which was the first thing I saw when I woke up this morning. Oh well.

But here is Discovery so far:

Far from finished.

-I dont like the ET texture much atm,

-The shuttle doesnt have markings yet, only an AO map

-I dont have much time to work on it anymore

-Need to get into some python to making it fly and get some environments done today! (But I have so many other things to do today as well… Gonna be a late night)

-ADEdge

Ludum Dare?

- Sounds like a great idea! Pity I only knew of its existence since last night. At T-14 hours until the theme announcement -  I walked into the Ludum Dare world, and was instantly impressed/excited/interested. I came across this whole thing from Notch’s twitter feed, and remembered seeing his amazing entry into Ludum Dare 18 earlier in the year (except at that time I had no idea what it was, and was too busy to really look into it)

The community vibe is great, I spent last night looking around the site, getting more and more pumped about the contest about to unfold and made certain I would keep tabs on its progress to see how it all worked, in preparation of Ludum dare 20 next April (which I planned to be my first attempt) But here I am now, about to get into this current contest. Pretty exciting to be able to go up against some major game designers.

Why?

- As soon as the theme went up and as soon as I got some time off work to check it, I was hooked. It took me a matter of minutes to work out the game I wanted to make, and once you get that little spark going theres nothing you can do to stop it. I mean its hour 38, Ive just had a super busy day, tomorrow will possibly be busier, but I really want to get something done for this, even with terrible time constraints. Im sure Im not the only one only just getting started.

Who am I?

-My internet name is AD-Edge, my real name is Alex Delderfield. Im from Australia, Im 21, Im studying Computer Graphics and Programming at University. (That covers just about everything)

Ive been writing/drawing stories since before I can remember, making 2D/3D animations in the past few years, and in particular focusing a lot on games. My tools of choice so far have been opensource and Im strongly a part of the Blender community as Blender is my primary tool.

My game!?

-Well the first thing I thought of when the theme was announced was the Space Shuttle Discovery.

Thats what the game will be based apon and I saw someone post saying that they hoped someone would do a game like this (I havent seen anyone else with this idea yet, lots of space stuff, but not space shuttles exactly)

In the game you are in control of Discovery, from T-2:00 mins on the launchpad, it will be your mission to get Discovery into the air and in particular, if your lucky and somewhat skilled with a tendency not to explode – space. There will be a mission to do once you get into space, one which involves a discovery of some sort (double discovery!!). I would like to do a landing part to the game as well when you return to earth, but Im trying to keep this thing short (I dont even know if Ill get up to getting this thing off the ground – haha D:)

If I have time I might attempt a landing part (but I really dont think Ill get that far). But theres always time after the contest to add these things.

What will I use for my game?

-Firstly (and obviously) – Blender.

For my first Ludum Dare I had a gut feeling to do something purely from code, some oldschool retro 2D platformer. But jumping into this one headlong I feel like I should stick to something Im fast with and have had plenty of experience with. So the Blender game engine (BGE) will be my engine of choice, a very much under-appreciated game engine in my opinion. Its not exactly UDK, not at all, but in the right hands some pretty cool stuff can be created. And lets face it, making games in BGE can be extremely fast (perfect!)

-I will also use Python for the scripting (thats what BGE uses)

-Gimp for all 2D texture needs.

-Audacity and maybe pysound for sfx control.

Anyway, next post Ill have a space shuttle to show, maybe more (lets hope)

Id love to hear comments, or other questions etc! Looking forward to getting to know this community better, and of course seeing some awesome games!

-ADEdge

*Edit* Wow, post turned out longer than I thought, hope this isnt too long… :/

j)lDolBPZ^0)

Since tenacity is an important quality, I am back for another round of LD.

The tools I’ll be using:
QT4 library : lets see if it has everything that game development needs. I know how to use 2D drawing methods and openGL, I’m not sure about the sound support.
QTCreator : the official QT IDE, so far has served me well. This is the main reason I am going with QT, although I could use any other c++ lib in it. I love it.
Gimp,Inkscape : graphic tools of choice.
Blender : I might decide to go 3D with this game, haven’t decided yet. Might use blender, maybe just for 2D renders.
LMMS : linux multimedia studio, will be using it for music composing. Any other sound recording will probably be done by some generic sound recorder tool.

Now I have to prepare my timelapse script, last time I took way to many screen shots, ended up with a few hours of footage. Also need to do some shopping and prepare my work environment before the compo. Can’t wait.

Hello all,

This will be my first time entering the competition.  I will be using Blender‘s game engine (with python and Bullet Physics).  I’m hoping to keep it simple, finish an entry, and show off how great the Blender game engine can be for rapid game creation.

Good luck to all, I cannot wait to find out the theme and see what people come up with!

Like a few other here, this’ll be my first LD. I’ll be using Construct for the creation of the binary if my concept ends up being 2D. For 3D, I have a variety of technologies I’d like to explore.

The first is Dage. I’ve been playing around with it for a few days now, and even though the odds of me getting to make a 3D adventure game are hard, I’d certainly embrace the chance to use my recent experience.

I’m also not above Unity, if the trial is viable.

No matter what I use to assemble the game, though, I’ll be using Blender, Photoshop, and Notepad++ for the majority of modeling, texturing/art, and writing, respectively. I know that I’m a bad egg and should use GIMP–but, hey, I like Photoshop’s interface better. If I wind up with Dage, I’ll also have to use Max in my pipeline, another evil, commercial program.

As far as my experience in other areas, I’ve tried a few compos, followed more than a few, but never made a real entry. I’m determined to sneak one into this LD. I’m pretty experienced with Construct, Blender, and Photoshop, and I’m just learning other techs like Unity and Dage. I grasp programming concepts pretty well (Event Sheets in Construct come almost naturally to me), but I fail pretty hard at actual programming (even XNA is beyond me). I like it that way. I like that in this modern day and age, there’s a bunch of technologies (Construct, MMF, AGS, Wintermute) that allow you to script an entire game without programming it. I like that many things are set up for you, and I like WYSIWYG. There’s nothing wrong with WYSIWYG in my book–if you can create something totally awesome, it doesn’t matter by what means.

Anyway, that’s me. Sorry for being wordy. I can’t wait to participate, honestly. I’m sure I’ll be dreading my decision in about 144 hours.