I’ve been wanting to Ludum Dare for a while, but I can’t code for beans. Seriously. The last time a bean asked me to write a function, I just froze up. Mostly because my beans were talking to me. So instead, I’m going to “compete” in the Game Jam alongside a code-savvy teammate or two, but will otherwise be following the rules for the solo Compo.

We’ll be dual-screen streaming over here, as soon as the theme is announced: http://www.gamefetch.tv/?ch1=hitchh1k3r&ch2=solifuge

Hybrid Compo-Jam Rules are as follows:
1) You can work alone or on a team.
2) All game code and content must be created within the 48 hours (72 if we blow it).
3) Games must be based on the theme.
4) All publicly available libraries and middleware are allowed.
5) All content creation, and development tools are allowed.
6) Source code must be included.

As for the project specs:
Language: Java
IDE: Eclipse (with Saros plugin)
Libraries: LWJGL and Slick-Util
Sound: FruityLoops, bfxr, audacity
Graphics: GraphicsGale, maybe PaintToolSAI
Food: Leftover Chicken Penne Rosa (from scratch; I cook better than I code)
Beverage: Excessive ammounts of Chai Tea.
Palette:

Let’s do this! Stuff I’m going to use:

C#&XNA, Visual Studio 2010, Paint, Gimp, SFXR, Audacity, lots of junk food.

edit. also energy drinks!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH

So, I’ve never done Ludum Dare before, but I’ve done the Allegro Speedhack a few times (seems like another life ago now); and I’ve been wanting to get back into gamedev, so… why the fuck not?

Also, Ludum Dare has a few things that Speedhack didn’t:

1. No file size limits!? FUCK YES.  (As opposed to speedhack’s 250 KB limit — heh, zip level 10 time, take your sprites down to 4 bpp, let’s get that mp3 sound-fx system working, ’cause wav aint cuttin’ it, etc. haha — way too much time fucking around with bullshit — for the benefit of the 7 people left on this planet who still call the internet up on their telephones — and not enough time coding the shit out of some awesome games!)
2. No technology limits!  That means I can use C#, or any other technology stack I so choose?  DOUBLE FUCK YES. (Seriously, C++ is only 3% faster, and for all the trouble it will cause you, it’s really not worth it if you’re writing something that’s going to run in “user land” anyway.)

Sounds like I just have to wait for the rules to be announced, and then submit my game to the appropriate thread in time, and bam — I’m good to go.  I can’t tell from the rules so correct that if I’m mistaken — somebody — please.  Also do I have to decide if I’m doing the 72-hour-jam or the 48-hour compo up front?  I mean — if I start out aiming for the 48 hour comp, but decide later on that I really want the 72 hour jam , I can just switch it over, right? — Man, I wish I was an IRC nerd right now.

–Mikey

Because I’m about to Jam.

And just like any printer, I have prepared my ink cartridges ( props go to @ThomasNoppers for the color palette), got a fresh new batch of dark, sublimely beautiful, paper, a brand new USBase-code and my driver is powered by MOAI SDK. Most of my ink will be consumed by drawings made in Paint.NET.

So yeah, cheers to a new Ludumdare and to all you guys.

Hello!  I’m a humble game design student, and my friend loadsofmana has convinced me to give the game jam a try.

I’ll be using:

• Unity3d (Javascript)
• Notepad++
• Paint.NET

A previous game I have made in Unity, Pong Fantasy Quest, can be found here.

Our team will also be taking the Official Potato Challenge, because potatoes are far more delicious than islands or exploration.  Silly themes are entertaining, and what are games for, but entertainment?

Hello, everyone! I’m glad to announce that my friends and I are going to participate on the Ludum Dare Jam for the first time! I already participated on LD23 and LD24 (but failed LD25) but wasn’t really satisfied by the gameplay factor of my games. For that reason, I want to focus a lot on gameplay mechanics and leave all the fancy stuff to when the basics are working (and are awesome).

“Project Peace” (LD23), my first Ludum Dare entry!

“Living Worlds” (LD24), my second entry.

This time we decided to do the Jam together so we could enjoy it in a more relaxed way and, we hope, finish an awesome entry that people can love. The team is made of programmers who have no fear of trying their hands at game design, 2d art and music! We are:

• ghRibacki (me);
• Li (my girlfriend);
• Lessie2D;
• Ann.

We will be using (mostly):

• Eclipse IDE + Java language for coding;
• LWJGL library/wrapper for graphics;
• Paint.NET for 2d art;
• sfxr for sound effects;
• Ableton Live for music (hopefully);
• TortoiseGit for source code version control.

Also, some of us really wanted Potato as a theme, so we will be entering the Potato Challenge too!

Good luck everyone else participating this time! And keep an eye open for our updates here on the blog. =)

Barker Games is in for the jam!

Last Ludum Dare I(Justin Lee Barker) made The Accursed Moon. This time Jeremy Gohier will be joining me. I will work on the programming and he will work on everything else.

The problem I had last Ludum Dare was that I worked between 13-14 hours on Saturday which burned me out. All I did Sunday is fix a few bugs and publish it. My motivation was depleted

I plan on working normal work hours(8 hours a day). With Monday being the only possible exception. Hopefully that way I wont loose motivation and will feel more confident about our entry.

Our tools:

Language: C#, XNA

Art: Gimp, possibly InkScape

Sound: sfxr

Music: Undecided

Good luck to everyone!

Happy Ludum Dare 26

We are a team of two and this will be our first Ludum Dare. Our previous projects have been small in scope but we hope Ludum Dare will challenge us to create something exciting with very little. Our work will be recorded and put up in our post mortem in the form of a timelapse video. Starting in the middle of Saturday due to our timezone is also going to present a massive challenge.

Country: Australia

Language: AS3

Libraries: Flashpunk

IDE: FlashDevelop

Graphics: Photoshop and Opengameart.org

Level Design: Tiled

Sound Effects: BFXR

Repo: Bitbucket/Mercurial

Our last project can be downloaded and played here:

Also I made a short warmup vid showing off my workspace. Also proof that the timelapse is going to work!

http://youtu.be/YxDpiX1lAlA

So, this is one of the places where potato games will come from  (click on images for larger size):

Everything here is old or antiquated.

There’s always some sheet music on my desk. In this case, Taffanel & Gaubert flute method.

And a (poor quality) desktop video, because desktop photos are so 2012:

Well, we’re in for the jam.

First LD, currently working like a madman to ensure I’ve got time to do this.

As of now, here’s the tools we’re looking at:

IDE/language: XNA/C#

No idea what libraries we’re using

Graphics: mostly GIMP,might dabble in Pyxel Edit and Hexels too

Sounds: my partner’s got something for music, and I think I’ve got a sound effects program lying around on a harddrive somewhere

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!

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!

Hey all,

While we’re all waiting for the next Ludum Dare… Dan Dias will be hosting a CraftStudio-centered game jam on March 22-25 (72h, in team or solo)

Info, sign up and theme voting here:

http://thecreativeoutlet.com/jam1/

For those who haven’t heard of it: CraftStudio is a project of mine, it’s a real-time cooperative game-making platform based around 3D boxes and pixel art (it costs 15 € during the alpha, runs on Windows & Mac with Linux coming soon). I’m furiously working on the beta version but the latest alpha works very well already

I used it with a bunch of friends for the last 2 LDs, we made Porté par le Vent (ranked 4th overall FWIW) and Beach, please! (ranked #7 in Fun).

When I was new to game making, I have been dreamed of making a massive multiplayer online role-playing game! And seriously, who didn’t at some point? So lets help to make that dream a reality!

We should have a mini ludum dare at some point called the Online Multiplayer Game Challenge, People would be able to make anything from a open world multiplayer game to some online app. anything that uses some server-side (or peer-to-peer) connection. The point of this jam would be to learn how to make something with computer networking — just that. To experience something new in a supportive community.

Since people would be learning something new, this jam should be longer than usual, 3 to 5 weeks with the last week for submitting the game, and 1 to 2 intense playing weekends afterwards.

This is just a proposition, and it would be good to know what you think about it. It would be also good to know what the Admins think about this. 

Additionally, since probably people would host their game on their own computer, to prevent having their computer running all the time, we should plan when to play wich game. We could have some kind of up-to-the-hour calendar (Google calendar?) where people would mark their disponibility during the submission week. That way, they wouldn’t need to host their game for much more than 12 (?) hours (to pass through all the time belts). Even if the game would be hosted on a server, this would be a great thing, to have as much players as possible at a certain moment in time.

Just realized I hadn’t posted this timelapse of our jam entry recorded by Toinane (thanks!) here yet:

The first 16 minutes show us working an infiltration game (first 24h), but then as we realiezd we weren’t going to be able to do something fun and complete in the short time left, we decided to switch to a simpler, more directly fun project involving a dictator shooting tourists hogging his beach. You can start watching at 16:45 if you want to see the second project directly.

The software we used to work together in real-time is called CraftStudio (I’m the developer of it), it’s a blocky, pixelarty 3d game-making platform with a strong focus on being easy to use for people of all backgrounds / ages and featuring fully collaborative editing tools over the Internet.

If you haven’t already, you can play Beach, please! here. It’s fun, I promise.

Hi everyone!
We would like to thank you for playing and rating our game!
For those who did not and would like to, here you go!

During the last night, CAPSLOCK and I put together a little clip from our livestream archives…
We dedicate this minute of sillyness to Juliette, the 3-days-old daughter of Mewine and Fleacontent, who was with us in a way during this LD!
Have a good time you three!

Enjoy! (and sorry for the webcam quality, that’s all we had to work with…)

Well, ConflictiveLabs here.

It’s our second entry to the ludumdare jam as a team and we are quite proud of what we made.

Haven’t played our game “Kill Ville” yet? Go on, give it a try.

Kill Ville, The ultimate Noir city simulator. Fog and street lamps didn’t make it on the final product though.

(more…)

Greetings all! A week-and-a-bit after the fact, here’s a mini post-mortem of our LD 25 Jam entry – SUPER Witch Hunter Pro.

level layout sketch compared to final version

General
Overall, the Jam was a fantastic experience for us both. It’s the first time we’ve worked as a team on a finished indie game, and has whet both our appetites for more of the same.  At the very least we’ll be taking SWHP to a further finished version after LD judging is completed.

arting in progress

Hits
Overall, things went quite well.

• Theme
  We made good use of our first hour with a focused discussion about how villains can be interpreted in various media, and the different approaches to playing as one. It wasn’t long before we settled on subject of history judging once righteous/heroic actions as villainous or unseemly. The most compelling villains are often well-intentioned, and history often decides where villainy lies. Our scenario – What if 17^th century European witch burnings were today widely perceived as good and heroic deeds, and how would they have been realized as a series of hit arcade games? We were both inspired by this, and it energized us both from the offset.
• General design & Scope
  Since subject matter and history were quite “heavy” – what with women being burned alive at the stake (and worse) – we decided a simple arcade gameplay treatment would help lighten (or conceal) the tone, as well as forcing us to boil down a complex situation into basic elements. Those elements became Pyre, Wood, Witch and Fire. We looked at Game & Watch titles as an example of the sort of “plate-spinning” gameplay we wanted, though we decided to take it a step further, with many small simple loops operating in a single screen layout. We set ourselves a gameplay goal that wasn’t too ambitious, but suitable for LD. It was important to us that we could realize something relatively final, without too many obviously unfinished elements.
• Teamwork
  We both knew exactly what we were doing as a team, and where our individual strengths and responsibilities were. There was little to no downtime during the Jam due to this. We prioritized tasks that were dependencies for each other, so that there was no waiting for one another.
• Mechanics
  Implementation per design/plan went without too many hitches or serious bugs. The Pyre object acted as a nice anchor for much of our gameplay events, which helped concentrate development efforts.
• Art, 2.5d Approach
  We decided early to go with 2.5d, largely sprite animation due to the short dev time and classic arcade inspired gameplay. A fixed camera allowed us to exploit a lot of time-saving tricks, and provided the game with a strong visual style. This choice allowed us to very quickly test and finalize character, gameplay and level assets.
• Scoring & General Feedback
  Although we certainly could have had more, we were both pleased enough that we managed to address most important game events with visual and aural feedback. A decent variety of text dialogue/copy lent the game some added character. Scoring with combos and a basic rankings system being intact helped us get closer to our arcade game goal. These things went a long way towards making our entry feel complete.
• Sound
  Though not our collective strong suit, it was great we managed to get in as much as we did – ensuring no screen was too aurally empty and key events had sound. As well as boosting the final presentation, ranting about burning heretics  for the VO recording was a great way to release some pressure during rapid development.

final asset art

Misses
We’re planning to add all of these and more in a future (post-LD) version.

• Difficulty curve
  Though we had several avenues for adding a difficulty curve, and it being fairly necessary; we knew we wouldn’t have time to properly adjust or test it, or to make It obvious enough it was in effect. We left it out so that everyone that played the game once would at least be exposed to all it had to offer.
• Victory Conditions
  You can’t technically “win”. Though this is true to the arcade and game & watch references, it’d still have been nice to provided round/levels for a  greater sense of progression and encouragement. As we didn’t include a difficulty curve, however, there was little basis for inserting this (and not enough time).
• Pyre score feedback
  One important feedback layer we didn’t have time for was the score earning display which would appear at the pyre on “Burn Complete”. Unfortunately, though the combo (Serial Burn) bonus multiplier is working in the final game, it’s not really something the player is aware of due to this feedback not being there.
• Gating, Rain, Cauldron Bombs…
  Evolving level design to include dynamic blocking and slowing volumes, rain clouds which slow or reverse fire growth, wood thieves, witches flying overhead with cauldron goop bombs, other stuff to set on fire… all the “next step” ideas that you gotta drop due to time
• More Power-ups!
  To go hand in hand with more hazards, a greater variety of power-ups would have exposed further gameplay depth.
• Piety loss feedback
  Since this is essentially player HP, more obvious feedback is needed – especially when failure was imminent.

it lives

Play the game:

SUPER Witch Hunter Pro – Ludum Dare #25 Entry Page

Song of the Entry (I still have this stuck in my head…)

As happy as we are with the game, I think the biggest positive for us was our proven ability to work well as a team, and under within the time constraint. LD has really empowered us to push harder at making indie development a personal reality. So – thanks LD!

from Ben & Jerry

@JerryVerhoeven | @benjkers

My brother sort-of did a post mortem, but I don’t think it fully covered this Ludum Dare and our game Double DeConstruction.

Going into this Ludum Dare, this was my team’s fourth time attempting the Ludum Dare, after failing to create a full game 3 other times. Our spirits were high, although understandably weakened. We came up with, 9-days before the Ludum Dare, a pre-Ludum Dare mini game idea where you’d play some sort of construction vehicle, like a bulldozer, and would run over things as the screen moved, much like the game Robot Unicorn Attack. I decided to not do it to try and save energy for the Ludum Dare. A day or two before the Ludum Dare came, I thought that people might choose End of the World. So we started pondering at the mini game idea, saying that the reason for this vehicle running over things would be because the world is ending and the person operating it doesn’t care what they do anymore.

Come the day of the Ludum Dare, “You are the Villian” is announced. Funny enough, this still fit into the game scenario in a sense. The thing is, I didn’t want to make a Robot Unicorn Attack type game, so I opted in for a top-down shooter. We discussed how to set it up, and while one member was reluctant to do this idea, because they didn’t like the genre, we still did it.

The Ludum Dare jam for us starts at 6PM on Friday and ends at 6PM Monday.

On Friday, we managed to get test objects up and running along with setting up the game states.
On Saturday, we had the player and enemy shooting wrenches out. The battlegroud image was completed and the official sprites were prepared.
On Sunday, we put in the title, character selection, and good/bad ending game states. The AI was also made during this day.
On Monday, in the very early morning I put in the sounds and music, as well as the amount of points you get for the kill to pop up (aka polish).

What went right?

• Organized steady development in a timely manner
• We had the game up and running just hours after the announcement
• Accomplished the retro look we were aiming for
• Multiple, separate, battle songs for each player and just overall awesomeness handling the music
• Both characters were fairly balanced during gameplay
• Got to polish things, like adding points flying in the air when you kill something

What went wrong?

• Body and arms were supposed to be separate, but due to miscommunication ended up as one piece.
• The good ending text did not look how I thought it did when I was tired. Being very awake made that very apparent.
• Didn’t get to improve the character selection screen, which was meant to have stuff moving behind the characters and marque the selected character name.
• Shipped it out with a game breaking bug that I just fixed a few hours ago. It was that hard to find.
• Noises were too loud and obnoxious if too many were being sent out. This definitely wasn’t intentional.

In conclusion, we are very happy. I wouldn’t say just happy, it felt more like a sigh of relief that we finally were able to complete the Ludum Dare. I want to do it again, but I honestly don’t know if my team wants to do it again. I think they want to stop doing the Ludum Dare on a good note. Who knows, maybe I might compete in the compo by myself and not the jam with my team next time around. Back on topic, all-in-all, it was a great experience and really taught me some things, namely how good it feels to complete a project. So, until next time…