This is a very short post mortem about my entry Loot Alone.

Good Points

• I developed more than 22 games (as a contract developer), but this is the first time I took part in Ludum Dare and managed to submit a game to the competition! This was one of my 2011′s goals.
• First time I ever did graphics for a game. All the games I worked before were done by hired artists. I could say I was always scared of doing art, and doing these graphics lighted up a flame inside me, that now wants to make me a better artist.
• I came up with the idea in less than an hour after the competition started and I may consider of taking it further and making a commercial game from scratch with this idea.
• When doing 2D with Unity I always used a 3rd party commercial library. Since I took part in the competition I had to come with a solution by myself, so I ended up learning how to “do 2D” in Unity without external help.
• I liked the concept of a linear comics-style navigation I made.

Bad Points

• I worked only 8 hours, I didn’t use the available 48 hours. For this reason, my entry can not even be considered a “game”. Let’s consider it “an interactive short animation“.
• Due to the short amount of time worked, I didn’t manage to make all the scenes: there are 3 scenes; being 2 playable levels and an animation one. The initial plan to make the game “complete and playable” was to have 6 scenes. So we have 3 scenes that are out.
• The rocket cat was meant to be controllable, so you could kill the dragon.
• In the 8 hours I worked, I coded for only 2 hours. That means there are bugs, mostly on the messages system.
• My lack of knowledge in Unity for 2D without a 3rd party library left some bugs on the graphics, mostly due to scaling.
• The linear comics-style navigation can be confusing, since you can end up going to the wrong side.

Other than that, I had a lot of fun, and I’m feeling fulfilled for completing one of my 2011′s goals: take part of Ludum Dare

First of all, the game:

Desert Adventure (with Kittens)

This game is a text adventure where you control a player waking up in a hostile environment.

What went horribly wrong:

• Theme, I had like 0 idea what to do with Alone (but I can only blame myself, that’s one of the few themes I voted for in the final round).
• I procrastinated way too much while pretending to be looking for an idea.
• I had other things to do that weekend, which I did during the last 5 hours of LD.
• I’ve had to rush making one third of the game’s content in one hour.

What went right:

• Using jQueryMobile for the first time.
• Choosing a text-adventure (time was short, 12h were already gone, so not having to create assets except using jQuery’s ThemeRoller for text/bg colors was great).
• Adding Kittens!
• Choosing a web-deployable framework (makes packaging 100x easier).

Although I wasn’t inspired as much as during previous LDs, I’m happy with what I came up with and I hope the final product will satisfy you, the players !

Not much to say here

What went right:

Simple gameplay idea
Using tools i’m familiar with
Livestreaming, there was only a few people, but they were a great motivation and stress relief

What went wrong:
Making a level editor, should have added a few more features like painting an area and auto-save
Enemies programming, should have optimized this

Timelapse:

Download and rate here:
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=rate&uid=2958

PLAY THE FINAL VERSION

So I managed to finish a game. Not in 48 hours as intended but 72 Well, I thought that might be the case.  So I didn’t worry too much when I lost a lot of time doing the cute little character.

Can you find the kitty?

So my Jam game is done.  Well, mostly done.

It lacks some of the content I desired, but I spent time on making the other 3 levels to polish the game play to what I hope is a lustering shine.

This is my first bullet-hell style shmup, so take pity on me.

Try out my game right now!

My submission for LD 22 is Flod Embarks. You are a little robot with the strange name Fraxtol Flod-Pirno S’nint. You’re lonely and very cute. Somehow you ended up in a part of space that appears most lonely. But can it be true? Are you all alone out here? *sigh* You gather all your courage and board your old spaceship to explore all these thousands of sparkling planets in the hope of finding some cute friends for yourself, somewhere.

There’s not really much to the “game”, but at least it is in its own way something like a complete package… Adding more stuff, I could turn this into a real story based rpg, or procedurally generated rpg. I started very late because of various reasons, one being me not having any ideas. At some point I just started with my half idea and just embarked on this mission to find out where it will take me. With not much of a story or gameplay in mind, only the basic mechanic of flying to planets and visiting them, I tried to put a proper dose of cute into it, at least.

Just a quick post to show you what I gave birth to over the last 48 hours (seriously feels like it ).

“The Invention of Colour” follows “Alrion” on his journey to find “shimmers”. I love creating stuff with a distinct atmosphere, so that’s once again what I was aiming for. It’s not a real game as such but should much more be viewed as modern interactive storytelling, but hey nothing wrong with that

Inspired by the likes of “Bastion” I added some narration to the game. I like it – though it seems I’ll have to add subtitles to the thing. Either way, make sure you have a good audio source (headphones preferably) around when playing it.

Click through here to get to the entry. Would love for you guys to check it out!

I’m planning on full post mortem once things have settled a bit. Meanwhile.. I’m off to check out everyone’s games!!

I got done almost everything I wanted, except for music. I had to leave out a few items, but it doesn’t matter

Check it out: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=rate&uid=3733
I’ll post a timelapse and postmortem sometime later.

I Wanna Be the Fishy is meant to be a somewhat rage-inducing arcade game, inspired by I Wanna Be the Boshy.

Summary: You’re a little fish, lost in the ocean, searching for his friends.

I wish I had enough time to add music, but otherwise I’m quite happy with it. Hope you like it. =)

Database Entry (Flash)

Moving Day is finished! Play it!

Features include:

• infinite running… to the LEFT!
• pixel-perfect footsteps! (such a waste of time ^-^)
• gliding physics
• a token kitten
• You can win! (temporary ‘feature’)

This was my first Ludum Dare and I will probably be back for more! I really appreciate the motivation provided by the community and time limit.  I did record a timelapse, but I’m undecided if I will post it. I’m not sure if there would be much interest in watching a noob such as I.

Things I learned in the last 48hrs:

• How to animate a run sequence
• Flash + FlashDevelop + Flixel is a very pleasant and forgiving coding environment.
• premature gameplay tweaking is about as evil as premature optimization.

Hopefully someone will enjoy Moving Day, now I’m off to play some of the other entries!

At the end the game wasn’t like anything I planned. It is incomplete, except for an additional effort for the community challenge at the last minute.

All my time was used for technical things, and the gameplay was the feature that suffered. But without doubt the experience is there and I can’t wait for the next event! Now is time to prepare myself better and learn all the tools and skills needed for the next competition!

If you want to check it out, you can download the source and the techdemo through this link.

Just noticed everyone’s posting a little blurb about their submitted games,  so here’s mine.

Well, this was quite an experience! I wasn’t able to polish off a few of the rough edges, or get the code as clean and solid as I’d have liked. But the core game-play is in place, and I’m happy with what I did get added.

Enjoy:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=8308

I have successfully finished my very first LD game, The Last Man on Earth.

You play as the last survivor of an alien invasion, your goal is to avenge your species by clearing out an alien spaceship.
It is a pretty hard game, but please don’t get mad at me – I had no time to balance the gameplay.
The game has two endings… and a kitten.

It has been great fun, I would love to participate in the future, too.

Screenshots:

Tools:

• Visual Studio 2010
• XNA Game Studio 4.0
• Paint.NET
• Inkscape
• Bfxr

Download: http://attilahorvath.me/TheLastManOnEarth.zip
Source: http://attilahorvath.me/TheLastManOnEarth-source.zip
Game Page: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=8403

I managed to complete the Ludum Dare! Amazing!

Maze Explorers!

I didn´t quite know what to expect when I decided to join this LD, two weeks ago. I had never made a game from start to finish. But the time limit pressure, and watching other people do the same thing as me gave me a lot of motivation.

Also, I learned a LOT. In my job I have to make java programs to solve optimization problems, and they never involve things such as states, interfaces, resource management, etc. If nothing else, Ludum dare was worth it just for the learning experience alone.

That said, I´m actually rather proud of the game I´ve submitted. Granted, there are a lot of planned things that are missing (just note the huge blank space in the bottom of the playing area). But it went much much farther that I would have guessed. It has half-decent old school graphics! It is multi-platform! It has levels! And I can even add more levels easily in the future.

So, to celebrate, here is the obligatory time lapse. Sorry for the lack of sound!

A shout to MME, who did the dare in parallel with me. We shared a lot of ideas, questions and lols in these 48 hours.

And make sure you find the secret kitten in the game!

I decided to try something new this compo, for better or worse. It’s finally over in any case, now I just need to study for my last final tomorrow…

Finally done my first Ludum Dare game. Didn’t get off too the best start, I hated the theme and couldn’t think of any ideas, then I came down with a terrible fever, so I’m happy to have finished anything at all.

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=7362

Looking forward to the next competion, hopefully I won’t be so under the weather.

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=5551

Right, I got something done after all. And it feels good. Both the result and the process, that is.

Been quite a rollercoaster again. A highly recommended experience. I’ll write a more detailed analysis after I get some sleep.

May contain kittens. But much more too.

Hooray! It’s finally finished, and you can check it out here. I did put a kitten in there, but it’s hidden very well, and I don’t expect you to find it. Overall, I somewhat satisfied with it, but think I should have worked on some things a little more, especially the “plot”.

Ok, I have managed to complete the Kitten Challenge! Good luck trying to find it in my game :3. It is there, I promise! Dont give up!

Now three more hours before submitting… I wish I could have finished the transitions, but I think that will not happen this time. I will probably spend this time improving the character sprites and maybe adding a few extra levels.

Nyan! Nyan!

I have submitted my final game (source is with the download).

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=8682

I hope you all enjoy it!