Had such a blast last time, which was my first LD that I’ll participate again (as long as my schedule allows me to, which it should).

My last entry did surprisingly well, taken it was my first time, but due to hectic times at work (we just released new game this Wednesday) I haven’t been able to finish the post-compo version (but its still coming and is actually progressing somewhat steadily, even if slowly… very very slowly!).

I will likely use C++/SDL/OpenGL again, even though I kind of promised myself that I’d use some other language (with GC(!)), but really don’t want to move too far out of my comfort zone while having such limited time. BlitzMax will be my backup tool if I happen to go nerd-rage over silly memory management issues again.

For “art” its the usual GIMP, TuxGuitar and SFXR.

I will probably end up using the same glitchy “framework” I used last time which I wrote a while back Link but I’ll try to get something more usable ready by the next weekend.

Edit: Given my recent drooling over oldskool games I might be using my “retro framework” which i unfourtanetly was unable to finish before LD, but guess its a good way to “beta” test it . Source available in here

Still on the fence here, as I’ve been crunching for a few weeks, currently have a splitting headache, and could use a few days off instead. But…

OTOH, the Kobo II Tech Preview is now on-line, which means that I have a working Win32 executive, making deployment trivial. (There is no game code in kobo2.exe, only EEL with SDL, OpenGL, ChipSound, physics etc.) So, I should be able to pull this off without touching glorified assembly languages, or even running a native compiler. (Well, I might rebuild the executive with a different icon. That should be safe. I think…)

So, if I do it, here are my weapons of choice:

Language: EEL (Runs on the Kobo II executive.)
Editor: KDE Kate
Libraries: Kobo II/EELBox executive (SDL, OpenGL, ZeeSpace, ChipSound, …)
Sounds: ChipSound
Music: ChipSound
Graphics: GIMP, ZeeSpace

First screenshot. Ignore the tearing, that’s printscreen hating v-sync.

Well, I guess it’s decided then: I will try my hand at an LD48. I started a few hours ago, but neglected to formally announce it; so here it is:

I’ll be using:

Language: C++

Libraries: SDL (for window management/input/audio/etc…), and OpenGL.

Any textures will probably be made with The GIMP, if I find the time to make any.

Sound effects: sfxr (if I get around to that.)

Right now gLapse is churning away at turning almost 1500 jpgs into a movie.

So far I’ve got OpenGL rendering, and input being processed, as well as movement through my 3D world, and “moving” platforms. Next up is to master the physics of falling onto said platforms, additional game mechanics, and resources. But, it’s late and I should have been sleeping over an hour ago, so I’m calling it a night. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll post my time-lapse so far. Good night!

This is my first LD entry, and it should be lots of fun, or at least very interesting!

I was thinking of possibly using C#/XNA, but I recently decided I will be coding in C++ instead. As a result, I’ll be using a new framework I started writing only a couple of days ago, and a bunch of other libraries of which I have little or no experience using. So the goal is to keep it simple. In a short moment we’ll all know the theme, at which point I can start pondering on the gameplay. Lots of improv (and learning) ahead!

Libraries used: SFML, OpenGL, boost, Eigen, and possibly lots more.

You can find the source code here: https://bitbucket.org/Trancelucid/ludum-dare

Hello, This is my first Ludum Dare.

I will be using SDL with OpenGL. Well try to atleast

I’ll be giving a go entering Ludum Dare 48h #21, which will be my first entry ever. (crossing fingers that I’ll actually get something playable done in such a short time)

The tools I’ll be using are: C++ (Eclipse being the IDE of choice) + SDL/OpenGL with my (very) WIP Framework, hopefully it’ll turn out to be usable even tho it is in very very early stage. I’ll have my trustworthy BlitzMax as back-up in case things get too hectic.

And for “art” I’ll be using: GIMP, TuxGuitar and SFXR

Well, let me add myself to the giant list of new folks for the upcoming LD #20.  I dropped by the IRC room last night and got some nice advice on useful tools and whatnot… thanks everyone.  A snag though!  I realized this morning that I’m actually moving that weekend!  This might not be as big a deal as it initially seems, though, as I’m only moving to the other side of the same building I’m already in, and I’m already pretty well packed up; it just means some valuable time is going to be eaten up by lugging boxes.  I still plan to compete! 

I plan on using a SDL-based sprite framework that I’ve been working on lately… right now it’s in an unusable state though (being moved from using SDL blitting to sprites as textures in OpenGL).  Assuming it’s fixed in time for the competition, I’ll post the code somewhere for y’all so that I’m within the rules and whatnot.

Uuuhh… yup!  Nice to meet you all!  Let’s have us some fun!

EDIT:  Aaand… that SDL->OpenGL conversion I mentioned?  I think I’ gonna abort it and instead move to SFML.  I’ve been reading about it some today and it really seems like the way to go.  There’re benefits to working with SDL and learning how things like blitting work, of course, but if the API for SFML is as much better than SDL as people are making it seem, it would really speed things up for me… in addition to saving me from having to link in extra libraries for some of the stuff I’m doing.  I’m pretty sure this is one of the useful things someone told me about last night on IRC, but I never managed to get around to looking at it at the time because I was too busy playing with bfxr!  I should have listened to y’all better!  Belated thanks!

Mr Head and the Journey of Discoveries has been completed. See the entry page.

Windows binaries | Source | Low framerate Timelapse (spoiler warning)

Controls are Arrow Keys and X.

Made in 8 hours, and written in D and uses OpenGL, GLFW and FMod. Sound effects (the few there is) from sfxr.

There was supposed to be some voice “acting” in there, but my microphone was really, really bad, so you managed to escape that. Sadly also lacking music. Would have been great with some light music, I think.

Main sprite is technically an old asset, but to match the last Mr Head game it had to be identical (see Mr Head and the Cow Drowning). I believe my entry is within the spirit of the rules.

I’ve wasted lots of time, but at least here’s something. I’ll try to stick to actual game code from now on and try better graphics later if there’s time.

I actually managed to finish, though I doubted it quite a few times in the last seven hours. There’s almost no end to the list on how many things were cut and it’s unpolished to no end. But still, you can sort of play it and enjoy it.

You can view the submitted entry here.

Also, here’s a new screenshot (included with the entry), showing truck editing.

Looking forward to test all the other games.

I’ve released a post compo version of Cave Ninja. Nothing exciting, it just fixes two bugs:
1. Win check for last level corrected.
2. Divide by zero error fixed that occurred for certain OpenGL implementations.

To be honest, for most people there’s no reason to update. But for those that got the divide by zero (might also seem like it just shutdown at once), it might be worth it.

Windows binary (should run fine in Wine).

The Good

Fun tech. Not only does some tech idea stuff you want to try out make it fun to actually program the entry, it can also makes the entry interesting. Or so I hope it did. There was two things I tried out: Destructible landscape rendered with marching squares and some sort of fluid simulation.

I’ve wanted to try out destructible terrain with marching squares for some time. Mostly when thinking about doing Blastup 3, though I’m probably more for doing pixel perfect (with alpha) stuff. But still, wanted to try this approach out. It worked pretty OK, though it requires more work to be anyway close perfect. As a note, the collisions just uses bilinear filtering of the nearby grid points and checks it against the threshold, so the marching square output is just for rendering here (which really simplified things).

The fluid simulation pretty much just happened. I had a world which was a grid of values of 0 to 1. There’s a lot you can do with that. I’ve thought about similar things for earlier LDs, for the theme flood, but that theme never won. Basically, it’s like those old water simulations where each pixel is a water particle, and it can either go down or to the sides if there’s room. I just had float values instead, so the whole of it didn’t have to move. Then marching squares on top. Anyway, the lava seems to be what people liked the most, so I’m glad I did it.

The actual game idea. With the destructible terrain etc, I sort of wanted a game in between Worms/Liero and Lemmings. Which I think is what I got. It’s lacking things though (see below). Overall, I think it’s a good game idea.

Once again used the D programming language, which was good and makes most things easy (except in one place where a thing I did in a loop became very slow, which cost me some time). Also used OpenGL, GLFW and Fmod. Stuff that works pretty well and that I’m used to.

The Bad

Time, time. Lack of time. Or too ambitious project, perhaps. I spent 4 hours away from the compo helping some people to move, but I’m not sure those 4 hours would have made a lot of difference. The time issue had most impact on the level design, I feel.

The level design started out sort of OK. I wanted to introduce every new element by itself in a single level, then start combining them and creating puzzles.

Well, to start with, not all elements that I wanted to introduce got introduced. There was only one weapon, there was only one enemy type. I had planned for more there. And I had planned some cool movement tools, like a jetpack (and if I really had had some extra time, a ninja rope).

Anyway, as it were, I did get the elements that existed introduced in the way I wanted (though some levels was a bit too long, making them annoying). But then suddenly I didn’t have time to introduce more elements, yet I didn’t have enough materials or ideas to make good puzzles. So that first lead to a platform/jump level.

Then there was the last level. It got too hard. A little too busy. Even its name gives it away, it was named: A little bit of everything. Basically it had become apparent that it would be the last I had time to do, so wanted it real, if you know what I mean. Nothing tutorially. As a base there was a single good puzzle. But after making it, there was lots of room left, so got another semi-puzzle, some jumping, some digging, and some kill things. Too much. But maybe it suited as being the last level. I can tell you, even I have had trouble completing it sometimes.

That’s not the only bad thing with the last level though. The last level’s win condition check is bugged. So you only actually need to reach the star to win. I realized this bug existed after having gone to bed after just submitting my entry. So I got up, “fixed” it, and re-uploaded (it was within the deadline, don’t worry). Only the next day I realized the check was still bugged. I had added the correct check, but I had also left in a call to the base class update function, which just checked the star. So that was a waste of time.

Graphics. They turned out rather bland and boring. And dark. Noticed today that even just making the game 50% brighter helped a lot. But I’m not good at creating good textures or animate stuff, so perhaps it’s OK given the time available.

The Other

Sounds. It’s thanks to sfxr that I got any sounds at all. All in all, it might have taken 15 minutes to get all the sounds in. It was a great improvement over no sounds, but beyond that it was lacking. In addition, it seems that the sounds cut out for quite a few people — I have no idea why.

Heads up

I really recommend maximize the window to get a look at the whole level (if your screen is big enough). It’ll look bad that the level just cuts off if you have too large a screen, but even then it’s well worth it.

There’s a skip level cheat — it’s pressing F1 and F11 at the same time (as in most of me entries with levels).

I used a bit of base code and some utility code for rendering, fonts, and sound. Not really a library, just some random stuff (it’s what’s available in stdf in the source folder of the package). This is probably bending the rules a little, but I hope you guys are OK with it. Absolutely not game code.

Also, it’s not like I came up with marching squares during the compo. I’ve written a few application using it earlier, and actually adapted some old code. Writing it completely new might have cost me extra 15 minutes or so but it seemed pointless. The idea is really quite simple: For each square in the grid, start making a polygon. Check one corner, if it is within the threshold, make a point. Check this corner against the next corner — if one is out and one is in, find the point in between. Then do the same for the three other corners and edges. And that’s it.

Outro

There were probably some other things worth mentioning too, but none that I can remember now. Think I’ve responded to most stuff that I’ve got comments on as well. Overall, people seems to have liked the game, so I’m pretty happy. It’s been a good LD.

OK, so I’m not sure what kind of game I’ll make yet — I have several ideas, it’s just that I don’t know if they’d be fun. In the mean time, I’ve set up simple cave rendering:

It’s basically marching squares on top of a grid of 0-1 float values.

I spent a hunk of time today hacking myself up a proper library and deciding on what I’ll be using for LD #15, should I not wuss out at the last moment.

I am leaning towards things which I have used for the longest, this is to reduce the amount of figuring-out I have to do.

As tempting as it is to use python/pygame/macos, I have one half the experience with that, so it is best to stick to ancient and familiar technology, despite its limitations.

To implement:

• C/C++, sloppy and mixed. The way I like it!
• 2d vector graphics where possible, otherwise rotated/scaled sprites.
• Win32 (though, I would like to have it compile/run on MacOS as well. This shouldn’t be a huge problem.)

Libraries:

• SDL (sound, graphics, and input)
• OpenGL (strictly 2D and orthographic, unless I drink too many trappists and decide otherwise)
• mmgr.cpp/mmgr.h by Paul Nettle
• vector2d and related math templates by Bill Perone (I can’t seem to find a link right now!)
• MT19937 Mersenne Twister random number generator

To create:

• Photoshop for Graphics
• SFXR for Sound
• SciTE for Text
• Visual C++ 6.0 for Code
• SVN for revision control / backup

To eat:

• Water
• Trappist Beer
• Cola
• Food with nutritional content yet to be determined

Random thoughts:

I have a feeling I may regret my choice to use a gamepad/keyboard for input. But for now I will.

• Con: Mouse games have a lot of instant-appeal. Easier to get interaction “feeling right”
• Pro: Keyboard/gamepad is oldschool and works on consoles.
• Pro: Leaning back in a chair with a gamepad is more relaxing then hunching over a mouse.

I can do sound. SFXR is freaking cool. I spent a few minutes playing with it today and fell in love. This saves me from making corny sound effects into a microphone during the last minutes of the compo! Thank you DrPetter

All of the libraries, save for my starting template are freely available online. None of them resemble a game library / engine, so they are squeaky clean.

At some point I will post my starting source up for anyone interested. Hopefully there is something useful in there to be pilliaged by others during this compo, or future projects.

I’m curious to see what other people are using, or who else is using a similar (fairly heavyweight, rusty, and old) setup.

Right, so I decided to post this as a non-entry. Reasons include laziness and stuff. Here’s my last progress shot re-used as the ‘final’ shot.

While ‘playing’, press keys 1-3 to build stuff:

1. is a tree zapper, it gets you power for nearby trees. It costs 15 power.
2. is a mini tower of darkness, it creates darkness nearby. It costs 30 power.
3. is an attack tower, it shoots blobs of darkness at the poor butterflies. It costs 50 power.

To goal was supposed to be getting everything dark, sort of. There’s not actually any winning condition, but there’s not much other things either, so that’s all right then.

Don’t resize the window (don’t tell me I didn’t warn you).

Download Something of Doom Something Something (Windows binary, uses OpenGL, should work in wine).

Here’s my entry. You control a spider that is in dire need of getting more legs. Sort of.

Download
Windows 32-bit binary with D source

Instructions
Collect all powerups to complete level. This will give you a time bonus.
If time runs out or if you fall outside the world, the level ends, but you are left with the score you got for any collected powerups.

Controls
Enter to start game.
Esc to quit (also at level over etc).
Left click/hold to set target. Speed based on distance.
Right click/hold to set target and jump.

Hints
You need to walk slowly to round edges.
You can only sort of jump away from the current surface you are on.

Source
Some source was previously written, but only sort of texture loading, font rendering and some init code.

Uses GLFW, FModEx, sfxr and some other stuff.

Also, note that the title bar is a total lier. The game did not take 32h to make, but 40h. That math is tricky stuff.

(For the framework stuff, the score is read from and written to ‘score.txt’.)

Download here

Other screenies, time log and the above download here

It’s a board game for 1-3 human players, with AIs taking over the other 1-2 cars depending on how many humans there are. Cars can’t jump over each other, so if there’s no free lanes, you can block the traffic. Different routes are longer than others, and it’s possible to run out of gas.

Everyone plays with the same cards, only shuffled differently. Have fun!

I’m thinking about entering LD13 depending on what the theme turns out to be.  I haven’t done a full LD yet, just 2 mini-LD’s.  I wanted to use my standard C library functions for OpenGL, Portaudio, Ogg/Vorbis/Vorbisfile, and my GUI.  There isn’t any game logic routines or structures as per the rules.  It’s a collection of sound, text file, opengl drawing, and string tools for C.

I wasn’t sure what I have to do or if there is some type of time limit, but anyway here is a link to the library code.  It’s mostly a conversion of some old SDL stuff I liked to use.  I moved away from SDL lately though and have been using GLFW.

Phew, got it finished

PyGL2D is a simple 2D library for PyGame and PyOpenGL. It’s licensed under the GNU LGPL. See http://pygame.org/project/972/

You can download it here.