The MinimizeArt entry page is here.
Ludum dare started for me at LD23 – Tiny world. From then until now, I have learned a lot and my games have improved. For one, I was actually proud of what I had made and my game was actually kind of fun. Before I continue, let me show you a timelapse.

Although my game was better this time around, not everything went perfectly.

What didn’t go so well
Messing around – I spent a great deal of time just sitting there, looking at what I had done. I would get something done, and I would just keep looking at it instead of coding.

Important things last – I didn’t do things in the right order, I ran out of time to make more levels (which is mostly the fault of #1). I should have added sound sooner in, made more levels, etc. Then the other stuff would have been a breeze.

What went well
Code – In the past my code was really sloppy. I just did whatever worked. But this time I stopped to think about my code. The end result was much nicer.

Lighting – This was actually the first game I’ve made with lighting, so it’s kind of a good thing.

Game was hard and fun – In the past, my game were about as fun as coding a Graphics driver in Assembly, and they were never hard either. But this time I actually enjoyed playing it.

So that is how my Ludum Dare went.

Thought I should write a small post that will help people understand the theme/logic of my #LD48 entry
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-26/?action=rate&uid=21211

The game by itself is intentionally not self-explanatory.
I see couple of people getting back to me trying to reason about some design “suggestions” … some were really good, and then some made me feel that people are thinking in a quite different direction / not thinking at all.

So here’s what I’ll do mysteriously help all confused gamers

Explaining some design with FAQs.

Q1. The game doesn’t have much controls and is confusing.

Did I forget to mention tough choices?
No I didn’t.

A1. Meant to be so. The theme was “minimalism”
When I thought of the game design, I thought of vagueness and scope for making people think when they play the game. Everything converges when scores are shown.
Yes, I could have made a big 5 stage coin collecting platformer, but that’ll be out of theme and nothing new to experiment.

Q2. I did not select the Red Girl but I still got % on perverted scores

It’s not wrong to be attracted to sexy dressed girls, now is it?

A2. Those are just one of the places where I want people to think. On a second thought, you should be thinking all throughout the game.
I was kinda serious when I wrote this in game description.
“You are supposed to make “choices”, which sometimes are difficult than a “RedPill vs BluePill” question in real life! ”

So here’s my question to you, WHY do you think choosing the red dress girl would mark you as a pervert, but the purple dressed girl will not?
What is wrong you are attracted to skinner/sexily dressed girls? Is it really wrong?  It’s a choice and a personal preference IMHO.
The girl in red dress could be a very kind and good human, while the girl in purple dress could be shady. Who knows?

These are not meaningless messages friend.

The other problem here is people are trying to “assume” some stuff about the algorithm behind it but are fixing their thoughts to a linear assumption.
The algo is complex.. it considers stuff from real world.  What could be an act of kindness in a particular level, will be a goofy choice in another.

So “Think”.

Q3. The sounds are too loud
A3.  Yeah I’m terribly sorry about that. My bad.
Laptop speakers aren’t that great.. although I  tested my sounds at 100% volume while mixing.. I still hear less
Point noted and will remember that for my next game. Thank you

Q4. Any tips on how to play the game?  In other words how do I fake it to make scores look clean.

What game?

A4. I am not going to tip anyone on how to fake it , but yes I can help to reach a point where you can make ‘clearer’ decision on whether to fake it or stick real.
Here’s my mysterious way of helping you guys.. remember 3 things while playing the game
1. Watch the level “name”
2. Level ‘name’ is a ‘situation’/'time’.
Evaluate the both choices along with the level name.  It’s not just about choice1 vs choice 2 .. its choice 1 vs choice2 vs levelname.
3. Think a lot.. get real life decisions as examples to help yourself .

I’d be happy to answer any other queries you might have.
Please leave your valued suggestions in comments

For now, I’m gonna go and play games of other participants and earn some more knowledge.
Signing out.

This is going to be my first Ludum Dare.

Software (for the game):

• Unity
• Paint.NET
• Gimp
• Blender
• Audacity (+ mic)

Software (for streaming and timelapses):

• Open Broadcaster Software
• Chronolapse

Wish me luck

What went right:

-Programming: Even if the game is a little buggy, it was my first C++ game, and I am amazed by the fact that I really finished the engine. It has a lot of unused or incomplete features, because of a lack if time.

-Beginning: I got the idea in the first half hour of the ld. Then I directly started programming. The first day was really productive, I designed the project’s architecture, implemented the level loading system, the player…

What went wrong:

-Audio: I totally forgot about audio. I added a few sounds in the end, but did not have enough time to create a soundtrack.

-Level design: My choice of making 16*16 sprites resulted in 400*100 tiles per level. Making four levels took me 2 hours. For the next LD, I will make a content generator.

-Bugs: I had a LOT of f***** bugs, mainly in the third day, maybe because of the stress. My compiler really made me have a bad time. I lost a lot of time in fixing some obscure file loading or allocation errors…

-Spriting: I have never been good in graphisms. Making 4 programmer-art mobs took me half a day in total.

-Time: I was absent on sunday afternoon.

Conclusion:

Pfew, I had a lot of problems during this first LD, but I also acquired a lot of experience that will be usefull for the next one ! Ludum Dare is a great experience !

Just a small town boy. Livin' in a LONELY world.

This is my first Ludum Dare attempt ever. Before I didn’t have the time, courage, or I straight-up forgot. Anyways, account is made here and I’m in the process of making a neat little game for the theme. I hope to do well and get something out in time!

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… :/

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