It’s that time again: LUDUM DARE TIME

I almost completely hosed my computer today too, trying to install Arch linux to dual-boot with my Windows XP partition. Being a GRUB n00b I’d managed to render the machine completely unbootable but thankfully I was able to repair my master boot record and go back to the warm, snuggly, familiar surroundings of XP in time for the competition. In retrospect it wasn’t the best time to start juggling operating systems.

I think GRUB was having a problem with the SATA disks I’ve got configured in as a RAID using NVidia’s software RAID thingy. The disks seemed to change order before and after boot – the RAID disks appearing last in the list at first, then first in the list later – and also depending on whether I tried to boot from CD first or not. GRUB got totally confused about where to load its boot menu from, as far as I could tell.

Anyway, time to put that little problem aside and focus on making the greatest game the world has ever seen. Some of the themes were really interesting this time round. If I was a betting man I’d say the theme this time is going to end up as Exploration, but I’ve learnt to try and not think about it until the theme is actually announced.

My tools are going to be:

• Python 2.6 – mmmm Python
• Pygame – a cool 2d game library for Python
• Eclipse IDE, with PyDev plugin
• pythonutils – a small collection of miscellaneous utility classes
• pygame-fenix – a pygame wrapper library which mimmicks concepts of the Fenix language, written by Fiona
• Graphics Gale – my fave 2d sprite editor, great for animation
• The GIMP – open source paint program
• Cakewalk SONAR – I will get some music done this time!
• sfxr – mspaint for sound effects, by the awesome DrPetter
• Goldwave – for tidying up sound effects
• pyCatcher – for making a timelapse video

I think that’s the lot.

Well, I’m psyched. Are you psyched? I am really rather psyched, myself. Jolly good. Can’t wait!