Herein lie tales of wonderment and joy - how has LD48 made your life better? Tell us below.
I've participated in a few ludumdare contests over the years, one with a friend. This friend gave me a call about me helping out with some flash stuff for JunglePeak. I meet up with them and pushed that I'm very interested in making games. I also took a lower price for game development. I did a few things, mainly flash website stuff, for them and it worked great, well, except for me working more than I want, I wanna work with games and have the time off with my family. So I introduced my current day job with this entertainment company hoping I could consult, that resulted in nothing.
A few weeks later Ludumdare 11 took place, one of the highlights of the year, I made Exxon - The oil contaminator a game based upon an idea I've pitched for this company. So the Monday after LD11 I sent the game to the entertainment company and a few days later the CEO called me up. He wants me to lead the development for their MMO flash game. Three weeks later the contract is signed and after the summer I'll start making games for a living, partly thanks to Ludumdare.
I've been making games for almost 20 years now … but until about 5 years ago, I mostly had an endless string of long term personal projects that generally didn't really get finished. That is, until I found out about game dev compos! My first compo was Ludum Dare #4 hosted by hamumu.com. Since then I've participated in over a dozen compos. Each time I've learned more about making games :)
My success story comes during LD8, when I did a re-make of an old game called Galactic Conquest. I called it “Galcon 2006”. It swept the compo and people encouraged me to keep working on it and try to sell it. So I did … several times …
Galcon Shareware Edition Galcon InstantAction Edition Galcon iPhone Edition
It's gotten some decent reviews and whatnot and even got in the 2007 Top 10 Indie Games list.