Author Topic: Ludum Dare 29: April 25-28 Weekend (Read 38689 times)

Deozaan · « **on:** April 25, 2014, 01:38 PM »

First of all, what is Ludum Dare?

Ludum Dare is two similar events taking place over one weekend

The Competition is the familiar “make a game in 48 hours solo competition” that Ludum Dare is known for. Specific details can be found below. After the competition ends, participants are given 3 weeks to play and rate games created by their peers. After those 3 weeks, winners are announced.

The Jam is the new “relaxed” Ludum Dare. It was created to make Ludum Dare even more inclusive. You can work in a team, borrow assets from your other projects, or do things that would normally be against the rules. You also get one extra day, giving you up to 72 hours to submit an entry. This is helpful for those times real life gets in the way, or for games that need just a bit more time to become something great.

Ultimately, our goal with Ludum Dare is to encourage people to sit down and make something. Our hope is that the new structure continues to encourage more and more developers to join us and create a game in a weekend.
-http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/rules/

Ludum Dare 29 begins today. In about 6.5 hours from the time of this post. I'm planning on trying it out, which means before Monday comes to an end (in my timezone, at least) I should have a new game playable for all of you.

More details can be found here:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/

Join me (us)! Scrap your plans for this weekend and make a game!

See my previous DC posts about Ludum Dare:
Ludum Dare - Game Programming Challenges
Ludum Dare 23 - 1,000 New Games and Counting
Be Tiny, World! (The game I made two years ago during Ludum Dare 23, which I've continued to update to this day!)

Ath · « **Reply #1 on:** April 25, 2014, 04:07 PM »

Have fun, happy coding. I won't be joining though, not game-coding interested.

Deozaan · « **Reply #2 on:** April 25, 2014, 04:19 PM »

You can also watch others as they stream their LD progress:

http://www.twitch.tv...tory/game/Ludum Dare

Deozaan · « **Reply #3 on:** April 30, 2014, 08:18 PM »

What a weekend! I submitted my entry on Monday. I planned to write all about it on Tuesday but after going out to dinner on Monday to celebrate my success, I got super tired almost as soon as I got home, and that tiredness returned on Tuesday and I spent most of my free time just sleeping.

So today I finally wrote up a blog post about the experience, which you can read here:

Ludum Dare 29 Postpartum

A few quick links:

My entry on the Ludum Dare website (view it, play it, rate it, if you please): http://www.ludumdare...preview&uid=3156
All in all there were 2497 games submitted for LD29. You can view, play, and rate them here: http://ludumdare.itch.io/

Here's a timelapse of the whole process it took me to make my entry:

mouser · « **Reply #4 on:** April 30, 2014, 08:22 PM »

I played the game and i thought it was very cool and fun. Great work!
But i *really* enjoyed the writeup more than anything

I love reading about member projects.

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #5 on:** April 30, 2014, 10:33 PM »

Re this line from the writeup:
"I should have been working instead of playing." I think I disagree. If you work on a game and maybe you used those few minutes to fix something technical but suddenly discover at the end of the whole weekend that the result is miserably un-fun to actually play, to me that's the true heartbreak. Also I think playing *is* working because let's say as you are playing you suddenly discover that some aspect is really annoying, to me that's almost like a bug and then maybe you turn down the difficulty, or whatever. I peeked at a couple of older LD games from an earlier event, and I came across a few (that I didn't play) where people commented that the idea was cool but it turned out to be really hard.

Maybe there are some people who like their games tough, but if a game is so hard that I can't even get past the very early parts, I instantly lose interest. To me a more balanced game has a couple of really easy stages, a couple of "just easy" stages, a few medium ones, and then as it warms up it can pour on the difficulty. But if level 2 feels completely impossible, it's not my thing.

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #6 on:** April 30, 2014, 10:51 PM »

Something is misbehaving for me and I can't log into the LD site to comment. : (

Deozaan · « **Reply #7 on:** May 01, 2014, 01:35 AM »

I played the game and i thought it was very cool and fun. Great work!
But i *really* enjoyed the writeup more than anything
-mouser (April 30, 2014, 08:22 PM)

Thank you very much! (FYI I've read over my blog post a few times since initially posting it and I've made various minor changes to help the flow/clarity of the thing. I've also added in a new bullet point in the "What went wrong" section.)

And at the end when I say thanks to great friends and family, you were one of the people I was specifically thinking of. Thanks for your support and encouragement, mouser. (c:

Re this line from the writeup:
"I should have been working instead of playing." I think I disagree. If you work on a game and maybe you used those few minutes to fix something technical but suddenly discover at the end of the whole weekend that the result is miserably un-fun to actually play, to me that's the true heartbreak. Also I think playing *is* working because let's say as you are playing you suddenly discover that some aspect is really annoying, to me that's almost like a bug and then maybe you turn down the difficulty, or whatever. I peeked at a couple of older LD games from an earlier event, and I came across a few (that I didn't play) where people commented that the idea was cool but it turned out to be really hard.

Maybe there are some people who like their games tough, but if a game is so hard that I can't even get past the very early parts, I instantly lose interest. To me a more balanced game has a couple of really easy stages, a couple of "just easy" stages, a few medium ones, and then as it warms up it can pour on the difficulty. But if level 2 feels completely impossible, it's not my thing.
-TaoPhoenix (April 30, 2014, 10:33 PM)

I see what you're saying, but what I meant was that obviously I felt the game was fun because I spent several minutes at a time playing around with it when I'd already tested the new changes I'd made. I think it's good to test and make sure the game is fun. But I'd already established that, and I let the "fun-ness" of it distract me from actually developing it because I was having too much fun playing it. I guess what I'm saying is that I spent too much time playing with it, when much of that time could have been put to better use actually developing the game instead.

Something is misbehaving for me and I can't log into the LD site to comment. : (
-TaoPhoenix (April 30, 2014, 10:51 PM)

I'm not sure if this is the problem you're encountering, but the link under the top banner image pretty much always says "Login" even if you're already logged in. The way to know for sure if you're logged in is if you see the WordPress toolbar on the top of the page.

Here's an image to illustrate what I mean (it's kind of wide, so be sure to scroll to the right to see the whole thing):

Ludum Dare 29: April 25-28 Weekend

tomos · « **Reply #8 on:** May 01, 2014, 08:42 AM »

Love the game

and the blog post:

The game isn’t actually a game. It’s more of a toy. There’s no way to lose and there’s no way to win. You just play. But on the plus side, at least it’s fun.

it's great fun to play - I dont see why a game has to have those other aspects (?)
I wouldnt mind some board games like that: "no way to lose and ... no way to win"), would make playing against my niece (and some adults I know, a lot easier).

Deozaan · « **Reply #9 on:** May 01, 2014, 11:38 AM »

Thanks, Tomos. (c:

I guess you wouldn't know it since I listed it as a con, but I don't necessarily see it as a bad thing that a game is actually a toy. There are a number of videogames that are more like toys, where you just have fun playing with something rather than having a set goal or win/lose conditions. A lot of "sandbox" games have goals and conditions, but people just enjoy being able to do whatever they want with the mechanics.

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #10 on:** May 01, 2014, 12:08 PM »

I'm not sure if this is the problem you're encountering, but the link under the top banner image pretty much always says "Login" even if you're already logged in. The way to know for sure if you're logged in is if you see the WordPress toolbar on the top of the page.

Here's an image to illustrate what I mean (it's kind of wide, so be sure to scroll to the right to see the whole thing):
(see attachment in previous post)
-Deozaan (May 01, 2014, 01:35 AM)

That's most of it! So I'm logged in now! I'm not sure if that was there all five times I tried, say maybe four. I did see the note on the bottom of the page talking about Control-F5 to refresh the cache so I did that. But mostly I kept waiting for that "sign in" to change like most other sites do.

Heh now the good/bad news ... I'm a commenting addict! Sing along time!
"2500 Ludum Dare games on the wall, 2497 Ludum Dare games... take one down, play it around, 2496 Ludum Dare games on the wall!"

Heh there goes two hours!

Though I do think the LD site design is a little strange and unintuitive in places. What's a Potato?

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #11 on:** May 01, 2014, 12:19 PM »

Heh I don't have the magic touch. But I bet someone out there has the "magic touch" to control the worm gracefully!

tomos · « **Reply #12 on:** May 01, 2014, 05:16 PM »

Heh I don't have the magic touch. But I bet someone out there has the "magic touch" to control the worm gracefully!

-TaoPhoenix (May 01, 2014, 12:19 PM)

not me... it's very challenging
kept trying to get just above earth level to swallow as many of those measly humans as possible, but keep ending up doing sumersaults.

Such is life

Deozaan · « **Reply #13 on:** May 01, 2014, 08:08 PM »

I didn't realize it was that difficult. I've only seen one person besides myself play the game, and she also had troubles controlling the worm. But I just chalked that up to the fact that she's not much of a gamer.

Hmm... $:-\$

tomos · « **Reply #14 on:** May 01, 2014, 08:13 PM »

I didn't realize it was that difficult. I've only seen one person besides myself play the game, and she also had troubles controlling the worm. But I just chalked that up to the fact that she's not much of a gamer.

Hmm... $:-\$
-Deozaan (May 01, 2014, 08:08 PM)

Cant speak for Tao, but I'm not much of a gamer either.
And I found the difficulties entertaining (as well as challenging, as said).

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #15 on:** May 01, 2014, 08:54 PM »

I didn't realize it was that difficult. I've only seen one person besides myself play the game, and she also had troubles controlling the worm. But I just chalked that up to the fact that she's not much of a gamer.

Hmm... $:-\$
-Deozaan (May 01, 2014, 08:08 PM)

Maybe not! I beat the game! (Unless it's a bug!) It stopped spawning red guys.

And I do think I figured out the tricks.

1. The lack of distance markers is confusing so you have only temporal/time passing to guess where they are.
2. Do long slow strafing runs. Use the whole play bounds.
3. If you miss your run, abort mission and regroup. It's trying to overcorrect that's the problem.
4. Momentum matters. If you get stuck under the brown ground line, you can't still continue above it - it makes you "slide" uselessly under it. Abort mission.
5. No quick movements! We are pressing too hard on the control keys and then once it starts a loop abort mission!
6. You have to judge momentum very well, so that you can break the surface. Start a long slow approach, and then get ready to *tap* the key, not press it!

There are still some bugs. (Or just my comp!) My colors shifted to dark maroon for a while once!
I was about to take a screenshot.

Can anyone else clear enough people so they stop spawning?

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #16 on:** May 01, 2014, 08:55 PM »

I didn't realize it was that difficult. I've only seen one person besides myself play the game, and she also had troubles controlling the worm. But I just chalked that up to the fact that she's not much of a gamer.

Hmm... $:-\$
-Deozaan (May 01, 2014, 08:08 PM)

Cant speak for Tao, but I'm not much of a gamer either.
And I found the difficulties entertaining (as well as challenging, as said).
-tomos (May 01, 2014, 08:13 PM)

Heh Tomos see my big post I just did!

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #17 on:** May 02, 2014, 12:15 PM »

<Ben Stein> Deozaan? Tomos? </Ben Stein>

Deozaan · « **Reply #18 on:** May 02, 2014, 01:46 PM »

It's a bug. There are two inexplicable bugs that I've been made aware of:

1. Somehow, sometimes the people stop spawning
2. Somehow, sometimes the bullets stop hitting/hurting the worm.

As far as I'm aware, there's nothing in the game that should make it possible for the colors to shift. I'd guess it's your monitor or video card. But I could be wrong.

tomos · « **Reply #19 on:** May 02, 2014, 02:09 PM »

@Tao - is that your interview voice

Yes, your tips helped but the reason I'm not a good gamer is I still react to something going to far e.g. to the left, I react by pressing the right button with all my strength (poor keyboard) and of course then the worm/whaver moves too far in the other direction. So I'm not at your level - once I played it and there were very few left - I still couldn't get rid of them, but they didnt seem to be reproducing.

Ah, I see Deo just confirmed it as a bug

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #20 on:** May 02, 2014, 07:53 PM »

@Tao - is that your interview voice
-tomos (May 02, 2014, 02:09 PM)

Heh you just made me watch five episodes of Win Ben Stein's Money! : )

Deozaan · « **Reply #21 on:** May 20, 2014, 11:54 AM »

And the results are in!

http://www.ludumdare...compo/ludum-dare-29/