Author Topic: Ludum Dare 30: August 22-25, 2014 (Read 61309 times)

Deozaan · « **on:** August 09, 2014, 01:36 PM »

Ludum Dare 30 is coming up fast! It will begin in just under 14 days!

This thread is the general purpose LD30 thread. Any discussion about LD30 and its games can be posted here. I plan to participate again, so I'll probably be posting about my game in this thread, but feel free to talk about any LD30 games in this thread. Also, if you know anything about coding or game making, you should participate in Ludum Dare 30! And if you don't, you should still take this opportunity to join in and learn!

Right now the Theme Slaughtering has begun. You can help decide which theme will inspire literally thousands of games by taking part in the slaughtering. I believe the slaughtering will last only a week and then the theme voting will begin.

See previous DC posts about Ludum Dare:
Ludum Dare 29 - (I made It Came From... Beneath!! during LD29)
Ludum Dare [29] topic for other games - A thread about LD29 games.
Ludum Dare 23 - (I made Be Tiny, World! during LD23, and continued to work on it and improve it for years afterward!)
Ludum Dare - Game Programming Challenges

Deozaan · « **Reply #1 on:** August 09, 2014, 01:45 PM »

I've got a moral dilemma! I really don't like this theme. But it feels wrong to slaughter children. Oh, what to do?

Shades · « **Reply #2 on:** August 09, 2014, 02:06 PM »

It is GOOD that the SLAUGHTER of Children leaves a BAD taste with you...

Deozaan · « **Reply #3 on:** August 16, 2014, 03:06 PM »

The slaughter is over. Now it's time to vote on the theme!

http://www.ludumdare...theme-voting-begins/

Deozaan · « **Reply #4 on:** August 17, 2014, 03:40 PM »

Round 2 of the voting is open!

http://www.ludumdare...voting-round-2-of-5/

Deozaan · « **Reply #5 on:** August 18, 2014, 09:22 AM »

Round 3 is open!

http://www.ludumdare...voting-round-3-of-5/

Round 1 ends tomorrow.

Deozaan · « **Reply #6 on:** August 19, 2014, 11:09 AM »

Round 4 is open!

http://www.ludumdare...voting-round-4-of-5/

Round 1 is now closed. Here are the results of Round 1:

http://www.ludumdare...voting-round-1-of-5/

Deozaan · « **Reply #7 on:** August 19, 2014, 08:02 PM »

Round 2 is now closed. Here are the results:

http://www.ludumdare...voting-round-2-of-5/

Deozaan · « **Reply #8 on:** August 20, 2014, 08:55 PM »

Rounds 3 and 4 are now closed.

Final round (top 20 of the first 4 rounds) is open!

http://www.ludumdare...voting-round-5-of-5/

Deozaan · « **Reply #9 on:** August 22, 2014, 08:00 PM »

The theme for Ludum Dare 30 is: Connected Worlds

Don't expect to hear much of anything from me for the next few days. I'll be too busy Daring to Ludum. Or something.

Deozaan · « **Reply #10 on:** August 25, 2014, 09:09 PM »

Let the rating begin!

The Ludum Dare 30 competition/jam is officially over. Now there will be about 3 weeks in which you can play and rate the submitted games.

I just submitted my game a few minutes ago. Play it and rate it here:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=3156

Deozaan · « **Reply #11 on:** August 27, 2014, 05:36 PM »

I've been playing through some of the LD30 entries so I can rate them. I'm attempting to record videos of my playthroughs. I had some troubles with my microphone, either getting the volume right, or forgetting that I had it on mute, etc. :-D

Here's my playlist:

https://www.youtube....RUMKtwlILCYC7yKrdAhc

And one of my favorite games so far:

Flicker - PapaCheech - 48 Hour Compo Entry

And another notable entry:

Starpiercer - Schrodinger Games - Jam Entry

mouser · « **Reply #12 on:** August 31, 2014, 03:06 AM »

I can't tell you how impressed I am with the way you tackle these. Not just your ability to follow through and consistently finish and submit an entry, but that you go the extra mile and write up the experience and document it.

As for your entry, I liked it!! The sounds and the movement felt satisfying -- I find that's a hard thing for developers to get right in a game, and yours worked for me. And the puzzle mechanic was pretty damn clever.

I loved the tutorial level and the text boxes that accompanied it -- I think you captured a nice Cthulhu spirit.

I did have some initial trouble understanding the rules, despite the tutorial.. Took me some time to figure out the critical idea about planet size, and the shield generators could be a little hard to see.

But seriously, this was a damn impressive entry

Deozaan · « **Reply #13 on:** September 01, 2014, 01:42 PM »

Thanks mouser!

That reminds me that I forgot to post about my experience write-up. It's all in the following blog post:

Ludum Dare 30 - A Postpartum

I made a timelapse and even a little "trailer" video for my game. The timelapse can be found at the link above. I'll include the "trailer" below:

Deozaan · « **Reply #14 on:** September 16, 2014, 01:14 AM »

The results of voting are in!

http://www.ludumdare...s-for-ludum-dare-30/

There was a survey that Ludum Dare participants could take, and here are the results:

http://www.ludumdare...om/compo/survey2014/

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #15 on:** September 23, 2014, 12:29 AM »

I caught up with this, and it's a cute little puzzle game!

(Semi-Obvious) key strategy tips for his game:
- The size of the planet determines how many hits it can take as you loop around to get the shield generators.
- You do NOT have to do one of those "hit every planet to clear the board"; only what it takes to get out. So the whole point of his designs is there are lots of red herrings, both big and small.
- It turns out though without a level counter that I could see, I got to level 7, because it's , aka one of the big direction choices is the red herring because it leaves you in the wrong place to finish the board, and sometimes they run deep.

Some less obvious ones:
- Unlike composed chess studies, sometimes there are alternate solutions. (What is the word for that? Isomorphic?) Level six has a beautiful symmetrical butterfly look to it, and I think it has at least a twin solution.
- Turns out Level 7 is the last one. So my tip is look at the section with the guarded shield gate and count the number of paths connecting the shieldgate planet between the two sections. Ignore all the chaos for a bit and use a bit of game theory to think about directionality in the final couple of steps. This game has some nice similarities to old puzzle books I used to read as a child. (Do they even make those anymore in this web age?)

With those tips I beat the game on my second try, so I rate it Phoenix-easy, which was nice. : ) (I luv being able to rate games at that level!)

From Deozaan's Post Partum blog:

What didn’t go so well:
1. The problem with it being a puzzle game is that I couldn’t judge how hard or easy or fun it was. Since I was designing the puzzles, I already knew all the solutions, so it seemed a little boring and easy to me. I probably should have gotten a couple of people to play it while I was working on it to see their reaction to help me judge the difficulty of the game. Though from the feedback I’ve received thus far, it seems even other players can’t agree on the difficulty, with some saying the difficulty curve was just right to others saying they got tired of losing so much and didn’t finish it.

Edit: Since it's public now, I'll just re-post the final level 7 here, and people can ponder it in the comfort of eating pretzels before they start re-playing the game.
Deozaan LD30 Level 7 the first really tricky one.jpg

Deozaan LD30 Level 7 the first really tricky one.jpg

I felt quite free to use the level reload by pressing "r". Seeing how far I get this time...

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #16 on:** September 23, 2014, 12:31 AM »

Completely tangent topic but derived from here, Deozaan used http://soundtraxxmusic.com/ , which has royalty free music. There's also a hosted podcast on there too about how the concept works. "Royalty Free" sounds a lot like Creative Commons Attribution Only.

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #17 on:** September 23, 2014, 01:07 AM »

I've been playing through some of the LD30 entries...
-Deozaan (August 27, 2014, 05:36 PM)

I am feeling a little better these days, so I will peek at some of the LD30 games too! Let's see if I can find a few more pleasant "Phoenix-Rated Easy or Medium ones!" And I'm armed with six hours of sleep, some American cheese and a monster drink!

Plus, despite Deozaan being a minor deity (heh which pantheon?), I wonder if I'll be utterly mesmerized again with one like I was with Undermined last time.

Even if not, I like posting a few strategy cracks to bring down a game that initially looks Cthulu-Hard into one of the Phoenix categories. After all, I'm just a senile ol' birdie, if I can do it, so can you!

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #18 on:** September 23, 2014, 04:20 AM »

Misc Stuff

- guys called the Button Masher Bros do writeups on playing some of the games, in a podcast. It's good, amusing fun as they struggle with some of the games, or quietly freak at game surprises, and sometimes even the user names!

Here's "Episode 11" from this compo.
http://www.ludumdare...to-believe-s2-ep-11/

------------------------------------
The main organizer says he wants to get a little bit of money for his time after so much work.
Some posts exploring the options:
(I haven't listened to the podcasts, just skimming before I start playing.)

Part 1: Outlining the problem
http://www.ludumdare...f-ludum-dare-part-1/

Part 2: Concerns
http://www.ludumdare...f-ludum-dare-part-2/

---------------------------------------------------

Raw entry page for LD30

I've always found the LD site a little strange in layout. (And per that discussion, I'm not the only one!) They've already flipped into planning for the next event, and it's far from intuitive how to get to the master list of LD30. It doesn't currently seem to be listed in "recent events" yet.

Fortunately it seems like they use a standard pattern for their structure.

http://www.ludumdare...e-30/?action=preview

So I think you can change that number to anything and get any of the original game lists.

-------------
Off topic grump:
My wireless modem keeps misbehaving, and it just went down again a half hour ago as I as about to play stuff, so I unplugged it and hard plugged my comp directly into the main modem. Onward!

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #19 on:** September 23, 2014, 08:07 AM »

Okay, here come a few games!

First entry in the hysterical humor department (with great art too!) :

Going Postal!
https://dl.dropboxus...oing_Postal_Web.html

A good effort by a novice dev:
Bus
http://www.ludumdare...review&uid=40724
Rating is in fact Phoenix Easy, (just with some delaying tactics because you can't save levels), because the first few levels are a total snap, and a little inspired lateral thinking added to typical arcade timing reflexes wins the last one featuring two planes. My spoiler is on the LD page because everyone seemed to get stuck on it.

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #20 on:** September 23, 2014, 11:37 AM »

Here's a nice one!
Linker
http://www.ludumdare...review&uid=25969

The basics are easy to learn - you draw lines between planets to form defense lines to stop missiles. As people have said, it's a variant on Tower Defense but with geometry instead of firing stuff at monsters.

Playability tip - for me starting at level 5, I couldn't figure out how to block a bunch of missiles from the bottom. That's because part of my play screen was scrolled out of sight. Fiddle with scrolling out and/or resolution. There's no super secret trick. I only figured it out because I checked the Bro webcast and they had an extra planet on their screen.

Rated Phoenix Medium-Hard with the following tips below.
- *Really* check your angles and gauge the speeds of the missiles and try to make your defense lines do double duty blocking two sets of missles.
- You *can* let a very few through, so you have to plan some fast strategy. So stuff like there may be a couple missiles left in a wave, re-draw the line to stop the next real threat.
- I had to re-draw lines back and forth really fast a few times because sometimes you can swap two sets of defense lines against paired sets of hordes. Remember, check your angles. So I remember one case where missiles had to travel across the whole screen, which meant they're "next second's threat, not this second's."

Stuff like that.

The levels move pretty quick, including dying in five seconds! And even when you win they move at a good clip. I beat the game, but I can easily see how someone could get jammed up.

Here's part of level 7:

Ludum Dare 30: August 22-25, 2014

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #21 on:** September 23, 2014, 01:56 PM »

Okay, that's it for now!

Deozaan · « **Reply #22 on:** September 23, 2014, 07:09 PM »

I caught up with this, and it's a cute little puzzle game!
-TaoPhoenix (September 23, 2014, 12:29 AM)

Thanks for your review of my game! It was really nice to hear a more thorough review. I appreciate your feedback.

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #23 on:** October 08, 2014, 06:55 PM »

Hey Deozaan!

For your next Ludum Dare, what if you made a game starring Cody and Baby Cody?
Whee!

Deozaan · « **Reply #24 on:** October 08, 2014, 07:01 PM »

That would be fun... Except I am not good at art, and I don't have the kind of things I'd need. Like a fully rigged/animated 3D model of Cody & Baby Cody. Or fully animated sprite sheets of Cody & Baby Cody.

And it's hard to have those in advance when you don't know the theme, and thus don't know what kind of game you'll end up making until it's time to make it.