Ludum Dare 31: December 5th-8th, 2014

[Deozaan]

Ludum Dare 31 is almost upon us. Just 10 days left until it begins!

This thread can be used for any and all discussion regarding the event and the games entered into the competition/jam. I'm also planning on participating, so I'll also be posting about my experience and my entry here as well.

For now, the Theme Slaughtering is happening. Go ahead and vote on the themes, if you'd like.

See previous DC posts about Ludum Dare:
Ludum Dare 30 - (I made Planetary Devourers during LD30)
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]

Theme voting has begun!

http://ludumdare.com/compo/2014/11/29/ludum-dare-31-theme-voting/

[Deozaan]

Ludum Dare 31 starts in about 25 minutes.

I'll be streaming my development off and on over the next few days, so you might be able to catch me on http://twitch.tv/Deozaan (especially Saturday and Monday).

[Deozaan]

Phew! It's over. I submitted my entry a little over 2 hours ago and have just returned from a celebration breakfast/dinner (breakfunner) at IHOP.

I had a bit of a harder time with this one than previous ones, but I still had a finished game by the end of it, so it's a success. If anyone wants to see the game I made, you can find it here:

http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-31/?action=preview&uid=3156

And you can browse all LD31 entries on Itch.io here:

http://ludumdare.itch.io/

[TaoPhoenix]

More of my LD explorations!

First up:
A Phoenix Easy hysterical parody of beginner computer users!

Escape Character
http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-31/?action=preview&uid=46572
http://toastygames.com/escchar/Web.html

Bug notes from the site:
I am so sorry if you experience difficulty clicking on things. It appears to be related to frame rate, and I did not know this since I only tested on my own machine. =( Thanks for your patience!

Web players, press Escape if you want control of your mouse back. Don't worry if you don't see it, it's still there, just invisible when over the game area.

My tip:
If it's not already easy enough, when you get to the smash-things stage, there's no AI - just pool table geometry. So there's lots of safe strategies rather than frantically jockeying in the middle of the screen.

Trivia: That clock in the bottom right seems to be actually dynamic close to realtime.

[attachimg=#]

[TaoPhoenix]

Phew! It's over. I submitted my entry a little over 2 hours ago and have just returned from a celebration breakfast/dinner (breakfunner) at IHOP.

I had a bit of a harder time with this one than previous ones, but I still had a finished game by the end of it, so it's a success. If anyone wants to see the game I made, you can find it here:

http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-31/?action=preview&uid=3156

And you can browse all LD31 entries on Itch.io here:

http://ludumdare.itch.io/

Good effort.

Not sure what all the bottlenecks were.

Because of the very weak AI, this game is Phoenix Easy. With more time it wouldn't be too hard to add at least a medium level of AI.

Here's a very early-game screenshot.

[attachimg=#]

[TaoPhoenix]

Wayang

A really artsy take on ancient Greek style mythological war.

NOTE:
My reviews often have "spoilers" that are designed to make seemingly brutally hard games doable. I saw this one on the Button Masher Bros Ludum Dare to Believe Season 3 Episode 8, and I noted their concerns with the clunky combat controls (and slow pacing) that I agree with.

However, in my ratings, "once you know a couple of tricks", that tends to crank down my ratings down to that funny category of "Medium-Easy". This is one of them.

First, the basics.

http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-31/?action=preview&uid=44846
http://xlash86.itch.io/wayang

[attachthumb=#]

It's a fascinating concept to make it a "shadow play" with sticks and marionettes.

Tips:
- I chose this pic because it's the key one that stumped the B-Bros. Your forward block is really good, but it suddenly gets really tough to handle a two sided attack because of the loose controls. The way to do it is get good at the spawn points and then dispatch the backward threats pronto, especially since the dog is long range. Divide and Conquer. And yes, hits count. It doesn't show them - you get something like a total of nine for the game, and you need them for the boss at the end.

- Use the slow pacing in your favor. There's finite numbers of threats, not a "super-spawn". So you can take your time with the double-front attackers and hold down block until they do their strikes in the timed sequence.

- When you get to the Boss lair, it will spawn "finisher" minions behind you once it "kicks the boss sequence going" - but they aren't there earlier. But the boss will follow you when you run backward. So if you run all the way back to your home base, the spawn minions can't get past your home base to distract you. Without his flank finisher minions, the boss is a snap!

That's why it's "only" Medium-Easy. It takes a little of clever reflexes in a couple of places, but especially with that boss trick, it stops feeling brutal.

Fun little game!

[TaoPhoenix]

Clutch the Crown
http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-31/?action=preview&uid=36526
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/115413151/ClC/ClC.html

A pleasant very simple strategy game in which you keep your position fortified and get some miners to dig the crown fastest to your side.

Miners - dig
Knights - either knock off enemy diggers, take swipes at enemy knights, or weaken their fortress.
Upgrade your keep - there is an initial cost but then you build gold faster.

[attachthumb=#]

This game is Phoenix Easy. A very basic starter strategy is to let the enemy race to build a couple of miners first. Instead, you get a knight to knock them out, and build up your tower fast. Then you use the resource advantage to keep the enemy crippled for resources.

Only then you slide a couple miners here and there. You can afford to lose a couple, because you're chipping at your overall goal while the enemy can't figure out what to spend its money on.

It's a decent AI, it tries pretty well, it's just a nice pleasant game to win easily.

One of the fun little bits of LD is abusing the side bugs for funny effects. This is a funny post-win screen shot because the game actually keeps going at half level after you win.

[attachimg=#]

Update: The best strategy I found so far is to summon one miner "to nibble away at the goal" while the computer tries to race to the finish. But then you build all three levels of the energy-producing keep to accelerate, and then drill alternating a few knights and more miners of your own to dominate and win.

[TaoPhoenix]

Quick lists of games without a full review:
Egg Empire
http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-31/?action=preview&uid=18798
http://www.allgamedevelopment.com/LudumDare/EggEmpire.html

(Just one for now! Time fo bed!)

[Deozaan]

Thanks for posting these. I finally got around to trying out some of the ones you've mentioned.

Thanks again!