WARNING: This post is way too long. Like 10 pages of text. Really.
2012 gave me plenty to think about. But despite a year of evenings and weekends, the only games I finished were 48 hour sprints. That sucks. How did it happen?
A Year in Indie-a
Ludum Dare 25: “A.R.M.: Alien Research Mission”
Flight, unethical experiments and wanton destruction.
All the mayhem I could pack into 48 hours of development.
It’s A.R.M., the Alien Research Mission for purely peaceful purposes.*
The time saved doing horrible programmer graphics liberated hours to spend
- tuning the physics,
- giving the CRT a certain je ne sais quoi,
- creating really stupid sound effects,
- re-tracking an old song for use as background music, and
- creating even more horrible programmer graphics.
You haven’t done anything stupider today; I guarantee it.
Download for Windows | Download for OSX
- Unzip the file for your platform.
- Run the included executable.
Download for Linux (runnable JAR)
- You may be able to double-click the JAR; otherwise:
java -jar LD25game.jar
Web Version
- There is no web version.
* Peaceful purposes include all purposes covered in your waiver. Habitation of this planet [ Earth ] constitutes acceptance of the waiver.
Ludum Dare Live
UPDATE: User Streams
The following people stated their intent to stream. The bold, starred* ones were active and appeared to be working on games, last time I checked.
- amassingham
- bigbass1997
- danlthemanl
- DaviDeMo*
- edg3*
- Folis
- galman33
- hume*
- mozzfly
- Nick Cash
- Perrin
- quill18
- raptor851*
- rvmook
- spooderw
- xBlinkedx
- Yaru
- zairon
- voidah
- zoomyzoom*
If you haven’t checked out the Ludum Dare site, you really should.
It’s my first time competing, but I’ve gone through the archives and it seems like it’s been growing like crazy, and for this, the tenth anniversary, it’s completely out of control. There were over 600 submissions last time. No prizes, just people doing it for the love. Amazing!
The event isn’t all for people making games. It’s for people who want to learn about the process; it’s also for people who love to play games and want to see some really creative artists in action. While the competition is running, there should be tons of people streaming their epic battles with code and art, mostly on Twitch.tv, Justin.tv and Livestream.com; those streams should start to get very interesting as the games congeal on Sunday. Here are some search links to get you started:
- Live Ludum Dare streams on Justin.TV
- ludum dare 23 on Twitch TV
- ld48 on Twitch TV
- Ludum Dare streams on LiveStream.com (click the Live Now tab)
If you plan on streaming your own stuff, add your streaming link in the comments. I’ll retweet this post Saturday night and Sunday midday (GMT-4). Get the word out!
Finally, as always, good luck.
Getting Ready for Ludum Dare: Countdown Checklist
Ludum Dare, the 48 hour death march game writing competition, is this weekend.
While I expect to fail, there are different kinds of failure:
Good Ludum Dare failure:
Contestant goes out in a blaze of glory. Contestant was too ambitious; head exploded.
Bad Ludum Dare failure:
Contestant collapses in a frustrated heap. Contestant couldn’t get game to run in a web page. Batteries in contestant’s mouse died. Contestant couldn’t think straight from lack of food and staying up all night Thursday.
With that in mind, here’s what I’m doing to prepare:
- Readying my brainstorming and design tools. Sketchpad, tablet, Photoshop, outliner application, whiteboard, crayons, whatever…just make sure it’s ready to go. I don’t want to spend a lot of time drawing non-game-art when I could be coding or crafting, but I do intend to sketch out my plan to keep me focused. This will keep me on track when I start to get tired. Also, if things aren’t going as well as I planned (which is most of the time), a good design outline/sketch makes it more obvious what can be dropped from the plan.
- Preparing my development tools and references. Verify free disk space. Prepare a clean project for the competition. Create shortcuts and/or aliases to code I’ll want to refer to, and websites that I always use, e.g. the 3D Math section at Euclidean Space.
- Ensure my project skeleton (structure and makefile) is sane. Make sure I can build a game with my libraries when the time comes. Create a clean empty project that includes needed libraries. Test this by making a copy, and building a minimal program in the copy — something that loads and displays a title screen and plays some music. Then see if the build works. My game will run in a web page, so I have to upload the test program and make sure it can load the resources it uses. I also write code on a Mac most of the time, so I have to try my test application in Windows to be sure it is going to work there. I need to submit my source code too, so a script to package that up would not be a bad idea.
- Look at old projects. Look for repeated common code. Don’t spend time writing loggers when you could be pushing pixels. I’m adding frequently used routines now to my personal library, and then I’m going to quit thinking about it. Remember, if you’re going to use your own libraries, you need to share them so that everybody can use them. This is something to think about this more than 5 minutes before the start of the competition. I have to package everything up and upload it somewhere — I will use one of my web sites, but Dropbox would probably be fine — then post to the Ludum Dare blog so that other people can have a look at what I’m using. It’s only fair.
- Stock up on energy and resources. Get lots of sleep, and have food ready, along with whatever other supplies you’re going to need. My mouse uses batteries, so I have extras on hand, and a backup wired mouse.
- Book the time. Explain to family, friends and needy acquaintances that it’s probably in their best interests, and yours, if they will leave you alone between X:00 Friday and X:00 Sunday. It’s competition time!
Yes, the point of this is to learn and have a good time. But it’s worth doing a little planning.
Okay, I’m breathing easier now. Did I miss anything? Leave a comment and I’ll add it to the list.
I’m really looking forward to seeing the theme and what everybody does with it. There are a lot of really talented people competing. Check out the blog: there’s some amazing stuff going on there.
One final thing: don’t forget to vote for the theme! First rule of democracy: when you don’t vote, you don’t get to complain. Well, you still can, but people will call you an idiot behind your back.
See you Friday!
Anonymous asked: entity system
That’s not a question! But it does feel like a secret weapon. :)
Actually I talked about my Entity Systems experience at length in a comment thread over here. Have a look if you’re still interested.
