#ld72

[maggardjosh]

Our Ludum Dare Jam Entry “Monolith” is up!

Check it out!

[sam-from-cadott-blog]

First time I made a background for Ludum Dare

[damrem]

Better late than never, here is my result sheet for LD30! (jam)

[44dagainagain]

Ludum Dare 30 Results!

There were around 1000 Jam entries for Ludum Dare 30 (citation needed). I'm tired and slightly disappointed (spoilers!) but here's how my game held up. I threw in some of my thoughts for good measure.

Not as great as my first entry in Ludum Dare 24. No marks over 4.0 but nothing less than 3.0 so slightly better than average?

Humor is the highest ranking! And I find that super surprising. Most of the "humor" I added was probably in the last hour when I threw together the game over screens. And those were simply text on a black background. Soooooooo yeah. Interesting. I didn't really intend to make the game "humorous" it just sort of ended up that way I guess. I also find it strange that a 3.42 isn't my highest mark but is part of my highest ranking category? Okay sure, I'll roll with it.

Next is audio. The music was universally loved and it isn't even mine! It's "Mining by Moonlight" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) [aside: he makes some awesome royalty-free music go visit!]. The only reason I could use the audio was due to the relaxed rules of the Jam too. So I find it hard accepting that mark (which is the highest of all with a 3.68).

Then there's theme, which was "connected worlds" this time around. I expected to score lower because of my very loose interpretation of what constituted a "world". I won't go into my original vision for the game (which got butchered by the end of the jam) but it would have made the idea of countries as different "worlds" more apparent. And I cut all that stuff out and people still made the connection!

Innovation! I think I try the hardest each competition to innovate, to make something unique. But with connected worlds I guess you get a lot of games about manipulating graphs. Like mine, which is about manipulating graphs! Because graphs are inherently based around connections. Much innovation such wow.

Mood is fifth! Mood is fifth? I wanted jazzy, relaxing music but that's all I really consciously contributed to the mood. So uhhh ranking presented without comment?

3.41 (#248) overall. So top 25%? Again, no real comment here. The game was better than mediocre.

Fun is way down near the bottom and I sort of expected it there. The game ended up being hard. Frustratingly hard I think, which is a combination of bugs and lack of tutorial/instruction (both a result of not having enough time). These are easy things to fix...

Graphics are last. Are you surprised? I'm not surprised. The menu screens are basically white text on a black background. The game only has 1 image, essentially, and that's the overworld map. The graph is made up of simple circles and lines (and the things are hard to see). I short-changed graphics in terms of gameplay because I was running out of time.

I rated 25ish games so pretty bad coolness (1204 out of all 2500 entries so mid-pack).

I think the one important thing this compo taught me is that I refactor a lot. Waaaay too much. Or I spend too much time on features that end up getting cut. And it's all just wasted whereas I could have put it towards a tutorial, or more game mechanics, or anything else. I noticed it too with Ludum Dare 24, so I guess this just reinforces it: I need to stop wasting so much time!

I'm happy I made something, but I had a vision of a great game that I slowly strangled and contorted as the remaining time diminished. So I'm sort of sad to see this is the result. Maybe I'll actually make that game some day.

[nershly]

Video of SPIRIT SHIFT, based gam.

[damrem]

Postmortem Ludum Dare 30 - Delta Spaceline

LD30 was my 3rd jam only, my 2nd Ludum Dare, and my 1st one in solo. Just for the context, a bit of shameless self-promotion:

Choppy Fox for the Flappy Jam

From the Under for Ludum Dare #29 with RadStar

Delta Spaceline for Ludum Dare #30

What went wrong

I used external assets, what's forbidden by the compo rules. I discovered that when about to post at the compo deadline. When ticking the 'jam' box in the post form, I cancelled my post...

...and then actually went for the jam to give myself 72h cause 48h were not enough for me. My game wasn pointless therefore uninteresting at the jam deadline. It lacked 2 of the 3 key features: there was trading goods, but weren't neither passengers nor 10,000 credit-objective.

I'm not sure Haxeflixel actually made me save some time. I'd have needed a lib, not a framework.

A lot of UI, no prior design, so I wasted a lot of time positioning things.

I almost gave up at the middle of day #2 because of the pointlessness of the game, and because of UI bugs due to Haxeflixel...

      Sprites by Arachne Music Space Machine A by Kevin MacLeod

What went right

...but since I'm stubborn, I insisted, at least not to feel ashame. I quickly fixed the bugs thanks to a refactoring I had actually nearly completed.

Having 1 more day game me time to add the 2 more key features I spoke of above. I then found an interest in playing my game when I noticed I could lose some time when testing! My very critical wife tested it, and after a few minutes of incomprehension, understood the concept and approved it!

This 'What went right' section seems a bit short, but I am globally satisfied by both process and result, and I learnt a lot during this jam. I generally enjoy those intense work-session, who can be very productive rewarding.

What's next

I'll post Delta Spaceline on various portals to have more feedback. I need to work on the proportion, 960x480 doesn't fit, at least on Kongregate.

If feedback's positive, I could go for some more features:

more goods

energy for the ship could be a good (it was at the beginning, but I had to simplify)

bounty hunting (a planet ask you to go to another planet to capture a criminal to bring him back, it would cost weapons, but offers good rewards)

ship upgrades (more cargo, engine more efficient)

Next Ludum

More design at the beginning. Design UI could help conceptualize.

Then get a fully playable prototype asap, and keep UI and graphics for the end.

Get more feedback sooner.

No use of Haxeflixel, or only some side-feature, not the framework in itself. I wanted to experiment Phaser, but got to check if it can be used as a lib only.

No waste of time on graphics. Tiny sprites. Details only at the end.

[make-a-game-blog]

Incoming Title Screen

These moles mean business.

[make-a-game-blog]

Burrow into my heart