Ludum Dare starts this weekend in roughly 5 hours as of me posting this! I will be entering the solo 48 hour competition :), is anyone else entering? If quick enough, you may be able to form a team for the 72 hour competition :). Good luck to those entering, I will try and keep you posted
Also don’t forget to vote for the theme :), the final themes for voting are:
Break The System
Chaos
Clones
Connections
Contamination
Corruption
Creation
Death is Useful
Duel
End of The Universe
Falling
Fortress
Four Elements
Genetics
Illusion
Night And Day
No Enemies
No Violence
Two Colors
You Only Get One
I’ve done a couple LDs, it’s really fun. I usually give it a serious attempt (more fun that way I think - but to each his own) - for me that means 12+ hour days.
What has worked for me:
Get enough sleep and some “unwinding”-time or it will be boring.
Try to find someone else who is entering and work in the same room, you can bounce ideas and just have company for lunch.
Divide the work in chunks. I usually spend day 1 building the game play (sometimes with only println as output) and day 2 doing content - graphics and sound. If you decide that you should spend 4 hours in blender then spend 4 hours in blender and go with whatever you have in that time. All too easy spending a whole day tweaking some mesh.
Always reduce the scope, you will never, ever, have time to do all that you thought
Have fun.
I didn’t have enough spare time this weekend but next time I’ll enter. Good luck to all participants.
@javagame said:
Nice, thank you. Also, the site keeps talking about base code and preparation, have you done any?
I’ve done 0 preparation, actually I haven’t used jME in a few weeks, so will be interesting! I wouldn’t worry about the base code, thats generally if you are using libraries you’ve written before (of which i’m using none), you should declare them otherwise just get coding!
Cheers guys! time to get started, hmm “You Only Get One” interesting xD
I’ve not done any coding yet, just modelling the stuff I need. Mine will be called “Console Wars”, it will have 3 levels.
1 - Will be first person, in a store on Black Friday, you must fight through the crowd to get a PS4/Xbox 1 (Only 1 available!) for Xmas (they can choose :)).
2 - You are in your house, and you get info that someone knows you have a limited edition next gen console and will kill you for it! So you get your thermal goggles and sniper rifle that come with your limited edition Battlefield 4 :). You get “one” shot to kill him before he kills you (snipe him in a forest behind your house)
3 - It’s now too dangerous to stay here, so you get airlifted, and are under attack by some other people, and you use a special guided gun with 25mm rounds (enough to penetrate), and must navigate a bullet through the fuel cap of the AC130, through the fuel line, and self-detonate it in main fuel tank of the aircraft (you also only get 1 shot!).
In my game, its night time, pitch black, you only have a torch to fend off the zombies. Your torch is constantly flickering and flashing, and every time it turns back on, there’s a zombie following you! You have to somehow survive for as long as possible, but you know that as soon as a zombie hits you, the chances are that torch is going to go out for good. 3 lives, 1 torch, how will you keep the zombies away?
So far I have most of the basic game code done, and its already a tip. Without proper planning and structure for the code its getting harder and harder through navigate through the IDE, so good thing this isn’t my main project! I’m almost ready to start designing a map, and after that a proper zombie model. The Sound effects are the best though, The music is me playing some out of key eerie notes on the flute, and then completely messed up on audacity, plus some awesome zombie impressions! Taking a break now though, having a game of smite I’ve been at it for hours!
@Wezrule your models look great, are they not textured though? Also, your idea sounds fun. Do you think you’ll have time to finish it? I’m in UK timezone so it started at 2am for me, then I had work for 3 hours this morning so I’ve not even got in a good 8 hours of game making yet…
looks good :). Yep most of them aren’t textured yet, I may have overextended myself once again… :S will see how it goes lol. I’m UK time as well, done 11 hours so far, lost concentration a few times. Gonna call it a day in 30 mins, then go for a run to burn off the energy drinks and jack daniels! hopefully I will have a chance of sleeping then xD
cheers. Unfortunately I yet again overextended myself! I won’t be able to make the 48 hours one (needed a few more hours), but I will finish what I have tomorrow after work, and submit it to the 72 hour team one. Racked up 28 hours so far (all recorded)
@Wezrule unlucky man, I was looking forward to playing it
Forgot to post in here after I submitted last night. I think the game turned out pretty decent for my first 48 hr one, but I think I should have stuck with the cartoony graphics. tired to model and texture a zombie, it used up alot of time and end up looking quite bad. The gameplay isn’t too bad though which is the main thing.
nice one :), and fear not, I have just finished mine :). It’s fully playable and completeable and it’s exactly what I wanted to achieve with it, although better graphics would have been nice :P. There’s a couple known graphical issues which I didn’t have time to sort out, but nevermind,
I will post an update once I render the ~32 hours of timelapse footage tomorrow (can’t wait to see it myself :)). The game’s graphics aren’t the best (I didn’t have much time to do much texturing), but each level (there’s 3) does have a different unique challenge!
@javagame great job mate, scary as hell and atmospheric, you even got sound! Nice sense of progression and re replayability to beat your best score. Feels very polished for such a short time. Putting the torch key on B was genius, makes it awkward to use and really adds to the panic.
hahah cool, great job @wezrule, it’s like you made 3 games in 1 !!! I like how it had story and I wasn’t expecting the drama and mayhem in the store (no spoilers).
Best of luck to the both of you!
All you other monkeys should take 10 minutes out of your day to try these games, they are fun and inspiring to a fellow developer, and a great showcase for the engines prototyping ability (aka extremely limited time frame).
so it would look quite crummy
so it never really works out to plan lol
I wouldn’t worry about the base code, thats generally if you are using libraries you’ve written before (of which i’m using none), you should declare them otherwise just get coding! 
I won’t be able to make the 48 hours one (needed a few more hours), but I will finish what I have tomorrow after work, and submit it to the 72 hour team one. Racked up 28 hours so far (all recorded)