Ludum Dare 32 is next weekend - Are you in? And what do people normally do when they participate?

Going into Ludum Dare this time! Had a question though, I saw this on the Ludum Dare Site

"PSA: Unity Player is no longer compatible with Chrome"
"As of Chrome 42 (released April 14th), Unity Player, Java, and Silverlight games will no longer work in Chrome (i.e. NPAPI plugins). There is a clumsy user workaround, but you might seriously want to take a look at the HTML5 export found in Unity 5 instead."

Can anyone explain to me the HTML way to export it? It is sorta the same way that I can put it in dropbox and use the link from it? Thanks!

Edit: sorry for my ignorance. I just read through the previous post and saw you guys already noted this,

 

If your player works as intended then you can share it with dropbox the same way you did with webplayer ( on index.html, copy public link). On Unity's side, it's just another export option. There just might be issues with it not working correctly as it's in preview right now.

 

@Tanel That's what most Ludum Dare streams are like.

No streaming plans here. Haven't got the discipline I think. I may go out with some friends tomorrow night and then I'll probably be hungover on sunday.

Time zones suck. I'm going to bed in an hour or two. Then I'll be like 8 hours behind immediately. And to top it off I absolutely hate programming at home before the sun goes down. My body just keeps telling me that it's wrong and I should be doing something else.

But I'll try my best to pull through. It should be a fun learning experience.

 

Was too excited to sleep. Then I woke up to this. Bah, I hate this theme. I wrote down some ideas for the top 5 themes from the first 4 rounds yesterday and had completely awesome ideas for some of them. This one I didn't bother with because I knew it would be some kind of boring shooter.

But now I guess I have to see if I can think of anything fun to do with this theme.

Betting we'll see a thousand food fight, super soaker, kitten launcher, snow ball type games. Any shooter where you fire unconventional durr things.

 

Ok, I got it. Finally. An idea on par with my initial ideas for the other themes I think. Its roots are old school.

I will detail it in my WIP thread when I create it.

 

One more quick question: Can you submit/update your entry as many times as you like on the Ludum Dare page?

Let's say I want to update it there during the compo at the same time as I update my WIP thread.

Or is it 1 submit and that's final? It's not clear from the submit form.

 

Yes can edit the entry page as much as needed.


btw. one extra note, dont use patch release if want to make webplayer
"Please be aware that you cannot build and release a Web Player game with a patch release, as the runtime will not be updated with patch versions."
http://unity3d.com/unity/qa/patch-releases

 

Thanks, mgear.

Here's what I have at the moment:
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/ludum-dare-32-telefragger.319700/

I feel like it's very little. Getting the idea took me a long time and I realized I don't have any good character controllers for either 2D or 3D. And all the standard assets ones are S***.

But I'm looking at the Ludum Dare twitch category and it seems lot of people are struggling more than me.

 

I'm liking the theme

 

What happened here? It was so lively before the weekend.

My Unity has crashed almost 10 times today. Something in Unity 5 is a lot more unstable than it was in Unity 4.

 

Watching http://www.twitch.tv/quill18

0 Crashes here on 5.0.1 so far..

My game is nearing failure..but going to put some more particles & stuff to it

 

Yeah, I'm watching him as well. He seems to be able to just throw things into his game while I keep spending hours tweaking the smallest details. Fun to see someone with a completely different approach to game development. An approach probably a lot more suited to game jams.

I'm sadly not enjoying this. My game is turning out great, but I don't find the process to be fun. It sort of emulates the worst part of my job. Insane deadlines because some customer decided on a friday he needs some amazing feature by monday. I guess I'll write a postmortem when I'm done as a reminder for me never to do this again. And I'll treat this one as a character building experience.

I've been at it for 18 hours straight now. Going to try and get my game feature complete before I go to bed.

If these 18 hours were spread out over 4-5 days I would be having a blast now. At least now I know this isn't for me.

 

I have an idea for a game but havent started yet.

 

Looks like the last few hours will be intense. So many things missing atm. Got a bit too ambitious game idea + its going to be a first person game
--> back to Unity

 

Don't worry you're not alone, I participated in one a bit ago and I came to the same conclusion. I'm used to crunching at work for last minute management requests and I don't enjoy it, so when I got about halfway into the jam I decided I really wasn't having any fun as it felt like work again.

It was informative as far as illustrating which areas I am too slow in though, so still worthwhile to do(once) for me.

 

Yeah, I feel the same way.

If I'm actually able to complete this game it will be the first proper game I've made in Unity. And I spent 1 weekend on it, and I've been using Unity for 8 years or something. That in itself tells me this is a worthwhile "investment", but it's not something I'll willingly repeat.

My main script is still named NewPlayerController and my project is named Test5. I just want to organize it all, but there's no time. This is by far the crudest work I've ever produced in terms of "meaningless" details like keeping everything on a even grid, naming everything correctly, organizing everything and I'm able to work lightning fast because of it. I should at least keep some of that in mind for later. I think 48 hours on one of my hobby projects would result in 1 particle effect refined and redone 100 times.

If all game developers tried a jam at least once we would have a lot less failed kickstarters. You realize how long certain things take to implement or how much time it actually takes to polish something when you try to do it all in 48 hours.

 

Crap crap crap, Quill is making menus, writing the credits etc. while I'm still implementing features and my world.

 

Cool to see someone actually developing in Assembly language especially for Ludum Dare. lol

http://www.twitch.tv/morphcat

 

Here's first version,
will be doing some updates tomorrow still (Jam entry)

Final version:
http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-32/?action=preview&uid=27533

 

@mgear WOW that's really neat! Took me awhile to understand what the gravity balls are suppose to do.

Anyways, heres my submission
http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-32/?action=preview&uid=10826

You'll probably need to use Internet Explorer to play it, but yeah... Was making it while on vacation to the beach with my family, so I didn't have enough time nor did I have the luxury of a huge screen and fast wifi.

 

Here's my entry RELIC:






Link:
http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-32/?action=preview&uid=11137

Can't wait to try out the other Unity games!

 

Wow, that looks amazing.

I hate my entry, but here it is: http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-32/?action=preview&uid=50152


It's not 1% of what I wanted it to be. I even contemplated not submitting it after working on it for the last 40 or so hours. I just hate showcasing something I know is not to the best of my ability. I ended up with 2 clashing game ideas which did not work together at all. All the choices I made were the wrong ones for such a competition. I ended up with something identical to all my hobby projects. A mess of features which need at least 500 hours of polish to actually become something.

This is probably the most stressful thing I've ever done. I've probably learned a ton though. I will go through it all tomorrow when I've had some sleep. It's way past midnight and I have to go to work in a couple of hours *sigh*.

 

Hey guys, haha I kinda feel shy posting after thoose cool looking games.

My entry isn't artsy at all but I was very enthousiastic with the theme. I found a few hours to spare and I managed to bring a little something to life that you can find here:

http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-32/?action=preview&uid=52488

It requires a microphone to play since you have to make weird noises/yell/blow in your microphone to shoot spheres before they reach you !

This was my first LD, went lone wolf but was fun anyways ^^. Hope I'll have more time next time

 

Finished one for the compo.
Didn't take this one too seirously and didn't have much time this weekend.
Steve and the Double Barrel SNotgun

 

Here's what I came up with for Compo:

Star Drill Ultra


Drill through space and destroy your enemies to claim yourself as the king of the galaxy! Star Driller Ultra is a Star Fox-inspired space combat game where your play as a neon-colored drill to obliterate evil space ships.

http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-32/?action=preview&uid=20557

I also open-sourced the project (per Compo rules) and posted up a timelapse video to go with it.

 

At work now. I survived the weekend at least.

I decided to quickly try the Mac standalone. It works just as well as the Windows one or the Web Player, but I got a message about how it couldn't be opened because it is from an unidentified developer. I had to manually override it in the security settings for my mac.

These are default settings so I imagine it's the same for everyone who tries it? Is there something I can do to avoid this? Or does it require me to sign up as an OS X desktop developer and jump through a lot of Apple hoops? Ie. only feasible for an actual release game, if I were ever to make one.

 

Some guys at work decided to test it and it looks completely wrong for one of them. I know a graphically intensive, dark game without graphics settings or a brightness slider should be considered a crime, but on his screen it's practically black.

I'm using linear and deferred. Is there some limited support for these? I will read up on it after work.

Edit: He just tried it in Firefox and there it looked as it should. In Safari it was much much darker than it should be.

Edit2: Haha, watching them play it made me realize just how broken it is.

 

You could ship this game on mobile right now: http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-32/?action=preview&uid=15279

That is sort of how I initially envisioned my game looking, if you could believe that.

I played his previous entry last week in preparation of Ludum Dare. That game was also great.

Even though I absolutely hated this Ludum Dare I plan on participating in the next one, but I will make sure I actually know how to make a 10 hour game beforehand. 10 hours seems like a good maximum for a weekend. Leaves me with plenty of time in case something goes horribly wrong and I have time for human activities as well. Sitting in front of my computer for nearly 40 hours straight didn't feel very human, but rather robotic. And developing 10 hour games on the clock seems like it could be fun if I can split up those 10 hours as much as I need to.

 

I find it odd that the Chrome update seemed to have deterred so many from submitting a web player build. It's so easy to enable it in chrome and you still have other browsers as well. The game is so much more accessible right there in the browser.

If it doesn't work for someone then that someone can fall back to a standalone build.

I love the Ludum Dare community. So much positive feedback on even the most awful games (mine included). This makes it so much more enjoyable to play and rate other people's games as well.

 

I was watching these guys for awhile - hardcore! I was really impressed by both of them, one guy doing the pixel art and the other coding assembly like a beast with ca65 - the result is really impressive these guys must have been doing this a looong time with how fast they moved.

 

Congrats to all of you who participated. I was tempted to give it a shot but unfortunately while out of town last workweek for my job ended up spraining my neck. Sitting working on computer was a definite no go. It's great to see all of your games. I will check them all out this week sometime.

 

I tried a lot of different audio tools over the weekend and I felt that Labchirp (http://labbed.net/software.php?id=labchirp) was superior to the Bfxr/Sfxr/Jfxr tools at least. Just FYI.

It was actually able to generate some cool sound effects that didn't sound like they came from an audio generator.

But I think I will invest in a proper microphone so I can quickly record sounds while I'm at my desk by just making noises, slapping things etc. Quill18 did that on his livestream and it was super fast and the results were alright.

 

The only thing I see about doing a ludum dare is lets say people like it, that means you already got publicity from a 2 day project and you could easily finish that game and have people interested in it. Theres been a few good ludum dares that have gone all the way.

 

Hi guys.. there are some nice unity games, again.
finished my LD as well: http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-32/?action=preview&uid=36575

At the end I didn't even bother putting up WebGL version (took like 10 mins to build), looks like most of people enabled NPAPI in their Chrome or just switched browsers.
But I'm hoping Unity will come up with something to improve WebGL export, current experience is very very bad.

 

Mine is here
http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-32/?action=preview&uid=35646

I had a little bit too ambitious game idea. It was supposed to have story elements etc. that would explain how it fits the theme. I had to cut all those out so.... yeah...
But anyway, I'm quite happy with the game itself even though the theme was lost in process

 

Uhm, not sure if the Web Player is working or not. I see you mentioned it in the description, but what I got from that was that it's supposed to be working?

It seemed to play on autopilot or something? I didn't press or click a single button for the first 2 levels and then I got shot on the third, but there was nothing I could seemingly do to avoid that.

Will test the Windows version when I get home. Can you build a Mac version as well? Then I can test it at work I just built an untested Mac version for my submission, but when I later tested it on my work computer it seemed to work just as well as all the other versions.

Let me put it this way. I'll test your Mac version for you if you build it.

 

@TwiiK Webplayer *should* work but I properly can't confirm it myself

Yeah the game is on autopilot when you use melee. If you move close enough to an enemy, you automatically kill him. You can also grab your enemies weapons during the bullet time or after they are dead by clicking them.

The idea is to score super fast continuous kills. Sort of like first person shooter version of Matrix or something. You outnumbered with melee VS fast enemies with weapons.

The first 3 levels are tutorials. It starts properly from level 4 where the maps become much larger. You get more space to properly leap, attack from rooftops, etc. It's also a pretty difficult game by design. Kind of like hotline miami's sadistic difficulty. It usually takes a few tries for myself on any level4++.

I'll add mac builds when I get back home.

 

Ohh, ok, that may have been what was happening. I'll try all 3 version when I get home. At home I only have an old macbook air in addition to my Windows setup, but I'll test it on my iMac tomorrow as well. Test it from all angles.

How many hours did you spend on it?

I'm writing a postmortem about my first experience with a game jam and how it was pretty much the most awful time of my life. But I'm pretty sure that was all my fault and I still plan on participating in future game jams if I can remember what I learned from this one. I spent 40 hours on my game, which probably needed another 100 or 200 hours to resemble something.

 

Aaaaaaaaand I made a second game for Ludum Dare! I took the extra challenge to make a game in 12 hours for the Jam. Here's what I came up with:

Unconventional Stick Swinging Simulator


Ever wanted to swing a stick unconventionally? Now you can!

Experience the true art of swinging your really-long stick. Work hard to make it longer!

Available on Ludum Dare (please vote!), GameJolt, and Itch.io.

 

@PixelMind I can't get either Web Player to work. The itch.io one returns 404 and in the other one seems to be broken. The developer console is open and filled with null references.

I tried both the Windows and the Mac standalone version and they both seemed to work fine, although I'm not entirely sure what's intentional and what's not. I'm fairly confident you should be able to see enemies through walls, which is a neat effect, but you can see all the blood through walls as well which makes everything a bit cluttered on the later levels.

But it's a very a cool concept. I like the graphics, reminds me of Mirror's Edge. I've always wanted to make something resembling Mirror's Edge, but I've never gotten around to it.

 

@TwiiK Thanks man!! I forgot to make the itch link public

However it's the same build as the other one so it's probably broken too. I'll have to investigate. It was built with the new 5.01f release mode so I'm not sure whats going on there. I had developer stuff on my version too but they disappeared when I turned off webplayer developer mode which is on by default for some reason.

But the game is broken in so many levels ... like any LD entry should!

Seeing enemies through walls is intentional though. The blood effect is not. It was a side product of a shader tricker that was used. Used couple of hours trying to fix it. Until fed up... and called it a "feature".
I agree that it looks quite cluttered but also very disorienting.

Lots of great entries here! Got to try them all.

 

Haha @PixelMind, "it's not a bug, it's a feature"

 

The is the type of music I want in my next Ludum Dare game and why I'm currently learning FL Studio:
https://soundcloud.com/dragonxvi/sets/slam-jam-bakery-soundtrack

Created for Slam Jam Bakery:
http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-32/?action=preview&uid=35553

Postmortem here:
http://ludumdare.com/compo/2015/04/21/slam-jam-bakery-post-mortem-devlog

I think this is the game I've rated highest so far. It blows my mind that someone is able to create that in just one weekend.

 

This is annyoing. Many of the source projects I download for Ludum Dare projects are just broken. All meta information seems to be missing so no prefabs, scenes etc. are setup. I know the rules state you only have to submit the source files, but these look like complete projects that are just broken or they break when I import them.

@PixelMind One of these projects is yours. You only submitted the assets folder, I don't know if it was deliberate that you skipped the projectsettings folder, but it should still work without it? When I open the project everything is dead. All of the source files are there, but none of the meta data. Your old game, Superdimensional works fine when I import it.

 

Bleh, the problem was that I was using 5.0.0.4 and these projects were made with 5.0.1. So Unity just silently fails then? Man, Unity is still rough around the edges. They seriously need to work on their launcher and all the little details. Now that I've tried 10-20 Ludum Dare projects my launcher is just an endless list of text with no images, project descriptions, favorites or anything. It's almost as bare bones as it could be.

 

@TwiiK agreed, on my end it's cluttered with test projects I need to create frequently to test a thing or another and I often like/need a clean start to go quickly

 

Here is the project I made, of course in Unity and with source. What do you think of it? Totally loved the weekend, very cool experience. I tried some crazy 2D-3D switching and learned some new tricks. The new UI stuff is great, only the PhysX hinge joint has some serious issues.

http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-32/?action=preview&uid=34462

 

Results are in.

I have a LOT more to improve on for next time, but I'm okay with some of these scores considering the quality of the other entries was amazing. Gives me a goal for next time I suppose

#35 Humor 4.04
#56 Mood 3.82
#91 Graphics 4.05
#175 Audio 3.41
#313 Overall 3.44
#685 Fun 2.90
#737 Theme 3.13
#841 Innovation 2.67

I managed to get 172 votes this time (23rd most rated game when I last checked), so happy with my promotion skills at least haha.

I also am extending my game, so hopefully it'll improve in the areas it's lacking

 

I told myself I would rate 100 games during the judging to determine if that would give me a gold coolness medal and it did. I rated exactly 100 games. Not sure where I can see how many votes I got, but I think it was about 50 last I checked.

I feel like my ratings are way too high to be honest. There's no way I would have rated my own game this high based on the best games I rated. I would have rated it about 2 on average and yet my lowest category isn't even below 2.

I'm not doing this again though. To be brutally honest. You say the quality of the other entries was amazing, but that's not how I experienced it. Out of the 100 games I rated I think about 80 of them were absolute S***. I spent about a dozen hours playing these games and at least 8 of those hours I would like to have back. I thought my game was bad, but compared to a lot of the games I rated my game was stellar.

I just chose games at random from the "play and rate" list the way I feel like Ludum Dare intended. I found 2 great games early on which I gave a lot of 5's too. They ended up in #10 and #21 overall. So I didn't play any of the best games apparently.

If I ever participate in Ludum Dare again I am not going to rate games at random. I will only rate games from people I know, i.e. people I know make good games. This probably makes me sound like an asshole and it's probably the opposite of what Ludum Dare is trying to accomplish with their coolness approach etc., but I value my time and playing all these horrible games was, well, horrible to be honest, and I don't have the patience for it.

This is the first Ludum Dare I participated in, but I've followed Ludum Dare ever since I started with Unity. I normally play and look at the games after the judging ends when I know which games are good and which are not. This is probably what I'll do for the next Ludum Dare as well no matter if I participate in it or not. If I come across good games during the judging period I will of course play them, but I will not try to browse through the endless list of unsorted games trying to find something playable like I did this time, assholish as that may seem.

I'm also skeptical of the fact that you can rate overall as a separate category. Some of the games I rated highly in graphics, audio etc. I gave 1 or 2 to for the theme. I feel like the overall score should be a weighted average of the other categories. Currently it feels like you can ignore the theme and still win overall.

 

This time it seemed like there were much less webplayer games,
not wanting to download any zip files just to quickly test some game..

Did get some good comments & ideas in ld site and from some streamer who played LD games,
if get the time then could improve the game later.. or make mobile version..