So, this is my third or fourth ludumdare, however its been 3 years since I last participated in one. Anyways I’ll start by giving a bit of background about the tools I used. The language of choice this time was once again c++. I’ve used python and c# for games in the past but c++ is still my language of choice. This year I ended up using HGE for all of my graphics. It is a 3d accelerated 2d game engine with font support and a particle engine and it takes care of input handling. This really sped things up compared to previous competitions where my tools were lacking. I considered going with opengl and I don’t think that would have been a problem with the exception of fonts which I would have had learn. I also used fmod for sound just like previous years. On the music side I used ableton live 6 and audacity to create all of my music and sound effects. Finally, I used an online color scheme picker to help choose the colors for my game and I think this is a move that ultimately paid off in the end. Good looking colors, less work for me.

What went right:

I kept it simple. In retrospect my biggest mistake in previous competitions was that I over extended myself. This time around I tried to focus on a few gameplay elements and once those were in I stopped adding new things and spent the remainder of my time tweaking the ones that were already there. Better planning allowed me to choose which gameplay elements I would need and which ones were superfluous. At one point I even considered having variable movement speed throughout the game but the way I envisioned it would have slowed down the early game and would have definitely detracted from the overall feel. The other thing that I am very happy with is the music and sound. What I originally envisioned for the music was for something like rez or everyday shooter. Due to time constraints I wasn’t able to make the music nearly as polished as I would have liked but I was pleased that I got it to dynamically react to the gameplay.

What went wrong:

I didn’t have any huge problems this time. Most of the major problems were with the actual distribution of my game. When I went to submit my final build I accidentally included a debug dll in my release version. This ended up causing me a ton of problems but with the help of some very generous people I was able to track down the issue. The other problem I had is that my game does not contain any instructions. While this isn’t a huge deal since most people figure out how to play after a few attempts I do think that people are missing some of the functionality of the game such as the space bar.

Tools:

• Visual Studio 2005
• Ableton Live 6
• Audacity

Final Notes:

This has been by far my best ludumdare entry yet and I can’t wait until the next competition. Hopefully I will have an updated version of my game with online high scores and widescreen support soon.