Ludum Dare 34 (Theme: Two button controls AND Growing )

"What is Ludum Dare" you ask?

Ludum Dare is an accelerated game development event held every 4 months. Thousands of developers create games for two concurrent competitions taking place over 1 weekend. Full competition rules can be viewed on Ludum Dare's webstite, but here's a summary:

Compo
• 48 hours long
• You must work alone
• You must use the competition theme
• All game content must be created within the 48 hours, with a few exceptions (see full rules)
• Publicly available libraries and middleware (e.g. Construct 2) are allowed
• Source Code must be included when submitting

Jam
• 72 hours long
• Work alone or in teams
• All creation tools are allowed

At the end of the weekend, entrants rate eachother's games for 3 weeks. Winners are announced at the end of the rating period.

Why should you participate?

Many reasons:

• It's fun.
• You'll join a great community of developers.
• C2 is, in my opinion, perfectly suited for Ludum Dare.
• Making it to the end, and submitting a game provides a great sense of accomplishment.
• It will make you a better developer. Testing your game creation abilities under tight conditions, with a strict deadline, is like a game development adrenaline shot. It's a serious learning experience that will test your existing skills, and force you to rapidly develop new ones.

Let's get the excuses out of the way

"But I can't afford to participate." It's free. "But I don't know how to make a game." Download C2, go through some tutorials, and play around with the software. You'll quickly realize that creating a game much more possible than you think. "But 2 or 3 day is too short a time to create a good game." Long, in-depth, gaming masterpiece aren't possible, but you can absolutely create an awesome game. I dare you to play some of the winning Ludum Dare games (see below), and tell me they aren't awesome. "But I already have plans that weekend." Challenge yourself to create the best game possible in whatever time you have available. My LD29 entry was created in 2 hours. It's not particularly sexy, but I'm quite proud of what I created in 2 hours. "But there aren't any prizes." Monetary prizes... no. The prize is the experience and the game you produce. It's not uncommon for participants to further develop their entries into commercial products. Speaking from personal experience, professional opportunities have come my way both directly and indirectly from participating in Ludum Dare.

Here are a few links you may find useful/interesting:

• Ludum Dare Survival Guide - Great tips, especially if this is your first Ludum Dare.
• Tools - A nice collection of popular tools used by many Ludum Dare participants.

Not hyped yet?

Go play some games from the previous Ludum Dare:

• Theme: An Unconventional Weapon
• Overall Compo Winners
• Overall top 5 highest scoring Compo games created in C2
  • Earth Was a Bad Choice - by zatyka
  • Frankenbunny - by Zoglu
  • i Have a Choise - by DiscoFish
  • Dave Needs Milk - by Arg410
  • Attack of the Lobizarudo - by cleitoneldorn
• Overall Jam Winners
• Overall top 5 highest scoring Jam games created in C2
  • Mobs, Inc. - by Pietro Ferrantelli
  • Brood - by SecondDimension
  • Giggles, the friendly clown - by Sanju
  • Curse Of The Poncho - by EncryptedCow
  • Love Monster - by Lissar

I hope I've convinced a few of you to participate. Best of luck to everyone.

I'm entering. Is there another Ludum Dare post or something? I would have expected more users to respond. Good luck!

I -might- be entering. I suspect I won't have the spare time, however, . We'll see though!

I'm entering. Is there another Ludum Dare post or something? I would have expected more users to respond. Good luck!

I'm usually the only one to make a general Ludum Dare posting. These topics often start of slow, and pick up once the event begins. Honestly, there really isn't a whole lot for people to say now, but I still like to post early to try and get some more C2 participants. We'd probably get a bunch more activity if the post were in the General forum, but that's probably not appropriate.

As a side note, several people make topics about their specific game after the competition.

I went looking for it in game development, design and ideas section tbh but it's OK here. It'll be my first one, I am ready for the theme announcement!

zatyka, I really appreciate you making these posts. I honestly think I learned more about game creation and c2 in the 48 hours of hard work enforced by LD than any other time - so I hope that this LD becomes another good distraction for everyone who's committed to using c2 (and able to afford the time - personal caveat, just in case...).

Nice.

Thanks for the info. I'm also start learning how to use C2, but I will considering to join.

As usual I'm at least going to attempt the LD. I've been making a bit of a bad habit of not finishing them lately, but I ought to at least keep going!

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who will participate on a LD for the first time.

Bumping to bring a bit of attention.

Currently the final round of vote is going on to determine the theme of the jam.

I'm considering participating in the jam, hoping the theme will inspire me quickly.

Hey everyone, I'm in again. This will be my 11th Ludum Dare in a row! As a few others have said, I learn more during Ludum Dares than do throughout the rest of the year put together. I've got 10 games done and out there which I never would have managed otherwise. I definitely recommend getting involved

Here it comes. I wonder if it's possible to produce a game with the trial version of C2 hmm.

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I don't see why not. However, I'm guessing that a well done LD game made with the trial version would need to heavily rely on behaviors.

zatyka

true, I should stop being lazy and just buy it.

Theme announced in 7 hours woo!

Well this is a first, I think! Two tied themes: Two Button Controls, and Growing!