Ludum Dare 18 and Jam - Enemies as Weapons - Untitled Game

This time-lapse video of my attempt at Ludum Dare 18 covers 32 hours worth of work. The theme of the competition was Enemies as Weapons. I made great progress over these three days, but the scope of this game was a little too ambitious for one weekend. Since most of hardest parts of making this game are already completed I plan to continue working on this.

The music in the video are:
1. The level music I composed for the competition.
2. The Earth tune I composed for the competition.
3. The Wind tune I composed for the competition.
4. The Fire tune I composed for the competition.
5. The Water tune I composed for the competition.
6. Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening Mountain of Dreams OC ReMix by William Harby (Willrock) - http://www.myspace.com/willrock078
7. Super Mario Bros. Bros with Dix OC ReMix by Joshu Skowronek (Nase) - http://www.soundclick.com/skoshu

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• ludum
• dare
• 18
• ludum dare
• ludum dare 18
• ld18
• timelapse
• enemies
• weapons
• elements
• music
• python
• pygame
• weekend
• compo
• competition
• 48 hours
• game

[memiagaming]

I don't know much about computer graphics, but from my eyes, those graphics you made were much more appealing than alot of the other games I see and the speed at which you made them was insane - are you a good artist or can that stuff be simplified?

[armchairarmada]

@memiagaming One thing that helped was that I did keep it simple. None of the shapes involved are really complex (circles, warped rectangles, etc). Colors can play a big role in the overall appeal of graphics, so I tried not to use harsh conflicting colors. I don't consider myself to be a really good artist, but I tend to be a really hard critic of my own work. I need to remember that other people don't see all the little flaws that I do.

[xexoristo]

what programing language?

[armchairarmada]

@xexoristo It was programmed in Python using the PyGame module.

[TehGameMaker]

very good. making games this fast must be difficult.

[armchairarmada]

@TehGameMaker It is. That is not to say that it cannot also be enjoyable, though. I've tried to participate in quite a few Ludum Dares and I have yet to complete anything. I'm always surprised at how much great stuff other people were able to make in such a short time! The hardest part for me is actually trying to have a full uninterrupted weekend to really be productive -- there's almost always something getting in the way of Ludum Dare.

[armchairarmada]

@zachf632 The Gimp is not a very good animation program, but I managed. Basically I used layers (one for each frame). Layer transparency was used for onion skinning. The Gimp can export animated GIF files from layers, so that was used to check the animation a little. Afterwards I just copied and pasted the layers into a new image using snap-to-grid to align them with the grid size set to be the same as the sprite's size.

[armchairarmada]

@rop181 Programming language was with Python with the PyGame library, The editor was GEdit, Graphics was with The Gimp, Music was with LMMS, Sound editing was Audacity, Sound effects was SFXR, and I was using Ubuntu with a small screen capturing shell script -- all free or open source software. Most of these are also available for Windows and Mac.

[nickm34456]

the life of an indie game developer seems so appealing to me, staying up all night programming code that will somehow turn into a game, sitting at your computer, drinking coffee and listening to music until you pass out just to do it all over again until its done, with no other care in the world, but that line of code, and that small idea that formulated in your mind one night, unfortunately, it's complicated to start, but it seems so fun once you learn it, I suck with art too :( one day

[ASMBrad]

Your music sounds alot like it was inspired by The Legend of Zelda.

[FanAsEW]

Sorry, where can I download it?

[Flashswifts]

Little did Armchairarmada know that Notch was competing in the same contest...

[armchairarmada]

@EpilepticElbow I don't know about "epic" -- it only has two test rooms -- and it was more like 2 1/2 days. :) I've seen other people do some much more amazing things for Ludum Dare -- for example, Mincraft creator notch (Markus Persson) made a sweet dungeon crawler during the last Ludum Dare.