Just a short one, as a) I’m late and b) i’ve been making a game, from scratch in < 48 hours!
LudumDare is a regular make a game in 48 hours compo, that Number 20 has just finished.
The rules are simple, 48 hours, 1 person, based on a theme announced at the start. All code/art/sounds must be generated in those 48 hours. Only exceptions are pre-published libraries (the source must be available before the start, so others can use).
At the end of the 48 hours publish it on the web (with source) and my the best man/women/robot/alien/kitteh win!
Many professional game developers may think, this isn’t useful for them after all they work with millions of dollars projects with team of hundreds but thats only true if your are a specialist. If you are multi-discipline particularly with one foot in game design, then the intense crucible of such a short period of time is great mental exercise.
The ability to come up with an idea, implement it and more importantly change it is a skill and like all skills practise makes perfect.
For my entry, I would twice have to make radical changes to keep things moving. The first happened early and was having to accept the first idea, was just too complicated and needed down sizing, the second was caused by a failure to get one key design concept practically working.
I had chosen colour blending as a key operations (red + blue = ???), but getting a stable mixer that fitted how we expect colours to change was harder than I expected, so 12 hours before release I had to scrap it.
Is the game, a shining example of art, design, sound or code? Nope, but its simple puzzle mechanic made real. I can already see many many things, but I thikn with polish it would make a fine mini-game… and being done in about 36 hours (I needed my sleep!) thats imho a good thing!
A total of 300 people submitted a game, which means 300 people where able to build a small interactive experience in a weekend. Many/All of these are more complicated and fun than most of the mini-games, AAA games add in!
My entry is Liquid Choices and you can play here
LD48 – Liquid Choices
