I've never entered one but I am considering doing it considering I will probably be taking a fair amount of time off around Christmas as all my colleagues do and it's impossible to get anything done at work.


The questions are:


Have any of you entered before and if so what did you submit and what could your recommend in terms of not just starting a submission and then burning out or losing motivation? I guess you have to set a reasonable expectation for yourself.


Hope you SW'ers are all doing alright for yourselves.

I have only submitted once before, but entered twice. The second time I entered, I got burned out after spending 12-18 hours on getting one feature to work. (the mistakes I made were already made well before going into actually starting the project, along with the fact that I don't spend nearly enough time working on games outside of LD challenges to generate an idea as ambitious as the one I had right on the spot)

Here is the entry I made the first time I entered an LD though, I consider myself super fortunate to be of the few who actually submitted on their first time entering.
https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/Public/TheCheeseStandsAlone.swf?w=c81f5d4d
(BE WARNED: The main feedback I got from this entry was player's inability to discern the victory condition on their own. My initial plan was to make it more clear from within the game, but I spent too much time just trying to get the game to actually work, and had to explain it on the submission page instead. The fact that the game does not trigger an event to give notice on any condition that causes you to LOSE the level is a big minus for this game as-well.)

Setting a reasonable expectation for yourself is very important. If you are the type who gets ideas for ambitious projects, then you have to make sure you are going with a engine you are intimately familiar with, and are already an absolute wizard at short-term time-management.

Of course you won't know what you will want to make until the competition starts, which is a big part of the fun of entering. You just have to make sure you know how to correctly prioritize the challenges involved, and still be satisfied with falling short of all the goals you originally intended. As long as your plan for making an entry pans out before the cutoff, you can still consider yourself a winner. (The first time I entered, the theme inspired an elegantly simple idea to implement, but I still spent a crazy amount of time getting it all together because it was my first time trying to make a game in a new engine. I still want to build a more complete version of that game by porting it to an engine even easier to work with, but I am a terrible procrastinator in just about anything that does not impose such a tight deadline)

I never did one of theses but I can imagine having stocked sprites and other images lying around sure can't hurt. Hell it might come in handy and save a good deal of time (so if you like doing some art and pixel art it's a good thing before Ludum Dare or if you make games on your free time and have stock sprites from that).

I never did one of theses but having stocked sprites and other images lying around sure can't hurt. Hell it might come in handy and save a good deal of time (so if you like doing some art and pixel art it's a good thing before Ludum Dare).

I am almost 100% sure this goes against both the spirit and the letter of the rules that founded Ludum Dare, but unless you are using sprites or sounds directly from games you have previously made and released, it is not actually breaking any rule that anyone can actually enforce.

I tend to treat situations like those, the same way I do when encountering those situations while playing games. In that if it is something the game technically allows to happen, then it is a movie I always count as following that game's set of rules. (also: if you do find yourself in a situation where you gotta make a lot of graphics in a short amount of time, having extra practice at making arbitrary sprites is never a bad thing, even if they are all sprites you can't use to directly save time later on)

I am almost 100% sure this goes against both the spirit and the letter of the rules that founded Ludum Dare, but unless you are using sprites or sounds directly from games you have previously made and released, it is not actually breaking any rule that anyone can actually enforce.

I tend to treat situations like those, the same way I do when encountering those situations while playing games. In that if it is something the game technically allows to happen, then it is a movie I always count as following that game's set of rules. (also: if you do find yourself in a situation where you gotta make a lot of graphics in a short amount of time, having extra practice at making arbitrary sprites is never a bad thing, even if they are all sprites you can't use to directly save time later on)

Well if you have them lying around form other projects I see nothing wrong with using them but yes if you just make them for a per Ludum Dare then yes its kind of cheating I'm just saying if you have them why not put them to use or if you made cool monster for  Art projected and a few quick alterations could make it into a good NPC monster I see nothing wrong with that.

Just saying it's good to have hobbies in art or making games. I'm sure it gives you an advantage regardless if you use per existing images or not. After all game makers can pump out code at a quicker rate and artist can make images on a faster rate. To be honest if you do both I think you have a higher rate to be successful as long as you keep your goals in reach.

hello hello

ludum dare can be a lot of fun!! i really enjoy the spirit of it, a bunch of people making games and helping each other out

i have made 4 games for ludum dare

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-21/?action=preview&uid=5579

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=5579

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=preview&uid=5579

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-24/?action=preview&uid=5579

i love jams and ludum dare is a pretty good one to do

whats cool about it is that even if you dont finish, if you feel like you got something over the weekend, you can work on it after the competition and release =post-compo= versions or whatever. dont worry about the time limit, just make your game!!

I've been in LD 3 times now, here are my games:

LD22 - http://leafo.net/volcanox/
LD23 - http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2012/04/23/wulcan/
LD24 - http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-24/?action=preview&uid=4321

Most of my games have very little to do with the theme. I'm just using it as an excuse to make a game in a weekend.

I recommend it to everyone, you'll learn a lot no matter what skill level you are. I always push myself really hard at the end and sleep for like 12 hours afterwords and it's great.

I particularly enjoy it because it's not only about programming. It's practice making art and writing music. Two things that I think are cool and want to get better at.

pretty much every ludum dare i am working over the weekend. sucks working in shops.

when is it?

maybe we should enter as a team...

Is there a restriction on how many people are allowed per team? We literally have just enough time to get stuff organized right before the dare starts.

It sounds like it could be real fun, since the competition itself only allows one person per-entry, teams get an extra day to work on their entries for the more casual form of Ludum Dare.

Well the way I see it, if everyone interested in working on a team, or anyone who wants to enter, but are limited to one or two skills, posted in the next 3 or four days, we could line up some cohesive teams in the days leading up to the jam.

I am pretty strong with the programming aspect, but I can devote myself to doing graphics as well. I would prefer working on a team just because whenever I try something entirely on my own it ends up being an entry completely devoid of music/sound. I know pygame, actionscript, dabbled in XNA, and have a pretty firm grasp on Construct 2 even though most of my exposure to it has only been recently (which seems ideal for rapid development), but if any other programmers want to collaborate to get more stuff done in a short span, I am open to learning engines I am unfamiliar with in the days coming into the jam.

maybe we should enter as a team...

These dates might actually be pretty good for me. Uni finishes up tomorrow and then I have a project I need to work on for something else but I'm aiming to finish that ON the 14th so I will probably not be very busy that weekend!

I'm gonna take the Friday and the Monday off work to do this. I  think the theme is going to be good or really terrible as they have implemented a sister site to filter the themes/make it into a bit more of a democracy.

Not sure I want to work in a team but it would be cool if we had a commentary of what we're up to on here whilst it's happening.

That said, if you want to team up and use Unity that could sway me.

So next weekend I can't do this because my girlfriend has organised for her dad to come down for two days. If the theme is announced days before the comp (I don't know how it works) then I could do it on Thursday/Friday or possibly Monday/Tuesday. I am pretty bummed out about this though.

i might give this a try. i think it starts in 1 hours? i will stay up to see what the theme is.

It's over! Here's my game: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-25/?action=preview&uid=4321