I won’t extend too much in explaining what LudumDare is, because it can’t be understood without living it. Basically, it’s a on-line, worldwide competition, which objective is to create a computer game in 48 hours. The game must be original, be developed entirely by one person, and must conform to a theme, that is announced as the starting gun.
Usually there are 2 LudumDares a year, once in November and another in April. Well, Selkie and I have participated in the November one, which theme was exploration, and this is what we have done:
Daniel Rey: Jail Escape
You are a militar, prisoner behind the enemy lines. Tomorrow you will be executed because you know too much. When a guard brings you your last dinner, you knock off him and start your escape. You can’t make noise, you cant’t use the guard’s machine gun, because you are in an infested of enemies place.
- UP ARROW: Advance
- DOWN ARROW: Go back
- LEFT ARROW: Turn left
- RIGHT ARROW: Turn right
Your objective in each level is to reach the blue circle (that symbolizes a door). If a guard sees you, you loose.
There is a little glitch, if you move near a wall, you can get stuck. It’s better not to go near the walls.
If you win the game (5 levels), some stats will appear on screen. This stats are, for each level, the time (in seconds) that you spent in that level, the percentage of floor you explored, and the times a guard saw you.
Instructions to play:
If you use Windows:
Download this file, uncompress it, and double-click Jail_escape.exe: http://danielr.es/Jail_Escape_Win32.zip
If you don’t use Windows:
- Install Python 2.x (http://www.python.org/download/)
- Install Pygame (http://www.pygame.org/download.shtml)
- Install Numpy (http://sourceforge.net/projects/numpy/)
- Download the game and uncompress it (http://danielr.es/Jail_Escape.zip)
- Run with Python or double-click “Jail_Escape.py”.
Yes, there are 3 libraries to install, but it won’t take more than 10 minutes!
I included a progress log in the main folder, read it if you wanna know my experience.
Selkie: Planetary Explorer
The game’s name is Planetary Explorer, so you can understand that it’s about space travels and exploring.
It’s made with Game Maker 6.1 Pro and compatible with XP, Vista and Win7. Sadly it’s not compatible with Linux or Mac, even under Wine.
Other tools used:
- Graphics: MS Paint and Gimp
- Music: Anvil Studio
It only has one level, with two parts:
- Travelling to the planet with your ship, destroying enemies and avoiding bullets.
- Once in the planet, finding three diamonds and returning to the ship.
Hope you enjoy playing it as much as I enjoyed making it.
Click here to download the game
Source code (Game Maker required to open it)
I must emphasize the good atmosphere that prevails in the LudumDare. There is very good roll, and that point of geekiness that involves spending all the weekend sleeping just enough to stay awake, and spending most of their time to the game. I should also say that we haven’t been in the first positions, we have been in the bottom half of the classification (or so), so imagine the wonders that have done the winners!
