Ludumdare

I know it’s hard to compete with the wake of the IGF Finalists announcement yesterday, but the Ludum Dare 16 winners were announced yesterday too. Go here for the Top 20: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-16/?action=top Here for the categorical listings: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-16/ And here for the news post: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2010/01/03/ludum-dare-16-results/ Trying to compete with the IGF Buzz would be silly, so I’m going to push back my little LD retrospective until things are a little more calm....

So wow. That’s finally it for 2009. Like doing taxes ever year, I feel a special sort of obligation that I write some sort of retrospective, especially after such an eventful year as this one. Far more awesome than taxes. 😉 I wasn’t sure where to start, so I ended up categorizing aspects of the year. I’ll free form rant about each topic as I come to it. Let’s begin....

Wow. To say the last 3 weeks have been busy would be an understatement. First of all, I ported Smiles to a new phone. The Samsung Omnia II, a Windows Mobile phone with a beautiful amoled screen and a custom GPU. Some photos. What’s Windows without a Registry Editor Some Avalanche… a little blury though. Itz-a me! Zen in Italiano! For those keeping score, the game unfortunately runs a little slow on the Omnia II....

Today we announced the date for Ludum Dare #16. This upcoming December 11th-13th weekend. Ludum Dare is that other thing I do. Along with Phil, Mike and Seth, we run a community website based around the infamous Ludum Dare competition. Game developers from around the world assemble, pick a theme, and make a game from scratch over the weekend. Then we vote on our favorites. http://www.ludumdare.com/…/announcing-ludum-dare-16-december-11th-13th-weekend/ Nowadays, we do it 3 times per year, this one being our regular December competition....

Wow! Ludum Dare #14’s 123 entries in April was a pretty big deal, but our 15th Ludum Dare in August did a whopping 144! Yikes! http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-15/?action=preview On the plus side, Phil and I came together and awesome-ified the website. He wrote our all new voting and submission system, and I made the site look new and purty. And when all was said and done, it actually worked! Wow! It came together the weekend before the competition....

Yes yes, I’m awfully quiet. What else is new? Let me tell you. First things first, a brand new trailer for Smiles. Why does Smiles need a new trailer? I’ll tell you when you’re older. This ended up taking a couple weeks longer than I’d hoped it would (spontaneous summer vacation?), but it’s done. The new trailer combines the tidbits dropped in the last post (mushroom animation, new logo), some gameplay footage, and a nice audio track....

Crawling out of bed early this morning, I made the weird decision that it’d be a blogging morning. It seems I’ve stockpiled a few interesting things to talk about. I’m nearly ready to start talking about the new project too, but as the title suggests, I’ll be talking about the other stuff today. First thing on the agenda, Ludum Dare. I wanted to follow up that prior post of mine with a brief finale post....

Wow! So, I have no idea what just happened, but Ludum Dare 14 was our biggest yet. With 121 entries from around the world, that’s a-lot!! From my quick check, the highest we’ve had to date was high 60’s (though I was pretty sure we did an 80 entry compo at one point). *shrugs* I started on an entry on Saturday, but didn’t get all that far. Friday (besides taxes), I was caught up administrating, making sure the whole thing actually happened....

Just a quick note. Ludum Dare 14 is this Friday. It’s usually Phil and I that run the compo (with Mike and Seth, and our awesome community of regulars), but IGF Champion and Goat Owner Extreme Phil Hassey is off on his North American Tour next week, leaving me to see if I can remember how to use all his compo scripts. 😉 If you’re not familiar with Ludum Dare, we’re probably the oldest make a game in 48 hours competitions on the internet....

It’s been 2 weeks, and much has happened. As the topic suggests, Smiles Drop and Smiles Zen are now both available. $2.99 each, or save $1 by getting Smiles ($4.99). So yeah, in a way that means I technically have 3 games out. As for blog content, I’m half way through a post on what went in to creating the video. Actually I was half through the Friday of the last post, but got caught up in the fact that I could actually take it easy for a couple days… and I sorta haven’t gone back to finish the post yet....