Ludum Dare 18 – A Retrospective
So, last weekend played host to the eighteenth incarnation of the Ludum Dare 48 hour game creation competition, in which indie developers the world over were challenged to create a game based around a single theme, all within the space of two days. The theme was voted on by the community over the week preceding, with “enemies as weapons” coming out on top. Filled with inspiration from the Freeplay Festival earlier in the month, I decided that taking part in the competition would be a great idea.
Now, I think here I should provide a small background on myself. I’m 26 years old, and my obsession with games kicked off on my eighth birthday, when I was given a Sega Master System II by my parents. Ever since that fateful day, it was guaranteed you could find me sitting before the TV playing. Our family only had one TV however, so when mum wanted to watch one of her favourite shows, I was left without my beloved games to play. My solution? I grabbed a stack of blank paper and some pencils, and started drawing up characters and levels for my own game; Alex the Kidd on the Seven Seas.
A Ludum Dare Tale
Today sees the beginning of Ludum Dare 18, this time with the theme of “enemies as weapons”.
Ever since I was a child, I have always wanted to make a game, yet I have never maintained enough motivation to see a project through to its end, or truthfully, even through to its beginning. However, energised as I am from last weekends Freeplay festival, I have decided to try my hand at Ludum Dare.
The premise of Ludum Dare is simple – over the course of 48 hours, you are challenged to create a game based on the competitions theme – in this case, “enemies as weapons”.
I have no experience, nothing finished behind my name, but, you never know until you try it. I will use this post to document my progress so you can see how I’m doing. Stick around, and I hope you enjoy!
Reflections on Freeplay 2010
It has been a week since the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne played host to 2010’s incarnation of Freeplay, an independent games festival which brings indie developers, both established and aspiring alike, together to exchange thoughts and ideas, or to showcase their latest works. This year Freeplay attracted over 60 speakers, including international speakers Adam Saltsman (the mind behind Canabalt and Flixel) and Brandon Boyer (chairman of the Independent Games Festival being just one of his many hats), as well as a countless number of gamers and game development enthusiasts. The theme of the festival this year was “play is everywhere”, encouraging you to look beyond just the games, and in to the process behind them, be it conceptualising, developing, or any of the other tasks that go on behind the scenes.
And beyond the game they went! So many knowledgeable and talented people were there to share what they knew – from the purpose and relevance of tools development, to franchise thinking, and even where an up and coming indie can go and who to talk to about getting funding for their projects.
But above and beyond even that, there was one theme which permeated the two-day event, which in my opinion outshone everything else, and that was passion. Every panel or workshop I attended, every speaker I had the pleasure of listening to and every developer I spoke to was overflowing with passion for what it is they did. When I spoke with Finn Morgan, creator of Colourbind and winner of the Freeplay Best Technical Innovation Award, it was apparent the level of love and passion behind his creation. You could see it as a slight smile crossing his face and the twinkle in his eye which came with every question asked and every play of his demo. It was overwhelming to experience, and all within my first half hour at Freeplay, and it wasn’t looking to end any time soon! Indeed, every other game I looked at or developer I spoke to exuded that same feeling.
I sat in on a workshop run by Ben Britten on using Unity 3D, and I got the same feeling. The way he spoke about the toolset and how easy and quick it is to use to get a working game prototype, was animated with a drive that went beyond that of a person just giving a talk to a room full of people. He lives and loves his work, and was happy to share his excitement and experience with the tools, with the hope of inspiring even one person into giving it a go, and maybe discovering their love for it also. He even seemed disappointed when the end of the hour session rolled around, yet he had more he wanted to show us.
Andrew Goulding, creator of the Best Australian Game award winning game Jolly Rover spoke of working with his artists on the game, and that he had to consciously limit the amount of revisions he would ask for, else the game would never be finished. Neil Rennison of Tin Man Games (of Gamebook Adventures fame) spoke with a sense of cheekiness about how as children reading choose-your-own-adventure books, that you would end up with an entire hands worth of fingers marking special pages just in case you would run into a bad result, and how he went about recreating that experience. Flash game extraordinaire Terry Paton was full of energy as he stepped us through a slide show detailing the process from game conceptualisation to realisation.
I missed Brandon Boyer’s keynote session (if anyone happens to have audio or video from it, let me know!), but Adam Saltsman’s keynote was just as passion-driven as the rest of the festival. His talk was based on the concept of just what play is, and why that’s a relevant thought when addressing video games, referencing early 1900’s Dutch professor Johan Huizinga as a part of his extremely well conceived and thought provoking essay. He did this not because it was some form of homework assigned to him before coming to the festival (well, mostly anyway), but because of his love for games, and his passion to see them rise above and beyond just a thing we will sit down and play and not afford a second thought to.
Passion, and a love for games is what drew everyone together during Freeplay’s two-day duration, and everyone helped to feed one-another in that respect – every exchange of ideas, every contact made served to fuel that passion even further, and everyone left changed and inspired. Paul Callaghan and Eve Penford-Dennis, Freeplay’s directors should be proud of the atmosphere they helped create and foster during the event, and surely they will be pressed to top this years efforts come time for Freeplay 2011.
At the end of the day, I think the most poignant and important thing that was said during the course of the entire festival was Paul’s closing words at the close of the event – “now go out there and make something“. My dream in life is to make just one game, and for the first time, I think I’m going to give it a try.
Casual Gameplay Design Competition 8 – ZOMGIndie’s Picks
At the beginning of August, the JayisGames Casual Gameplay Design Competition 8 came to a close, and the three week period for voting began. The theme of the competition was “sandbox”, which the contestants were free in their interpretation of. The competition attracted 17 well thought out entries, covering a fairly large span of genres, but only one will have the honour of taking first prize – a sweet $1000.
I bravely took my bucket and spade and jumped into the sandbox in order to come up with my picks for the not quite as prestigious ZOMGIndie’s competition favourites.
Sanctuary 17 Review – Why I Hate Robots
Since the dawn of science fiction, we’ve known that it will be the robots who will knock humanity from our comfy thrones. We’ve imagined the situation countless times, but the result is always the same. Sanctuary 17 by Twofold Secret is no different – humans have been forced to live underground, and life apparently isn’t all that great. You and a small group of survivors take your chances in the catacombs – surely it’s better than being trapped in the hole you (used to) call home? Well…if you like robots…
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