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Games Entertainment

Annual Ludum Dare Independent Game Competition 68

Posted by michael from the sore-fingers dept.
pyman writes "The 4th Ludum Dare game competition is being held over the April 16-18 weekend. A forum discussion can be found here, and you may register your details here. Previous compos have spawned some interesting games, as well as provided a unique insight into the creative process of the programmer mind."
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Annual Ludum Dare Independent Game Competition More

Annual Ludum Dare Independent Game Competition

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  • Why?? Why?? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Apreche ( 239272 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @04:02PM (#8697066) Homepage Journal
    Why is everything cool the same weekend? I'm missing triple points weekend at media play and now this. All because I'm going to Penguicon [penguicon.org] Oh well.

  • the closest i ever got... (Score:5, Funny)

    by trmj ( 579410 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @04:03PM (#8697076) Journal
    to making a game was writing a RPG in basic on my TI-89 calculator.

    Now that I look back on it, I don't have to wonder why I failed that math class...
    • I wrote a fully functional 2 player Pong game on a TI-89. I failed alot more than my math class in the process but it was totally worth it.

      Computer Science rules!
      • Was it networked, or two players on one calc?

        Tim
        • If it was in basic, it would have been on a single calc, otherwise basic would have gone way too slow communicating over that link cable.

          Depending on whether he had two HW2 editions or not, it could have been done on 68K assembly, if he wrote a custom link program that didn't have all the system slowdowns, but it would have to have been the HW2 for the 12Mhz processor instead of the HW1 that used the 8Mhz.

          Or at least that was the common thinking when I was programming for it.
        • 2 players on one calc. It took a little discipline to play because unlike in assembly (which I still haven't learned) in BASIC if you hit more than one key at a time either only one key or neither keystroke is recognized.
          • You don't need to learn assembly, you can use C with TI-GCC. Much easier, but still just as fast. Actually, to stay on topic here, a 48-hour game competition for the TI-89 would be a fun thing to do. Since calculator games don't need to be as complex as computer games, the resulting games might actually see widespread play after the competition too.
            • a 48-hour game competition for the TI-89 would be a fun thing to do

              Great idea, but you would have to limit it a bit based on hardware and language.

              For example, there were two hardware verions of the TI-89, HW1 and HW2. The HW1 edition came with a 8MHz Dragonball processor, and the HW2 came with 12MHz Dragonball processor, which didn't use the same assembly language.

              Also, the TI-92 calculator used the same processor as the 89 HW2, but with a full qwerty keyboard and a better chipset. Also, it had a
      • A TI-89? Try programming that on an HP-48G+, what I used for math class! Trying to program that thing to do games is the cool way to drop out of school... :)
    • I created a snake game on my TI83 in class.

      This program provided me with an early introduction to the pains of code plaguirizing. Another kid at school got ahold of my code(as there weren't many games for the 83 at the time my BASIC game was widely used at school) and changed the levels around abit, improved the game a tiny bit(took the 2 programs the code was split into and combined them into 1), and changed the made by credits to say his name. He rereleased the code and about half the school thought he
      • Something similar happened to me...

        Our high school network, as I remember it, was locked down pretty well. This was the early nineties, there was no internet access, and the network was only for remote booting the computers, and storing a few files for computer programming classes.

        Anyways, there was a small, little-known, and very-little-used hard drive attached to one of the servers that was publically accesible from any terminal on the network. Even the computer teachers didn't know about it. I think

  • What about mod competitions? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Nomihn0 ( 739701 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @04:04PM (#8697082)
    Despite the stifling of creativity that some feel when they work on the structure of a preexisting game, why aren't mods taken more seriously in the indie game world? Many budding game designers and production houses lack the capital to create a stand-alone game to enter into a such a competition as this. Cheap engines like the Torque engine (of Tribes fame) have spawned excellent indie games such as Marble Madness. Why can't people accept mods like this -
    • I wasn't aware that Tribes was released on the NES during its prime... Because that's when I was playing Marble Madness on my NES.

    • Re:What about mod competitions? (Score:5, Informative)

      by sjbrown ( 9382 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @05:07PM (#8697437) Homepage
      lack the capital to create a stand-alone game to enter into a such a competition as this

      Umm.. maybe you should check out what the Ludum Dare competition actually is.
      • one person (programming AND graphics)
      • you get 48 hours, starting from scratch
      • you can use most any game library you want

      Lack of capital is not a consideration. Free time on the chosen weekend is the only real limiting factor.

      I entered [ludumdare.com] last year using PyGame and Gimp. I spent $0. I got 2nd place in the Cosmetic category.
    • For the same reason few people take fanfics seriously - because most of them suck. Yes, there are exceptions, but they're rare.

      On the other hand, Desert Combat is technically a mod, and people seem to respect that one quite a bit.

  • Ludum Dare (Score:5, Informative)

    by Michael.Forman ( 169981 ) * on Sunday March 28, 2004 @04:05PM (#8697085) Homepage Journal

    ludum dare [nd.edu] - to give free play to

    Michael. [michael-forman.com]

  • Great, just great.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Motherfucking Shit ( 636021 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @04:13PM (#8697143) Journal
    I had planned on washing my car today. Now, I'm going to spend the rest of the afternoon playing "Sheep Wars."
  • Yes, "Sheep Wars" does run on linux. And it does look mighty interesting.

  • Fun, but exams do interfere (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PktLoss ( 647983 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @04:24PM (#8697206) Homepage Journal
    Sounds like a lot of fun, too bad its scheduled so close to finals.

    48hrs for a game isn't much, but I really think it would be a fun contest to enter with friends.

    "Yeah, well in my game you get to run around the house trying to find the clock radio before it goes off"... "Yeah well, in my game you are the clock radio, and you have to find the kid before school starts"

    (the theme for that imaginary contest being timing, clocks and running :)
    • It's a solo competition - no teams allowed, and all art/audio must be made during the compo..

      Most freely-available libraries are allowed, including D3D, OpenGL, Allegro, ODE (physics engine), and various audio libs.

      I entered the last two, and it is very good fun. Entrants range from game programming newbies to people with games industry experience.... But IMHO it's more about seeing what you yourself can achieve in 48hrs (with little sleep and loads of caffiene) than simply trying to beat the compe

  • New for this conference... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 28, 2004 @04:45PM (#8697328)
    ...I predict methane will be found, in large quantities.

  • Speaking of sheep... (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Speaking of sheep, has anyone played the Shepherd for the Amiga? That was a pretty original game.

    http://amiga.emucamp.com/shepherd.htm

  • this is what's wrong with developing (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    the contest is to code somthing in 48 hours? That alone isn't very impressive and judging from the lack of creativity with sheepwars, niether are the submissions. Sheepwars is a bad rip off of 10+ year old games, the controls are counter intuitive to boot.

    I don't want to replay (and in many cases repay) games I've been playing forever, I want to see somthing new, maybe I'm foolish but that seems like a far more interesting contest to me.
  • A really big YAWN!!! Remember what I 've said in the previous discussion about games ? it's damn hard to come up with a truly new concept (something like Tetris or Populus or Pacman). Everything is a rehash.

    And I am not trolling. I am just insisting on making people see the truth about games.

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