Last weekend the 30th Ludum Dare competition took place. For those us you unknown with Ludum Dare, this is a very short international game programming contest. You are allowed to use any tool or language but there are strict rules:

1. The theme is revealed at the start (and the game must match this theme).
2. You get 48 hours, nothing more or less.
3. Every image, sprite, song and/or sound effect in the game should be made within these 48 hour.
4. The result is open source (but you pick the license).
5. You work alone.

(There is also a ‘Jam’ version where you can work in teams, can do closed source, can use images/sounds and you have 72 hours)

Connected Worlds

The theme this year was ‘Connected Worlds’. This is a pretty broad term, so I started to think. How about a world where the main character is on one planet, and his love is on another planet. The planets are tantalisingly close (nearly touching) but out of reach. Our hero has to build a rocket to reach his love.

Game style

Last Ludum Dare (LD) I’ve worked on my Javascript skills and produced a little framework. This allows me to easily implement an old-school ‘point and click’-type adventure game. The resulting game should look and feel like the old Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle games.

Drawing drawing drawing…

The decision to make a point-n-click game has a huge impact on how I get to spend my time during the contest. This type of game needs a lot of images, sprites and of course fun puzzles. In the end I think I’ve been busy drawing 90% of the time (on paper and in GIMP) and maybe 10% actual programming. After 48 hours my hands were cramped up from all the drawing instead of typing heh (I need a digital draw-tablet).

The result

First off, I’ve learned a lot about game design and Javascript programming, also I’ve learned how to draw and edit images much faster. At the start the process from getting an image from paper to coloured digital sprite took a long time, at the end of the contest it was all automatic.

Anyway, I’m pretty pleased with the result, please play it here.
Also, voting is still open, if you have a Ludum Dare account (or sign up) you can cast a vote here.