I attended the online game compo Ludum Dare 39 this weekend. Because of things I wasn’t able to start until saturday evening, so I decided to create a very simple game this time.

Last time I created my first 3D game, Parking Zone. I spent most of the time creating the 3D models and getting the wheel colliders to work the way I wanted to in Unity. For LD39, I decided to create a very simple UI based 2D game.

This time the theme was «Running out of power». The game only has one scene, and takes place on a virtual mobile phone. The phone’s battery is draining constantly, and you can delay it from running out of power by clicking various-sized circles showing up at random locations on the screen. The battery level will never increase.

You get points based on various factors, including:

Once the battery level reaches 0%, the game is over. Your highscore is saved.

This Ludum Dare I spent most of the time in Photoshop, creating the mockup phone, the logo and the background.

Although I had less time to spend on this Ludum Dare, I very much enjoyed participating. Looking forward to LD40 already!

The source code is available in a Github repository.

Ludum Dare 39: PowerClick

Read about my first participation in the Ludum Dare Game Jam.

Ludum Dare is a game jam/compo that happens three times every year. The jam lasts for 72 hours and the compo for 48 hours. There are different rules for the two categories.

This was my first time participating in the event, and I submitted my game to the compo. The most important rules of the compo are:

Every asset in the game (code, graphics, sounds etc.) must be created by yourself during the 48 hours

The theme of LD38 was “A small world”. I decided to make the game take place on a regular living room table. Here’s a breakdown of the different 3D models I created for the game:

An empty bookshelf that is just standing in the viewport

I started with the table. It wasn’t too hard to make. I created a wood-like texture and mapped the texture to the table. The room and the bookshelf was easy to make.

The car.. I spent probably at least 30% of my time creating the car and the wheels. Once I was finished with that, I spent probably almost the same amount of time making the tires work as they should with Unity’s wheel collider. In the beginning they were rotated 90 degrees once the game started. After placing each individual wheel in an empty game object, everything was working. There is probably an easier way to do this, but I didn’t have time to figure it out.

The trailer was fairly simple to make in Blender. I attached it to a vehicle object in Unity and used a hinge joint to make the physics work more or less like in real life.

I’ve never used the wheel collider in Unity, and I spent a fair amount of time making it work as I wanted to. There are still a few things I have to work out, though. Right now I’m also applying torque to the trailer’s wheels, which doesn’t really make sense.

Here’s a breakdown of the different tools I used:

It was a really fun and challenging experience. As a beginner with both Unity and Blender, I spent most of the time figuring out how to do some of the most basic things. Time spent in Blender was probably around 60%. I really wanted to spend more time making the game more exciting and fun to play, but I just couldn’t fit it in. I probably should have submitted to the jam, which would have given me 24 hours more to work with the game, but since I had other plans for the next day, I didn’t see any reason to do so.

I’m already looking forward to the next event.

Ludum Dare entry
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/parking-zone

Source code
https://github.com/kimgrytoyr/LD38—Parking-Zone

Ludum Dare 38: Parking Zone

Occasionally I write something. It'll end up here.