Ludum Dare 49 (Game jam)

Shameless plug: our game creation tool Construct 3 is free to use with the full features for the duration of Ludum Dare 49: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.construct.net&#x2F;en&#x2F;blogs&#x2F;construct-official-blog-1&#x2F;ludum-dare-once-again-free-1572" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.construct.net&#x2F;en&#x2F;blogs&#x2F;construct-official-blog-1...</a>

If you&#x27;ve never tried programming a game I would highly recommend it. There are many aspects that make a game a really interesting challenge: input, rendering, sound, and managing large global mutable state. Ludum Dare is a good excuse to dip your toes in.

Ludum Dare has a special place in my heart. Participating in game jams is a great way to practice creating games from start to finish.<p>If you&#x27;re interested, I wrote a post recounting my experience participating in Ludum Dare:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;alessandrocuzzocrea.com&#x2F;ludum-dare-47&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;alessandrocuzzocrea.com&#x2F;ludum-dare-47&#x2F;</a>

Been working on a 2D game engine. I haven&#x27;t &quot;show HN&quot; it yet because there is still some work to before MVP. Sadly for LD you really need a browser game basically.feedback appreciated<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;ensisoft&#x2F;gamestudio" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;ensisoft&#x2F;gamestudio</a>

It’s my opinion that good games for these sorts of competitions start off as sketches and high fidelity random mock-ups of screenshots of interesting potential games, and then imagining what the possible game mechanics and objectives of it would be. Start with the end in mind or you’ll fall into feature creep.

I can never be sure if I can participate, real life puts many constraints on availability (and quality) of free time. But I try. I usually tweet a &quot;game design document&quot; on saturday evening, and try to squeeze 5-8 hours over the weekend to get something done. I always try to keep the games web based and compatible with mobile.<p>This entry: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;TheJare&#x2F;status&#x2F;1444240947487944707" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;TheJare&#x2F;status&#x2F;1444240947487944707</a><p>Previous: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ldjam.com&#x2F;users&#x2F;jare&#x2F;games" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ldjam.com&#x2F;users&#x2F;jare&#x2F;games</a>

For any Golang programmers, I highly recommend checking out Ebiten: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ebiten.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ebiten.org&#x2F;</a><p>You’re able to cross-compile to mobile + web as well so you’re not just stuck on the desktop.

The &quot;unstability&quot; property can be added to any existing game, with the single pass of a vertex shader ;)<p>Some themes simply lend themselves to engendering more &quot;creativity&quot; than others. I knew it was going to be &quot;unstable&quot;, because it&#x27;s universally hated &#x2F; feared. But was chagrined to see &quot;One tool, Many uses&quot;. It&#x27;s really the ideal theme for a game jam with time constraint. The inspiration just flows. And really the themes are vague enough to get away with anything.

I think I could achieve the unstable concept reasonably easily :)

I&#x27;m always excited to see what comes out of these game jams and seeing how people ship their one off game. I&#x27;ve noticed games with web versions typically rate higher than games with only locally executable versions (for obvious reasons). Web games being compiled into wasm also frequently handroll a lot of standard library logic that doesn&#x27;t otherwise work out of the box, and I&#x27;m looking forward to seeing what they come up with.