Ok, so I entered my first Ludum Dare, with expectations set high. When the theme was announced (3 am here in Denmartk) I was a bit disappointed.. It was the one theme I really didn’t like “Connected Worlds”. I wanted “Potato Salat” I wanted to make a game with a potato running from forks and knifes, NOT to become part of the “Potato Salat”.
I had to think of something? Sleeping until 7 and didn’t help, food and a shower.. Now an idea started to form. The void ship from the Dr. Who series and the hunt for the Maquis from Star Trek, void ship = between worlds, hunt for the Maquis = turbulent and violent space.. hmmm. To the blackboard, and draw 3D, draw 2.5D, ok then 2d.. Couldn’t figure out how I wanted the game to look, as I would like to do it in 2d (haven’t done 3d since unity came out with their 2d support), I just couldn’t squash the 3D into 2D.
Remembering that I only had 48 hours and 5 was gone sleeping, eating and showering already. I had to keep it simple. So why not having two universes, one on top of the screen and one on the bottom, and having to fight invaders from the other universe. So I set out to do so.
What I have ended up with is almost that. Only change is that the enemy ships are wormhole generators that you have to shoot down before they can open a wormhole, and there by destroying the other universe (I have allowed myself some freedoms as I do not know how wormhole from a universe with other lawn of nature would impact our universe or it’s even possible).
You can play the game Join Us! online, or download the PC version here.
Learned a lot, especially not to optimize as much as I do. I have done some things where I thought, this will be slow, but it’s micro seconds, so doesn’t matter. Ended up with at most 10 draw calls which is nothing. 🙂 Now I have uploaded the PC version and the web version to Ludum Dare I don’t really wan’t to work on it any more, I’m mentally tired and just want to relax and not think about “Join Us!” anymore, for now…
It’s been fun and amazing to see how much you can do, when you don’t focus on having to deliver something amazing and super polished, but just a game someone would enjoy 😀 So hope you will play it, enjoy it, and rate it on Ludum Dare.
Now, go make games 😉
– Henning