Ludum Dare 21: Escape

September 13, 2011 9:10 AM

Ludum Dare is an annual video game development contest where the contestants have 48 hours to complete a game. This year's theme was Escape and 599 games were submitted. The winning solo and team created games have been announced. You can download all games and even view their source code. If you want to experience the awesomeness of real-time game development, check out the time-lapse videos.

Notch, Minecraft's main developer, finished as number 13 with Prelude of the Chambered. Here's his time-lapse.

posted by Foci for Analysis (10 comments total)

I can't run Java from here, but from the video it looks like Notch finally invented Doom.
posted by DU at 9:19 AM on September 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

Yeah, these things serve to make me even more self-conscious about how long In Profundis is taking. SIGH
posted by JHarris at 9:27 AM on September 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

...from the video it looks like Notch finally invented Doom.

In 48 hours.
posted by odinsdream at 9:27 AM on September 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Actually DU, Notch has made a number of quickie games in the past. Just before Minecraft hit it big Keith Burgun pointed me to a couple of them. If I remember later I'll see about posting links to a couple. (If someone else doesn't beat me to it first... hint hint... please?)
posted by JHarris at 9:29 AM on September 13, 2011

I noticed that they're nearly all escape games. Is that because they're easier to code in some way, or is it a fad?
posted by yeolcoatl at 9:29 AM on September 13, 2011

Oh wait, that's the theme, never mind. I am not smart.
posted by yeolcoatl at 9:29 AM on September 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

My theory for the first game: the human is running towards the Pac-Man costume, the rocket is trying to get away so it can shoot down the dam holding back the acid, and the frog is an alien trying to get back to its ship.
posted by randomination at 9:41 AM on September 13, 2011

In 48 hours.

Not only in 48 hours, but as someone who watched Notch's liveblog pointed out in the Hacker News thread: "The thing that I like most about his effort is that he did it completely and entirely from scratch. [...] He started with a blank project and added everything from his brain (not even consulting Google once!) It was absolutely amazing to watch."
posted by oulipian at 10:22 AM on September 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

Heh - If I was a halfway decent programmer I'd have entered my game "Graviton"...

youtube clip/explanation (yes, the camera is from the side, too bad ;))

I am horrible at programming, and gave up the project *sigh*.

The idea is that you're a scientist who researches black holes, but conviently gets stuck around them, and has to get high density energy cores from various asteroids plunging towards the black hole (and strangely enough, these asteroids carry powerups, too!) After his power meter fills up with these cores, he can blast off away to... THE NEXT BLACKHOLE! He has to escape before the hole grows too large and eats him up...

It's a retrostyle vector game.

And it took much much much longer than 48 hours LOL!

Look forward to checking these games out tonight and see what the contestants entered. I love these speedhack competitions! Always little delights to see the creativity people burst forth with :D
posted by symbioid at 11:06 AM on September 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

Not annual but three times per year, it seems.
posted by MastodonFarm at 12:15 PM on September 13, 2011