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Gajo Petrovic edited this page Jan 1, 2019 · 14 revisions

This Wiki describes the way SpringCabal games for the Ludum Dare competition are designed and developed. It is meant to serve as a tutorial for new team members but also as a reference point for veterans.

Ludum Dare

Intro

Ludum Dare is a game making competition occurring three times a year that exists in two formats: the 48h compo for solo entries and the 72h jam for team entries in which the SpringCabal participates. The goal is to make and publish a game in 72 hours according to a specific theme.

Theme

Themes are suggested roughly one month before the competition starts, and then they go through a long selection process: Theme slaughter and Theme voting. During Theme slaughter a large number of themes are pruned. Theme voting happens during one week, where each day potential entrants cast their votes. The top themes of each day proceed and in the last day the best theme gets selected and announced at the start of the competition.

Rules

  • the game jam lasts 72 hours, with 1 extra hour at the end for the submission
  • there is no limit on the team size
  • using existing code assets is possible and desired
  • existing art (graphics and audio) isn't used as we want to participate in the Graphics and Audio voting categories
  • it is possible to also submit post-jam versions of the game (while keeping the original for voting) in order to polish the game or fix any bugs

Judging

After the game is uploaded, the 3 week judging period starts during which we play other entries and assign ratings. This is done using a shared SpringCabal account, so everyone in the team can vote. Each vote we cast gives us Coolness points that make our game more visible (with a high Coolness/Votes received factor the game gets featured in the front page). It is necessary to obtain 20 votes for the game to receive a ranking. Also, when rating other games, it is desirable to also provide a short review listing major positive/negative aspects of the entry.

For further details consult the official rules.

SpringCabal

SpringCabal is a Ludum dare team originating from the SpringRTS community, organized by the motivation to use the SpringRTS engine. To join the SpringCabal team, make a post in the SpringRTS forums (https://springrts.com/phpbb/index.php) in the Ludum Dare thread active at the time. The minimum requirement is to posses some development ability (programming, 2D/3D art, audio, etc.) but more importantly to have good communication skills.

Previous entries (Scores)

Development

Tools

Communication:

Github Issues are used for issue tracking and to provide an overview of the current project status and task assignment. Github itself is used for any game repositories, while larger files may need to be hosted using third party services (although Github supports large files).

Game repository components:

  • SpringABC (using gajop's chili instead)
  • analytics
  • lups
  • modelshaders
  • S44 style OO defs
  • i18n
  • chonsole
  • liblobby
  • and a bunch of other useful custom widgets and gadgets

Process

The first few hours are spent on brainstorming so it is highly recommend to be online as this is when the core concepts of the game will be chosen. After we come up with the idea, initial tasks (Github issues) and a general roadmap (ordered into days as priorities) will be created.

All developers (artists included) should have good Git practices:

  • commit often and keep commits small and clear
  • pull with --rebase to avoid meaningless merge commits
  • never start commit wars
  • ... and generally use common sense (feel free to ask if unsure)

In the last day we will do a feature freeze and focus exclusively on play testing and polishing the game. Be careful with commits in the last few hours as any bugs made then are more likely to pass undetected.

3D models should ideally be done using Blender, and the blender source files (.blend) should be included in the ModelSources directory. All 3D models should be exported to Collada (.dae). This is done to simplify the usage (preview and editing) process by other members. 2D art can be created by arbitrary tools (although open source ones such as Gimp and Inkscape are preferred), but the sources should be uploaded to the ArtSources directory.

Licenses

Due to SpringCabal origins, it is recommended to keep everything open source, especially since we may want to reuse things in further Spring projects.

All SpringCabal games should have code licensed under a GPLv2-compatible license (with GPLv2 being the default is not specified). Developers are also asked to avoid unclear/silly licenses such as "HORSES", "PONIES" or any other equines.

Art should also be distributed under a liberal license. The default license is CC-BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), any the users are suggested to avoid any licenses that might prevent further development in their absence (e.g. CC-BY-ND, CC-BY-NC).

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