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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 is a game making competition that takes part three times a year and 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 that fits to a particular theme announced at the start of the competition.
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 huge number of themes are removed before any voting commences. "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.
- the game jam lasts 72 hours from the start of the competition, with one extra hour after it ends to make the submission (create the game page and upload the game)
- there is no clear limit on the team size
- using existing code assets is possible and desired
- existing art (graphics and audio) can also be used, but this is something we never do as we want to participate in the "Graphics" and "Audio" voting categories as well
- it is possible to submit post-jam versions of the game (while keeping the original for voting) in order to polish the game or fix any bugs
After the games have been uploaded, the 3 week judging period starts during which we play other entries (both jam and compo) and assign ratings. This is done using a single SpringCabal account (for which team members get the password), as that allows us to vote on more games. Each vote we cast gives us "Coolness" points that make our game more visible to other people (with a high enough "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. 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 is a team of developers originating from the SpringRTS community, and the main motivating point is to use the SpringRTS engine for the Ludum Dare competition. To join the SpringCabal team for a Ludum Dare competition, make a post in the SpringRTS forums (https://springrts.com/phpbb/index.php) in the Ludum Dare thread active at the time. The minimum requirements to be a member is some skill (programming, 2D/3D art, audio, etc.) but more importantly good communication skills.
For communication during the compo we use Google Hangouts with Google Docs for documentation. Github Issues are also very useful to have 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 this is a useful Git integration: https://github.com/blog/1986-announcing-git-large-file-storage-lfs).
The first few hours are spent on idea brainstorming and (Google Docs) documentation writing. It is highly recommend to be online during these first few hours as this is when the core concepts of our 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 keep Git practices:
- commit often and keep commits small and clear
- pull with --rebase to avoid meaningless merge commits
- never start commit wars (do not revert or modify previous commits out of a disagreement, resolve it by talking)
- ... and generally use common sense (feel free to ask if unsure)
Sometime in the last day we will do a feature freeze and focus exclusively on play testing, bug fixing, performance improving and generally adding polish. In the last few hours of the competition developers must be careful not to break things with their commits as it may be difficult to detect and could dramatically impact the final ranking.
Ideally 3D models should be done using Blender, however artists who aren't familiar with it should contact the current team leaders. All 3D models should be exported in Collada (.dae). This is done to simplify the usage (preview and editing) process by other members. Blender sources of all models should be included in the ModelSources directory. 2D art can be created by arbitrary tools (although open source ones such as Gimp and Inkscape are preferred), but the sources must be uploaded to the ArtSources directory.
As SpringCabal comes from an open source-friendly environment it is our policy to keep everything open source, especially since we may want to reuse anything we create for further projects.
Despite the fact SpringRTS engine itself doesn't officially mandate a license for shaders, 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).