Well, Ludum Dare 39 is over and despite some issues with the LD site, my game is submitted. I wasn’t sure what to expect going into the competition but I managed to not only complete a game, but I think that its kind of fun!

Introducing…Delivery Drain

The theme this time around was “Running out of power”. It didn’t take me long to fixate on the idea of centering the gameplay around conserving the power on your cell phone – a situation I seem to constantly put myself in for one reason or another. I decided to create a game where you would need to navigate around a randomly generated city using the map on your in game phone like a traditional mini-map. Using the map would drain the battery of the phone so you would have to be conservative with its use. I didn’t have an entirely clear picture of what the actual game was going to be but I didn’t want to waste a ton of time so I got to coding right away.

The first night consisted mainly of the city generation and some very basic artwork. I got the car driving around the city constrained to a grid and hooked up some player input before going to bed. I had the entire day Saturday to work on artwork, the delivery system and most of the UI. Sunday afternoon was then spent on sounds, music and bug fixes. I also added a couple last minute features like difficulties and road construction.

Overall I had an absolute blast and I’m really happy with what I managed to produce by myself in just a weekend. The next step is to play and review other peoples entries. I will make a post showing off some of my favorites in the next week or two.