Ludum Dare Game: ‘Spawn’
Jan 1
2012
I participated in my first ever Ludum Dare 48 hour game competition. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but I’ve been wanting to try to do it and I had the weekend free, so I figured I’d give it a shot.
Theme
The theme was announced on Friday night: ‘Alone’.
I came up with an idea for my game pretty quickly and got to work. My game would be about a tiny amoeba swimming through a vast empty ocean.
Development
Development was really tough. I spent a long time in front of my computer on Friday and Saturday. By Sunday morning I was in physical pain and mentally exhausted.
You can see my development progress in this time-lapse screen video of my screen:
The Game
I did manage to finish my game, and it actually came out pretty good.
The game is called ‘Spawn’. In the game you control the amoeba and you have to swim around and try to eat little nutrients out of the sea. After you eat three nutrients your amoeba will spawn a new life form. There is a screen in the game that will show off all the different creatures you’ve created.
I think I drifted a little too far from the theme. After I added the other creatures that get spawned, then you no longer feel very ‘alone’. But without them, the game wasn’t much fun so I chose to compromise in favor of fun.
Results
Overall, I got a lot of good feedback on my game. People seemed to like it.
It came out a lot better than I expected. I might end up refining it and releasing it as a proper Pencil Farm game.
Out of over 700 entries, Spawn came in #38 in the Audio category, #48 in Graphics, and #94 Overall.
Try it out for yourself and see what you think:
