Hey there sports fans,

Ludum Dare 12 is coming up in about a month and a half. August 8th-10th weekend.

http://www.ludumdare.com

We’ll let you know the theme suggestion and voting details in the coming weeks.

Don’t want to wait that long?

Next Friday (July 4th weekend) is Mini LD #2, hosted by GirlFlash. You can read the announcement here:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2008/06/20/mini-ld48h-2/

Keep an eye on the site for the latest updates for Mini LD #2.

That’s it for now. See ya there.

—
Mike, Phil, and the #LudumDare crew

Hey everybody,

Big news about Ludum Dare.

First off, ludumdare.com is back.  After years of floating around the internets, we’re finally back home where it all started.

We’ve been extremely happy with how Ludum Dare 10 and 11 with Wordpress have worked out, so we made it official.  A bunch of us got together, threw some money in a pot, and set up a dedicated host.  Phil Hassey has already migrated the combined LD10 and LD11 site over to our new host.  If you’ve tried accessing anything off Phil’s Imitation Pickles site, you’ve already being redirected.

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/

The syndicated community feeds of user blogs have been isolated from the compo site, and now reside on a separate section called Planet Ludum.

http://www.ludumdare.com/planet/

If you have a development blog that mostly covers your game making and related efforts, let Phil or myself know, and we’ll syndicate you.  Be sure to have an RSS feed url handy.

Finally, we now have a work-in-progress hub website at the root, plus a news feed for those RSS inclined individuals.

http://www.ludumdare.com

We still have much work ahead of us.  Several unfinished pages (about), streamlining the site navigation, plus an endless wishlist of ways to expand and improve the community.  Think of us as now in perpetual Web 2.0 Beta. 

Next, a new non compo coming up in under 2 weeks.  Friday June 6th, Hamumu will be hosting the first Mini LD48 Compo.

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2008/05/27/announcement-mini-ld48-1-hamumu-style/

We’re trying something new here.  If things go according to plan, Mini LD Compos will be monthly.  If you’ve participated in our “non competitions” in the past, it’s very much like one of those.  They’re not judged competitions, but unlike the previous “non competitions”, somebody volunteers to be the host.  The host chooses the date, can choose to change/tweak any previously established rules, and the theme.  Ultimately, a host can choose to run their compo the classic way (theme voting), but one of the goals of the Mini LD Compos is to try some new things.  Be it to bring back some of the more experimental themes, or to ‘beta test’ new ideas for the compo process.

Mini LD’s are new and evolving addition to the community.  If you have any thoughts or feedback, get in contact with us on IRC or respond to the discussions on the compo blog.  Or if you’re a Ludum Dare veteran and want to try your hand at orchestrating a compo, visit the Wiki to claim a spot, and join us on IRC to discuss it.

http://www.ludumdare.com/wiki/

And one final note about the next event compo (Ludum Dare 12).  We don’t have a date set yet, but we’re (I’m) strongly considering (pushing) for some time in August 2008.  Stay tuned.

Thanks,
- Mike Kasprzak (PoV)

Howdy sports fans,

The theme for Ludum Dare 11 is “Minimalist”.

If you haven’t already, join us by signing up at the blog.

http://www.imitationpickles.org/ludum/

Thanks everyone, and see you in 48.

Here’s a summary of the competitions which developers can participate in and win some money:

Gaming World ($450, 2 weeks)
The easiest of the lot. Make a game in two weeks, and stand a chance to win USD $300. All development tools are accepted, but creation must include pandas (among other rules). Final submission date is 28th of April. First and second runner ups get USD $100 and $50 respectively. (forums)

Eegra 1st Annual Game Making Shinding (USD $2,500, 3 months)
Eegra is offering cash prizes worth a total of AUD $2,750 (roughly USD $2,500) for first to third place finishers in their 1st Annual Game Makin’ Shindig Competition. Contest runs for three months, with 8th of July set as the final submission date. Entrants are advised to read the Terms and Conditions plus Guidelines for Entry before considering participation.

The Dobbs Challenge (USD $10,000, 2 months)
Microsoft is giving away USD $10,000 just for modifying games using the trial version of Visual Studio 2008. That’s a lot of money for a couple of weeks’ coding.

10 Indie, Student Game Competitions
A list of ten indie and student game competitions that would interest developers who are keen on getting a little attention for their projects or releases.

The rundown (unranked) points to ten events throughout the world in which indie game developers and students can show their works to compete for cash prizes, as well as that first big break in the industry.

Ludum Dare 11 is coming! Ludum Dare is a regular community driven game development competition. The goal is, given a theme and 48 hours, to develop a game from scratch. Ludum Dare aims to encourage game design experimentation, and provide a platform to develop and practice rapid game prototyping.

Theme voting has begun as of NOW! There will be three rounds of voting (one each day) where we rank various groups of themes. On the last two days I will take the top results from each of those rounds and combine them for the Final Round. Check the website each day for new theme voting links!

Website: http://www.imitationpickles.org/ludum/
Rules: http://www.imitationpickles.org/ludum/wiki/start
IRC : #ludumdare on irc.afternet.org
April 11-18th - Registration and Theme Voting
April 18 at 7pm PST and runs until the 20th at 7pm PST

Hope to see you there!

-Phil

Ludum Dare 11 is coming! Ludum Dare is a regular community driven game development competition. The goal is, given a theme and 48 hours, to develop a game from scratch. Ludum Dare aims to encourage game design experimentation, and provide a platform to develop and practice rapid game prototyping.

Website: http://www.imitationpickles.org/ludum/

Rules: http://www.imitationpickles.org/ludum/wiki/start

IRC : #ludumdare on irc.afternet.org

April 11-18th - Registration and Theme Voting*

April 18 at 7pm PST and runs until the 20th at 7pm PSTHope to see you there!

-Phil

*the theme voting will be done in batches almost every day that week. So keep checking back. The final round of voting will be during the 48 hours prior to the compo. If you want to influence what is in those batches, edit http://www.imitationpickles.org/ludum/wiki/ld11:themes and if you think there are themes in that list that are so awful people shouldn’t be force to bother voting on them, join the irc channel and get some folks to agree with you and you can remove them. Lousy and redundant themes will be removed by the ThemeMaster.

Ludum Dare 11 is coming! Ludum Dare is a regular community driven game development competition. The goal is, given a theme and 48 hours, to develop a game from scratch. Ludum Dare aims to encourage game design experimentation, and provide a platform to develop and practice rapid game prototyping.

Website: http://www.imitationpickles.org/ludum/

Rules: http://www.imitationpickles.org/ludum/wiki/start

IRC: #ludumdare on irc.afternet.org

April 11-18th - Registration and Theme Voting

April 18 at 7pm PST and runs until the 20th at 7pm PST

Hope to see you there!

-Phil

Hey,

It’s time for some more game compo good times!  The compo is going to be on the weekend of Feb. 23rd.  Since it’s a warm-up, there won’t be exact start and end times, just show up and have fun!  Theme voting will be on the website prior to the compo.

Join #ludumdare on irc.afternet.org
www.imitationpickles.org/ludum/

Hope to see you there!

-Phil