It is that time of the year again. Every April, August and December, the Ludum Dare Game Jam takes place over the internet.

The goal of the Ludum Dare Jam is to make a computer game, from scratch, in 48 hours. This means imagining the game, writing the code, drawing the graphics, making the sounds, and putting everything together in a weekend. It may seem like very little time to create a game, but many pretty impressive games have been made.

I really like Ludum Dare. When I entered CS college, I had dreams about making a game (who doesn’t?) – but to a multitude of factors and excuses, I never got around coming even close to a complete game. However, Ludum Dare’s tight format: the time constraint, the “start from scratch” constraint, somehow makes me much more porductive – and every Ludum Dare I managed to finish some sort of mini game (the first and last ones are my favorites).

So, three times per year, I relive my dream of being a game developer for a weekend.

This time around, I’m using a new java gaming library – libGDX. Unlike Slick2D, which I used the previous times, libGDX is a bit lower level, allowing for example direct access to openGL directives. It also has Android support, which was a big selling point for me – I can make games for my own Nexus :-)

Hoping for a fun and fulfilling weekend!