<commit_before>---
layout: post
title: "ludum dare 26 - post mortem"
description: "My first ludum dare. Theme: Minimalism."
project: voxeljs
---
I was introduced to [Ludum Dare](ludumdare.com/compo/) in a [tweet by hughskennedy](https://twitter.com/hughskennedy/status/327234957875486720) last Wednesday. It is a friendly game competition where developers are pitted to make a game based on a theme within 48 hours. The theme this time was: **Minimalism**. Perfect for [voxel.js](http://voxeljs.com).

I've been recently researching various pathfinding techniques. I came across a really well done [a star](https://github.com/superjoe30/node-astar) library which uses ASCII mazes as test cases. Inspired by those ASCII mazes, at the start of the competition I set off to create just a simple voxel maze.

<img src="/images/posts/ludum-dare-26-0.png" style="width:100%;" /><br/>
<br/>

I didn't intended on making a *scary game*. Originally I wanted a path of color follow behind the player to let them know where they've been. Then add various puzzles throughout each maze level. Getting a path generated based on where the player has been wasn't working out. All the methods I tried slowed down the game quite a bit. I threw that idea out.

Instead I went with markers. Simply click a wall to set a marker. Throughout this process I had red blocks I wasn't sure what I'd do with. But they sat there glaring at me. So I gave them eyes, then a mouth and the red monster was born.

<img src="/images/posts/ludum-dare-26-1.png" style="width:100%;" /><br/>
<br/>
<commit_msg>oops needs a link<commit_after>---
layout: post
title: "ludum dare 26 - post mortem"
description: "My first ludum dare. Theme: Minimalism."
project: voxeljs
---
**Play the game here: [http://shama.github.io/ludum-dare-26/](http://shama.github.io/ludum-dare-26/)**

**[View my entry](http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-26/?action=preview&uid=22120) on Ludum Dare**

<hr/>

I was introduced to [Ludum Dare](ludumdare.com/compo/) in a [tweet by hughskennedy](https://twitter.com/hughskennedy/status/327234957875486720) last Wednesday. It is a friendly game competition where developers are pitted to make a game based on a theme within 48 hours. The theme was: **Minimalism**. Perfect for [voxel.js](http://voxeljs.com).

I've been recently researching various pathfinding techniques. I came across a really well done [a star](https://github.com/superjoe30/node-astar) library which uses ASCII mazes as test cases. Inspired by those ASCII mazes, at the start of the competition I set off to create just a simple voxel maze.

<img src="/images/posts/ludum-dare-26-0.png" style="width:100%;" /><br/>
<br/>

I didn't intended on making a *scary game*. Originally I wanted a path of color follow behind the player to let them know where they've been. Then add various puzzles throughout each maze level. Getting a path generated based on where the player has been wasn't working out. All the methods I tried slowed down the game quite a bit. I threw that idea out.

Instead I went with markers. Simply click a wall to set a marker. Throughout this process I had red blocks I wasn't sure what I'd do with. But they sat there glaring at me. So I gave them eyes, then a mouth and the red monster was born.

<img src="/images/posts/ludum-dare-26-1.png" style="width:100%;" /><br/>
<br/>

{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.1001788908765653, 'fraction_numerical': 0.024746571258199165, 'mean_word_length': 4.185471406491499, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 16, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 16, 'https://': 4, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 1, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
{'dir': 'git-commits-cleaned', 'id': '4222014', 'n_tokens_mistral': 1103, 'n_tokens_neox': 1000, 'n_words': 471}