Just two days for the final results! In case you haven't played HELL DIVER: A short drop down pixelart hellish experience, please refer to the following link: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/hell-diver
And in case you need ratings, or just a honest review for you game please leave your link on the comments.
Good luck for everyone! I'l be trying games all afternoon
If anyone missed my game recommendations/Danger Category reminder, check it out here. I've got everything from games that'll make you cry, to games I've played for about 6 hours, to games that'll leave your brain puzzled.
Hey look, another developer is making a postmortem. Except this one will be different, because everyone else's development was actually interesting! Are you ready to either skip this wall of text or read about an idiot making games at 2 AM?
The Compo was set to start early in the night for me. I wasn't positive what I would be making since I didn't know the theme, so I got to work finishing up my music app, Peace Of Cake Music Maker!, in case I would need it. Making the recording, playback, and download features took a lot longer than I thought it would, so I actually finished working on Peace Of Cake Music Maker! about 40 minutes into the Compo. Thankfully the 40 minutes of finishing and exporting gave me an opportunity to think of what I would do. In the end, I settled with intentionally overscoping even though this was my first time doing the Compo (and my first time making a narrative-based game and using my own apps).
The idea for Aftermath was one I've had for a few weeks; the protagonist wakes up after an attack on their hometown, explores flashbacks triggered by collectibles and items, and eventually unlocks an ending condition. This was completely outside of my comfort zone, and I knew I was overscoping, but I decided to just wing it.
Could this even be Day 1? I only had a few hours before it was officially the weekend and Day 2 began. Yep, that's right, despite being a Compo participant this postmortem-devlog ends up being a 3-Day recap.
After finishing the export for Peace Of Cake Music Maker! and confirming it did work (somewhat), I got to work. The usual happened: I spent 20 minutes sitting there on the Create New Project popup in Construct 3 being unable to think of a game name, and checking the Ludum Dare page to see who else was in the same predicament. After I finally did something (I either named it New Project or named it Aftermath, pretty sure the former) I got to work using Peace Of Cake Art Maker! to redraw my logo as per Compo rules, and Peace Of Cake Music Maker! to rerecord my little opening theme, also as per Compo rules.
Since I knew it would take quite a while for me to redraw my logo since I am pretty darn terrible at drawing with a mouse, I looked for a game that could run in the background while I was drawing. I happened upon Yandere Emulator by @730, @big-pear-studios, @kooh, and @ulyseto, and let that run in the background while drawing since Peace Of Cake Art Maker! doesn't work well when it's not windowed. (Great game by the way, makes me regret not having participated in LD46.)
(It was after taking this screenshot that I decided to let an atmospheric game with the absolute best soundtrack it could possibly have run behind Peace Of Cake Art Maker!, so you don't actually see Yandere Emulator here.)
It was probably around 12 AM when I finished up, so I guess that means-
-this'll happen.
Day 2 was when I started doing stuff: I began working on the opening cutscene (probably spent around an hour just spawning stars everywhere and making sure the shooting stars would align right). This was also when I made the font.
Really sorry about the font in-game, it's hard to read since my dumb 2 AM brain didn't fix the character spacing and make sure it was easy to read. 🙇♂️ Guess I blamed slight reading confusion on the fact I'm a total idiot at 2 AM. In hindsight I really shouldn't try making anything important like that early in the morning or late at night.
After I finished that up, I completely crashed and slept for 6 hours or so. (Ah, cats are the perfect thing for making sure you don't sleep in during a game jam. Crying for attention and walking on you in the morning is sure to make sure you'll get an early start on jamming.)
When I woke up, after refueling my dumb brain to the point of being slightly less dumb via some breakfast, I got to work making semi-transparent circles, stacking them, and making their scale move in a sine wave. I call that 2D lighting. 🤔 Using Peace Of Cake Art Maker! I drew the two large Sprites that look like the eyelids on the edge of the player's vision, did some Tweening animation for them, and I had it done for the most part.
Saturday had been a busy day for me, so I didn't get around to finally making the dialogue engine until that night. I did it in probably the most stupid way I could: strings changing the text every X seconds, not waiting for player input. Even worse is the fact that my dumb tired brain decided to make a timer on the first interaction of the game, basically guaranteeing that anyone who can't read fast, has trouble reading because my font spacing is really terrible, etc is going to get an ending before they can even read the choices you have.
And then we jump to-
-development day 3.
This is it. The day I decided to make the mistake of bothering to make gameplay, and even use 3D Object, Construct 3's newest big feature that is still considered new and relatively untested. After spending ~30 minutes animating some burning houses that I deem the worst-drawn graphics in the game since you can't see the little details I added to them unless you reeeeeeaaaaally zoom in, I got to work making yet another Ludum Dare platformer. Seriously, I've only participated twice and it's been nothing but platformers with controller support. At least I actually like this game before its post-LD version. (Different story for last Ludum Dare's game, I'm making so many much-needed changes that I even renamed it.)
Day 3 went by in a blur since I was gamedev-ing all day. I made some audio that isn't too bad, I spent at least an hour drawing the first human with facial features I have ever actually liked the final result of, and I made a fun little feature that makes it so there's a trail of blood wherever you walk. Got to say, I'm proud of all of those things since they were all experimental and new to me. (Especially since the trail of blood used the untested 3D Object plugin in Construct 3, it was less than 2 weeks since release at the time of the gamedev period of LD48)
After eliminating some bugs with mere seconds to go, I made my sloppy game page and submitted to the Compo. Success! 🎉
After submitting I checked my notifications, and after playing Beaver Submarine by @cagibi, the rating period had officially begun for me!
And then 24 hours later when all of the Jam participants I follow submitted their games, I literally broke the notification system. 😆 There are developers I follow that submitted games that the notification feed literally didn't give me notifications for. 😂
Well, that's all I've got regarding the game. If you liked Aftermath stay tuned for a post-jam version!
Oh, and a quick announcement, my pretty "eh" game I only spent 3 hours on last Ludum Dare, Outside The Loop, is currently have a ground-up redesign for release as an official PC game. If you like games like the NES Super Mario Bros games and GameBoy/NES Kirby games, and you like exploiting the system to gain unlimited flight, you might like it.
I had a lot of fun with this jam, I actually almost got everything I wanted to in, really looking forward to seeing how I placed. And I've played a bunch of great games too, pretty sure Deepest Sword is gonna take first in a few categories. I've got just about twenty ratings in every category but humor so far, sitting at 19 there. Anybody up for a last minute look at SPEKS?
Thanks!
Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to inform you I once more had to clear the leaderboard. People used external tools to abuse the scoring system, so I added a small "protection" against that. Please note that this "anti spamming nuke" was not originally part of my submission, but in the spirit of having fun here and making it fair to other players that want to get a top score, there you go :) Let's go !
*Linux and MacOS builds are also provided now
https://www.twitch.tv/itsboats
drop your links in my chat I will play!
Here are some of my favorites this time around:
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/greedy-miner
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/super-drill-boy
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/humble-miner
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/diggy-bungus
And here's my game, if you're interested in that sort of thing:
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/deeper-every-d8
I'm playing some Danger games, and I just finished playing this visual novel that is low on ratings. If you like cats play this ASAP, and if you don't like cats play this anyway.
You can read about it there: https://lisichkafarengeit.itch.io/we-have-to-dig-deeper/devlog/253986/2nd-weekends-update
Also try my game: https://lisichkafarengeit.itch.io/we-have-to-dig-deeper or https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/we-have-to-dig-deeper
We just need one more rating in mood category - if there is a brave soul out there who'd like to reach the edge of space, our gratitude will be eternal!
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/edge-of-space
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/edge-of-space
Would cool if u try this game. https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/deep-in-the-space
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7mN691gIi0 https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x81awwz
See how I iterated on the flight physics in Godot, modeled caves and rocks in Blender, and put on a fancy hat.
All the other parts are on the Soaring Under game page if you missed them: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/soaring-under
Here's a word cloud based on game descriptions. I tried to extract the verb from all phrases of roughly the form "(verb) deep[er and deeper] into (noun phrase)", although a few non-verbs also seem to have snuck in.
Also check out the nouns (i.e. what are we going deeper into?) if you haven't already.
This is my game "Depths of the Library":
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/depths-of-the-library
It's a quick game about taking the elevator downstairs in a library to get a special book - and trying not to die in the process :sweat_smile:
I would really appreciate to get one more rating to reach 20 ratings!
As most others, we also improved our Game "N.E.R.D.S" a bit.
We didn't really improve all that much, mainly the following:
We (I) also managed to overwrite the itch.io game version, so if you want to checkout the original Jam Version, you will have to download the Windows version, still available on the overview.
Our game: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/n-e-r-d-s-not-enough-resources-in-deep-space
:wave_tone1: Hi!!
We've been checking some entries (OMG, there's always a lot of talent in LD!!!) and we'd like that you check ours :smile:
:file_folder: LD page
:video_game: Itch.io web build
We always play (and rate) back, so leave us a comment so we can check yours :smile:
Have a nice day!!! :sunny:
I've finally got round to doing a stream of some Ludum Dare games. If you've got a game you'd like me to play, drop a message in chat. :smile:
https://www.twitch.tv/extarscube
Sadly I had to undergo surgery a while ago which prevented me for playing and rating games. Now that I'm slowly recovering I'll be trying to spend these last two days playing and rating as many games as possible in hopes of reaching 20 ratings myself.
Play and rate my entry if you wish: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/deep-mine-ventures
The danger games are games that are 2-3 ratings away from 20. With only 2 days left its a good time to rate those games in particular.
Head Tilt Games teamed up with Mr. Live Studios to participate in Ludum Dare 48, and together, we created the most epic, the greatest, and the shortest thing you have ever seen: TURRIM 3D. A retro, first-person slasher, where you fight for your life like your life depends on it.
But believe it or not, it was far from perfect. So I've spent the last week or so polishing this baby up like a greased seal on a water slide. And like a greased seal on a water slide, it runs smoothly (I hope). But an update post wouldn't be an update post without a list to accompany it. Here are all the changes that I can remember doing.
Phew! I should probably start breathing now. Welp that's everything, I think. Either way, if this sounds like your cup of tea, then by golly grab it by the handle and gulp it down cause this game's free! And it comes with a browser playable version :D
That's all folks. Till next time. Goodnight and drop mic.
I'm playing some Danger games, and I just finished playing this visual novel that is low on ratings. If you like cats play this ASAP, and if you don't like cats play this anyway.
Playable in the browser!