Good job everyone, it's been a blast as always!

Here are the total number of games with a reported rank in each category, according to data downloaded from the API just now, in case anyone wants to calculate what percentile they fall in.

|Category | Compo | Jam | |----------|-------|-----| |overall | 898 | 1920| |fun | 898 | 1920| |innovation| 898 | 1920| |theme | 898 | 1920| |graphics | 876 | 1773| |audio | 708 | 1286| |humor | 647 | 1436| |mood | 831 | 1804|

We are really happy with the results, but even more happy about the game we created. Overall, we placed in the top 13% of all Jam games, with some graphics being a little bit lower.

Learnings: - Next game jam with a real artist again to get better graphics results. 🎨 - Fix stupid FMOD issue because for some people the soundtrack was not loaded. Worse Audio rating than we could have got. 🎵 - Maybe don't make a rage game inspired by QWOP to get some more points in Fun and Overall 🙈

If anybody is still interesting in playing our game, here is the link: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/how-to-swim

Disappointed basically.

My buddy couldn't participate in his first jam because Brazilian internet.

Made way too simple a game with a control style and physics that were way too confusing.

Didn't live up to my previous entries like, at all.

As for post-jam, nothing. As per usual.

Next jam I plan to challenge myself to make a platformer. I never wanted to make one before because the idea is too generic, but I want to try it, at least once, to make a unique one. Also they are fun.

Recorded some footage for a future devlog video about what I learned, so if you speak Portuguese and want to see it, sub to me! :0

The results are in and Dwammings came 166th overall. This was the first jam for the majority of us on the team, and were ecstatic on seeing how well we did.

But also, congrats on all the other creators that participate. I know I gonna find myself participate in the next jam in the future, and pulling in everything I learned here in LD48.

First of all, thank you to everyone who played our game. This was our second and best entry so far. We are really happy with the results and kinda overwhelmed to be honest!

To make it in the top 10% overall makes us really happy, and me, personally, having worked in the graphics, that 25th position feels so good.

We are not sure if we are gonna continue to develop a full version of OVERDRILLED, and that is because we are quite busy with other personal projects. I'm working with @everedx and @gelthan on a metroidvania called Stranded. You can learn more about it on our twitter accounts, like mine: https://twitter.com/oscarodfer

Here is a little preview of what to expect there:

Thanks again! (flies out)

A big thanks to everyone who played my game!

My score in Mood is better than I ever could have hoped for. On behalf of Clara and I, thank you all so much!

Here are my rankings from last Ludum Dare, a Solo Jam submission that I'm not incredibly proud of Jam version-wise:

And here are my scores for this Ludum Dare's Compo submission:

How do I feel about these rankings?

Considering that Aftermath was made as an experimental game, my first entry into the world of 3D plugins, narratives, and custom apps, the sliiiiight decrease in the "normal" categories is to be expected. Theme took a heavy hit this time around, which is to be expected since after going with the theme possibly too strongly last Ludum Dare, I went for a more psychological and less obvious use of the theme. Not all people were really able to feel the theme strongly since it wasn't really communicated and more of a deeper understanding that is easy to overlook, but what the heck, who cares about ratings.

What really stands out to me are the improvements in Graphics, Audio, and Mood. Graphics went up a whole .6 stars (still not my best work, but the Compo is tough), and Audio went up over a whole star! (Since I actually made a soundtrack instead of just one terrible sound effect.)

And then there's Mood.... 3.61, putting me at 245th, it's so generous for someone who had to create everything, even their own logo, from scratch in only 20 hours! This was my first time doing a narrative game, and my first time trying to communicate a strong atmosphere in a game, so the fact that you reviewers gave me close to 4 stars in Mood makes me so happy I can't put it into words. (And I'm a bit of a writer, so that's something.)

Despite having been a writer and comic drawer ever since the day long ago that I learned to read and write, and having been a game and app developer for 3 years, this was the first time I tried to make an experience rather than a game. "Can I make a good story on the fly?", I asked. "Can I actually do this?", I asked. "What makes me think people won't hate this?", I asked. And then you guys give me the highest rating I've ever received, in the category that basically represents what this game is: the first step in Peace Of Cake Games becoming more than just a creator of half-baked action games.

In fact, the first time I had even ever played a narrative or visual novel was last Ludum Dare, when I came across Anything For You and cried my face off. (Shoutout: @emily-pitcher) I then explored the works of @angela-he (and cried for quite a few), and @gamebuilder's team (one word: ATMOSPHERE), and then as I browsed for games several months ago I cried my face off playing the works of @fullmontis. (Yeah, these visual novels and narratives make me cry a lot.)

Thank you to all of the reviewers, whether you just played the game real fast, left a quick comment, or had the patience to get all of the endings on stream despite the font being garbage and really hard to read (shoutout to @togis for surviving the wrath of the terrible font spacing). I'm glad that my first attempt at making a narrative game was positively received!

Aftermath will not be receiving a full post-Compo game, unlike my game from last Ludum Dare, but I am currently working on v2.1.1 to fix all of the issues and finish the game!

Oh yeah and I'm going to release the art and music apps I made and used.

Howdy! This was our first time doing a game jam. I think we did OK for a group of greenhorns. We had a lot of fun, and really loved the community. Our team is looking forward to October!

Our music/sound designer was the MVP!

Feels nice to finally be in the single digit club :0

After 5 entries (4 being compos) I actually got a top 10 in a category! I could've performed a lot better in other categories,

*but I don't think Greg is fit for a crown. :stuckouttongue: *

And while the number feels cool.. What's much better is the kind comments and genuine feedback I got in the comments.

Please note

Always remember that the numbers aren't everything. As the kind words and feedback that people left on my game mean much more to me than the ratings.

I cant tell you how happy every single person's comment made me. And thank you to everyone who played Saving Greg.

-Lando

Heh. First Jam, first game. Thanks for the high scores.

Congrats to all winners and participants!

Although I got more engagement, incredible technical and amicable feedback, I did not reached my goal of improving my rankings. I would be happy with at least equal. I won't lie, I feel a bit down, but on the other side, I found success in other areas.

I had other goals, which I reached: make a simple core loop, strong mechanic, a concept and basic coding within the first day, sleep more, take breaks, participate. I'm happy with my coding and blender improvement. Perhaps, the key is combining a little bit of everything, simple but stylish graphics, strong core loop with a couple of smaller ones, more focus on mood and add humor.

I wanted to make a game out of this but the results does not justify the effort.

Here's the obligatory stats.

I'm really not the one to rant about ratings, like most I join just to create something and take part.

But it grinds my gears in this moment that our game had way more ratings given than comments posted (70 ratings, about 39 comments), which makes me believe it might have been under some sort of a troglodyte attack. Of course I'm not saying it deserves high ratings in any category, least of all in Overall and Fun, as the whole thing was a very half-assed production, yet I've been taking part in LDs for a long time and some of the results feel a bit off, not too much, but just enough.

So I guess the only point I want to make is that rating a game without leaving a comment should be made impossible, as such act serves no purpose to anyone, most of us make games for our own enjoyment but we submit them to get feedback. Not to mention this ability inspires paranoia and gives a device to any potential abusers out there.

Either way big thank you to all who took time to give our game a spin, it was amazing fun taking part and I'll definitely continue doing so whenever possible.

We made a puzzle game for this jam and people kept saying we should take it further so we might do.

I had a lot of fun this jam, interacting with streamers finally playing a lot of games (played ~60 games), talking about games, giving constructive feedback - it was a blast, and the game making of course, first time I made levels and it was awesome :D

Comparing it to my previous entries, the current one is the one with the best ratings:

Somewhat lower than the comments made us expect but still quite good.

And the most important thing: What I have learned.

This jam made me actually understand how to make games in a new way xD After 8 years of game devs, this is the first time I realized what it means to make levels and how a game should be structured, especially in comparison with my previous entries. Until now I kept adding features until the time runs out, never polished anything and barely managed to upload it on time - having the build-progress-bar and upload-progress-bar side by side with the LD-Timer. It was always on the very last minute.

But efficient Game Dev is about combining reusable mechanics. Constantly introducing new things to the player without proper explanation is bad. Many players didn't understand the elevator I created in "Murder Loop" because it was never introduced, so this was a point where people got stuck and had to quit the game.

This jam lead to a change in the big game I am working on - because until now, every puzzle is something completely new. Somewhat like Outer Wilds (just without the planets, spaceship, ..) - while Outer Wilds is an awesome game, it's an insane amount of work and they where like 15 people working on this. We are just 2 devs. And even Outer Wilds did reuse mechanics for their puzzles. The sand planet has a bunch of puzzles all based on the raising floor.

Our game suffers from a lack of content and I suffer from fixing and polising things non-stop. When I polish the waterfall, only the waterfall looks better, this is one spot in the entire game, same with the pyramid, the scanner, the sci-fi machines, everything exists as single entity in the game, everything is unique. The same is true for the puzzle code. Each puzzle is completely different from each other puzzle. This way, we will never finish it, so we will create reusable mechanics (like in the jam game) which can then be polished and look good everywhere on the map. The puzzles we have now, will stay but we will fill the emptiness in our world with reusable elements, such as moving platforms and boxes to jump on. Like portal. They had what? 7 different mechanics? Portal, Moving Platform, Box, Button, Energy-Ball, Moving Wall, Turret. And made an entire game out of it. Portal 2 only introduced jump & speed-gain goo and made a whole second game out of it.

This jam, playing the different games, categorizing them based on efficiency and completeness may saved the big game we are working on.

So I got my results, and as always, I have no idea how my game got this high. Thanks to everyone who played/rated my game, and I'll see you next Ludum Dare for hopefully another NES game :D

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/mine-mayhem

Greetings, LDers, and congrats on your games! There were a lot of awesome titles I played this time around, and above all I think I was pleasantly surprised with all the different places the theme went. There were lots of submarines and mine shafts too, but that's alright... there were lots of cool ideas, both in theory and in practice.

My game, Resurface, was a 6DOF style game developed by somebody that had no idea how to make 3D levels, 6DOF environments, or the genre in general. In fact, it's the first 3D game I've ever shipped. Since I actually had a final grade riding on this project, I really gave it my all and pulled out all the stops for it.

So, with all that said, how'd it turn out? Well... here's how it stacks up to my LD47 game, proceed.

Well... how'd that happen?

This is all subjective, but I feel that my effort this jam made Resurface a massive step up in quality from my LD47 title. While maybe not as original, the scale, asset quality, and environment art are all massively improved. So, why the lower placement?

Simply put: I think LD was a lot more competitive this time around. Ignoring the placement for just a moment, my scores were improved in every single category with roughly the same number of ratings, and I'm quite proud of that accomplishment. Yet, every single one of my placement scores were lower, and it really just comes down to the fact that there were a ton of incredibly high quality submissions that blew my game out of the water. I have no idea how some of these games were crafted in 48 hours, and all with some incredible angles on the theme or gameplay. If the LDJam community is really going to step up its game and make for some real tough competition, all I can really do is rise to the occasion next time.

It's also worth noting that Resurface had a pretty rough launch, and some of the bugfixes that shipped over the first week of ratings were essential fixes that made a night-and-day difference. So, I also can't help but wonder how scoring would have gone with a little more time put into bugfixing. While proceed was at least a complete (if flawed) experience from the original ship, Resurface had a list of problems that directly impacted the player's ability to finish the game or even make decent amounts of progress. I can't exactly fault some low scores for the absolute nightmare that was the day one version of the Pipeworks room, for instance. And, YES, THE MOVEMENT IS TOO SLOW. Now that the jam is properly ended, I cannot WAIT to finally increase the speed. I'll take this as a lesson learned.

How bad did the bugs get? Well, they were everywhere. This is my personal favorite response I received, in relation to a bug where air refill stations could be infinitely used without penalty due to a missing line of code:

Sorry, bud. Someone told them.

Highlights Reel

My LD 48 game felt like a massive step in the right direction for future projects. In LD47, I was forced to quit the compo halfway through and start from scratch, acknowledging that I would be unable to complete the game on time. This time around, I not only settled on a design by the end of the first night, but was able to stick with said design for the duration of the compo, submitting on time as a complete package.

Thematically, I put two additional restrictions on my game before the compo even started, and I have mixed feelings about this approach. On one hand, I felt like justifying said decisions in the game made for some really fun design challenges-- for example, forcing myself to build on a sci-fi theme led to some of the neon-heavy later environments and the PA system, not to mention the absurd theme that the game took on. Furthermore, a very specific in-joke made it in as the grand story objective, and to some extent I'm proud that I actually went for something so extraordinarily unnecessary. On the other, it hampered the design process and led to a lot of the messy redesigns of Day 2 that led to the spreadsheet of bugs documented in every new build.

Above all, I just had a lot of fun working on this game. It was a much more concerted and focused effort than my first LD attempt, and while not everything went according to plan I'm proud of what I accomplished.

So, what now?

I have spoken about a Resurface post-jam release quite a bit, but I haven't said anything official. I see two paths forward for this game-- one where Resurface gets one last patch to smooth out the roughest edges before certain qualities of its gameplay are lifted into another project I wanted to create, and one where the story of the HMS Good Omens is expanded on with multiple characters, a new Lifeline mechanic for traversing certain common routes across the ship, and air-tight sections that are spent walking on foot, not to mention overhauled movement and Resurface mechanics and improved presentation. I'm leaning towards the former, as I'm quite confident in the project idea being a solid vision for the future, and I see certain aspects of Resurface's mechanics being the perfect vessel for a dialogue-driven first person point-and-click. Ultimately, both of these projects will need more time in the oven before anything can be said for sure.

If you're interesting in checking out either entry, check out the links below:

LD 47: proceed

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/proceed

LD 48: Resurface

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/resurface

You can also find a first draft of the Cinematic Soundscape for Resurface on my SoundCloud and Bandcamp profiles:

OST (SC)

https://soundcloud.com/anchorlightforge/resurface-official-soundtrack

OST (BandCamp)

https://anchorlightforge.bandcamp.com/track/resurface-martian-medley

I'd link the same for proceed, but it would just be a single bitcrushed VRRRRRRRRRRRM sound on loop so there's really no point.

In the meantime, I'll be continuing on my current independent project while building up to a proper announcement and release window. Once again, it's been amazing joining in on this compo and meeting all sorts of developers worldwide, and LD has once again proven to be an incredible opportunity to learn and share with an incredibly talented, passionate, and sleep-deprived community of like-minded devs. So, with that, I'll head back to working on my Resurface post-mortem for a video release sometime soon. See you in LD49!

I could maybe have gotten a higher score on my game, https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/haunted-pizza-delivery, had i left more comments on other works, and thereby been rated more, but i did learn some things, like that my simple shapes style is actually appealing, and a little bit about unity, Wish me luck for the GMTK game jam that I'm also doing! Oh yeah, about fixing those walls........

Playing the top 3 games from each category

https://www.twitch.tv/itsboats

Well i expected better as the comments where really positive at all. But i think there are so much games out there which were pretty good.

However i was bit disapointed (i thought THIS time i can escape the "curse of the april LD jam" ratings). Ratings in the april jams was every time not the best. Mostly it was the game sucks a bit :D This time i had more focus on the gameplay - and i like it. I also chilled this jam bit more than the last both and though "well its april jam, i dont expect much so don't grind the game". Worked out good at all.

I was really wondering that a game like Fallums wins the jam category.

Don't get me wrong - congratulation to you. You deserve it really. I just didn't expected that a match 3 game like columns would hit the overall category.

However - this is how LD works :) Expect the unexpectable.

See you the in the next LD.