"Are we participating?" - I hear.
"Of course!" - flashes through my mind without hesitation)))

The Cleaner of the Depth.

A few productive days of work, and here we are, jumping and rejoicing like little boys over what we’ve accomplished! We got immense pleasure from the process itself, from the smooth teamwork where everyone understands you with just a hint.
Below are a few screenshots from the creation process over these 3 days!
Yes - we didn’t finish everything, yes - there are mistakes, but - it’s a small project made with great love! We invite you to take a look - The Cleaner of the Depth. P.S. Our kids also got to test the game - it’s a special kind of joy to see a child marvel, get scared, and laugh at something you created with your own hands!

In our game there is a system of escape from enemies, but only from the gnome junior you can not escape, check what will happen? https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/into-the-forest-depths

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/sound-of-ignorance

https://youtu.be/8VWTuBYpI3Y?si=e3cZwHpKcx8Ns41G

@PoV Hey y'all!! I'm in need of some help and I'm not sure where or who to ask.

Yesterday night I worked my butt off to finish my compo submission on time, but just now, I discovered I haven't pressed the publish button!

Is there any way our submission can still get rated?! I'd hate to miss out on yet another official submission and the ratings, eventhough I finally had everything done on time this time around!

New Achievements!

You can now play Lifted with a controller (Nintendo layoyut, XBOX buttons are reversed)!

You can now play the embedded web version (carefully read the instructions on the entry page)!

You can now play on Android (with a controller attached, no touch controls, sorry)!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/lifted

Below are screenshots of Lifted running on an Android phone with 2400x1080 resolution.

Deathtective centers around this idea!

Become Death, the grim reaper, who works a second job (after guiding the souls to the great beyond); being the so called flawless detective, who solves the darkest criminal cases in the depths of the Purgatory.

When a man was brutally killed in the building at 666 Styx Avenue, you were the first to get called to the scene. Search every corner of the house, interrogate every witness and find out who is the true criminal.

Play Deathtective

Play here => https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/dont-wake-him-up

Hey, so the Jam went great! People seemed to like Slappy's Reef and its vibes, and I'm quite happy with slappy myself!

So, what now?

Well I'm still going around playing some of the Jam's games, and there've been some bangers, and nuggets of clever ideas, honestly wonderful. While I do that, I am getting more and more input on Slappy, I'd go so far as to say this is the most productive research stage I could get, so I'm going to keep this up while I have the free time, see some cool games, and listen to everything said about Slappy's Reef.

Then I have a plan...

Slappy's Reef Classic

So first up I want to keep developing Slappy's Reef both in response to what I feel and in response to feedback. The goal of Slappy's Reef Classic will be to preserve the game as close as I can to the submission, but make a mix of superficial and quality improvements to make it an all around better experience.

Things which currently stand out...

• UI text is very small, fullscreen and a UI overhaul targeting scaling resolution would do a world of good!
• Effects are kind of cheap looking, namely the splash particles, I wasn't happy with this at the time, but it was necassary after I spent too long trying to get a better splash effect to work and failing, I think due to an engine bug, but can't be sure.
• Randomized visual clutter was unnecessary, but quick and easy, I think instead I'll take a generate it once approach, then use manual placement to do a bit of an underwater landmark'ing
• There's nothing to do in the air other than wait to dive, I think I could leave something at least audio visual here
• Slapping on the surface is kind of pointless, I want to give this a purpose, right now its just a way of doing very shallow dives, I'd like it if I can make this a means to pick up speed and do torpedo dives, more juicey movement is always a nicety!
• The fish are still placeholder assets, I want to fix this.
• The water is just, good enough. I want ripples, I want wakes behind you, I could possibly mechanicify waves for getting better jumps? not sure, thats something to play with.

• Its not clear what the objective is, I want to remedy this with a hints mode, a soft tutorial of sorts with some signposting and gamification of the hints on the hints screen.
• The fish are hard to catch, this is an interesting one, a lot of players say the fish are too fast, but the prior step should help players understand speed and how to build it, the issue is interesting because I notice it is too easy to dive too deep, and difficult to control depth after the fact, I plan to work on this and give better control while underwater so players can better grab fish where they are most abundant, this might involve a complete overhaul of the underwater controls, but that's the game dev life :laughing:
• The performance, ok I was worried about this but I was testing on a beefy PC and didn't account for a lack of hardware acceleration on some machines (lots of laptops start with it disabled), I also have found the CPU usage on fish simulation is hefty, so I'm going to work on that, possible dumb down the simulation of fish far away, and lower the fish count to a better controlled group around the players reasonable view, and ofc I want performance controls, it sucks to lose players to something so simple, so options are a must.
• The game could be juicier, I agree, I will always agree with this. In particular, I want more effects when you trick, when you catch a fish, when you eat a fish, when you land on your feet, when you jump, I wouldn't mind working on the seaweed too and allow it to wave about in your wake.

Slappy's World

This is a much more "we'll see about it later" concept. In effect, after I'm happy with Slappy's Reef Classic, I'll see if the project has aged well, at that point I have a few ideas for taking the mechanics and expanding them as a collectathon Character Action Platformer.

Luckily I run a solo dev game studio Nos Games, with an ongoing project Iron Rain, slated for release later this year, and around that time would be a perfect window to consider a follow up project.

If this interests you, I post little dev updates on the [Nos Games X Account] (https://x.com/nosgamesltd)

Good work on all the cool stuff in the Jam, and thank you for playing Slappy's Reef Have a good ratings crawl!

Cheers, Scott H

https://protzz.itch.io/hark

Our third Ludum Dare, and the third one in a row! It continues to be our favorite game jam to participate in, really glad to see it back.

Miner Complications is a puzzle platformer where you can't jump - you have to move, climb and dig strategically to collect treasure and reach greater depths! You can check it out here. Enjoy!

Looking for the next crevice with a near 0% survival rate to jam yourself into?

All jokes aside, we had a blast making the game and hope to make you feel immersed :smile:
Unfortunately we had to cut the final boss, having to divert the win condition to collecting all the upgrades.
We hope you still have fun and maybe some of you will even find all the hidden treasures...

Check us out at https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/belials-bellybutton

Honestly, we're the ones asking that question.

Depth-Self was made as a one-shot small project, focused experience built around a single idea: What if memories were stored like files? What if you could dig through them yourself?

It’s a short, narrative-driven puzzle game where you explore someone’s forgotten past by interacting with files created by the game itself. Simple mechanics, a few key moments, and a personal story about grief and memory.

We didn’t plan for more. But working on it—and seeing the first players engage with it—got us thinking.

What if we pushed the concept further?

We’d love to create a new story, from scratch, with:

• A deeper file-based interface (something closer to a fake OS),

• New mechanics, with more interactions like live messages and maybe choices ?

• And a narrative just as personal—told entirely through what you find, open, and piece together.

Nothing’s in the works yet. But the idea is there. And if you’re reading this, maybe it’s something you'd want too.

But for now, you can just test Depth-Self here : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/depth-self-a-narrative-game It’s short. It’s strange. It messes a bit with your files and a lot with your head.

Give it a try—and let us know what you'd like to see next.

Come try to give it a go ;)

Vote here : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/echo-depths

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/cult-of-the-whisker https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/cult-of-the-whisker

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/cult-of-the-whisker https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/cult-of-the-whisker

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/through-the-stars

We got a Cloud Strife look-alike to play Elf Boy in our game Fire Exit. Forgot his name, but I took this image of him on the blue screen set. Will not hire him again :)

Play and rate our horror game Fire Exit: Click here to play FIRE EXIT

Take your oi.. ehh coffee

Fly your ship

Mine some asteroids

Hit some Voidmites

Test it here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/astervoid

My friend managed to go that far into the game, deep randomly generated part, that the game broke during the next level generation due to the player and enemy army sizes. :D

I don't have an end-game screenshot as he technically never lost, but here is a screenshot from a few battles before that.

This time, I took the opportunity to try Pyxel engine - and I have to say, with a few caveats, it’s a great and fun engine to use! My game reflects on some recent events in a very silly way. Sorry about that. Or not :)

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/money-maker-2025

                    ** Go deep into the dungeon and map it out! **

Play now on Itch Rate our game

An old, decrepit lift takes you on a ride through an abandoned, now deserted area. Maybe there was never any life here. Or maybe there was. Time after time, you refuel the lift to continue your journey. Sooner or later you’ll die, or madness and loneliness will overtake you. But that’s later, but for now - you need scrap and fuel to go lower. And lower. And lower. And lower.

You feel like you've been here all your life. the endless elevator doesn't really bother you anymore, and you're definitely going crazy.

Explore unique locations that are generated new from time to time. Collect fuel and scrap to keep your lift running and hang in there, one day you’re sure to find a way out.

🏁 A guide to getting started:

You need to collect fuel and scrap, and then carry them to the Elevator to go below. When you have collected enough fuel, you can press the "E" button at the panel in the elevator and go to the next floor. Fuel is consumed when the elevator moves, and scrap is needed to maintain the elevator's condition. Never take too long to fix it or the lift will drag you down.

:joystick: Try it out.

Hey! We're a team of four and we've managed to release a small game where you play as an archaeologist trying to fill the rooms of their museum with various fossils.

Play it here !

To do that, you'll need to dig and venture deep underground! But there's a catch — deep below lies a reservoir of magma, just waiting for the right moment to rise! Be careful and don’t get caught off guard! Good luck, adventurers!

I Made a Thriller GAME about FEAR OF SEA

Fear of Sea is a first person survival horror game about sharks and the depths of the Sea. Made in 72 hours for Ludum Dare 57. The theme was "Depths".

https://youtu.be/nJ7HOJHSqRM

If you want to play and rate it, check this link:

Play the Game Here!

Watch how your planets interact with each other. Do you want to know what happens if two planets combine? Try it! 💥 If we've interested you, be free to try our game here

Play it here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/resurface

The main character descends into a cave to find his missing friend, encountering various items and notes along the way that hint at what's happening. What happens next? You'll find out by playing through our game) Link: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/buried

our game this time was a 🐈 platformer

you are a cat who has to "descend" (instead of jumping) and avoid evil cucumbers who stole your ball of yarn.

It's an endless platformer, with maybe not the best platform spawning logic, but I'm proud of the progression. The further you get, the more messed up everything gets—the visuals get darker and music gets weirder.

you can find our game here https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/slipping-away

also, here's a T-posing cat now that the game is done it's finally time to start voting for others

PS: I'm very proud of the "copy score" feature

Here is my first ludum dare! (formally it ended a long time ago, but I woke up only now)

It was really cool, even though I didn't manage to implement everything I planned and redid the visual style a couple of times (I chose this dancing dude) Thanks for the good reviews and cool games!!

By the way, if you've been dying to color 2D tower all day, there's one option...

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/graffiti-tower

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/confession

Give it a try too

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/astervoid

Hey there ! Congrats to everyone, I saw a lot of very promising games !

We finished our game : Stolen Heart a bit in a hurry, and it looks like the boss of our game is too strong, did someone beat him ?

Should we reduce his difficulty ?

I wasn't planning on doing LDJam but the theme gave me a good idea... almost 3 days later I'm finally done!

If you like atmospheric puzzle games I'd love for you to give it a try!

People saying my game crashing on their browser. but it works fine for me and for my couple friends. Maybe try without fullscreen open? idk

https://cyaygel.itch.io/sushi-pit

--> GAME PAGE

Game link : https://badpiggy.itch.io/faith-e-vator

Play there -> https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/$406902

To be honest, my Midnight Amplifier game is not about surviving the Enemies as I didn't have the time to build the enemies as I was imagined on day 1. However, the uses of the shader and the sound somehow did get the creep of me but idk why. I just can't imagine how the actual game industry that creates legit Horror game cope with the atmosphere for both the visual and audio day by day like nope.

One thing that was really helpful to create the tension: 3 Dimensional Sound. Thankfully I used Godot instead of creating the 2D HTML5 browser game I was planning before as this "ambient sound" can makes the feeling become unsettling without doing anything else...

Here is something that should be there but... well just no time...

We want to share with you some concepts arts and exploration of the game made in the first day of the jam.

The right part, unfortunately, did not make it into the game due to lack of time.

Full image can be opened by RMB and "open image in new tab"

Play and vote here : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/scavenger-deep

My previous Ludum Dare entries have mostly felt contained and "safe".

For this jam, I decided to make a roguelike that focuses on being FUN where good decisions reward you and make you feel overpowered by utilizing additive and multiplicative scaling, embracing exponentials. Similar to games like Balatro, Peglin and Nubby's Number Factory. There are definitely some scaling issues, but it allows for some really fun outcomes.

A run in Crabs in a Bucket usually starts off very normal, like this:

A few smart relic & item pickups later:

Then it can start going crazy:

Bonkers, even:

I managed to absolutely break it as well:

If you want to try it out, here is my entry: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/crabs-in-a-bucket

Would also love to hear about your experiences, in dev or otherwise!

can try to play - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/depth-of-deb

Actually, the games are very good. It's just that my game only has garbage

We made a super cute game! This was also my first time taking a lead writing role for a game! I'm normally a sound designer, but with our team's main writers pulling double duty on art and programming, and there not being a ton of sound design to be done, I made myself useful and took over writing many of the scenes in our game!

It was a real exercise for my brain. Since the gameplay has you navigating getting to know someone and conversational faux pas, I had to consider lots of different ways the dialogue could go, and figure out how to shape the contour of the whole story AND have each individual conversation "ramp up" as you gradually break the ice with each character.

Overall I'm super happy with how everything turned out ((including my sound design ^^))

Also you should play this game just to hear the music @hunter-van-brocklin cooked up :eyes:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/icebreakers

Hello! I made a game called "Frog at the Bottom of the Well" in Chinese for this Jam and unexpectedly got some feedback

"Depth", I felt a lot about this theme, and finally chose an expression that is more suitable for the meaning of Chinese.

So you can get these two results:

"How can a frog at the bottom of a well realize that it is at the bottom of the well?" - This is a problem hidden by the game, and the popular saying that removes the philosophy is, What are you stuck in?

Well, without saying big things, I myself was stuck on the way through the customs during the production process. I think a lot of people are bothered by these red guys:

It clings to you and needs to be kept away; throw it into the "deeper depths"! Alternatively, jump into the deeper depths yourself!

The frog puffing up its body has no effect on them and the frogs will collide with them like bumper cars.

Then, accompanied by the timer's countdown time and time again, you find yourself trapped on the road where you cannot find the "horizon."

Thus, it is completely unaware of the depth at the bottom of the horizon.

Until another day, another frog fell......

It rethought that question.

You may be one of those frogs(You can control that),

Perhaps merely a pure observer, monitoring this fellow who wants to measure the depth.

“去看看遥不可及的地平线吧。”("Let's go check out the unreachable horizon.")

In the Chinese original idiom story, this frog can only see the sky. I have left a specific camera angle in the game for you to experience.

//I would like to commend the use of animation components in this Jam; I have never controlled them myself before, please forgive my selfishness.

The story is a bit long! But thank you for reading it to the end. If possible, please play and rate it. Thank you!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/depth-to-horizon

Here is my posted video on Bilibili:

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1zTd7YtET6/?sharesource=copyweb&vd_source=e7fa2b19717b64477de984dc360c4d43

祝生活愉快！

All of the above,

YiBiRabbit007

We came, we forgot who we were, we were enslaved.

Thins are going to CHANGE. But we have to save our friends first.

Hope you like it!! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/moos-from-the-depth-of-ppace

Play & Rate: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/the-signal

Changes

• Updated Level 9

• Reworked Level 10

• Added smooth background color change between levels

• Fix: Ricochets are now more reliable with updated collision mask

• Fix: Voice lines at the start of the level repeat only after a couple retries

Also featuring Windows & Mac v1.1 version. Mac version hasn't been tested so any feedback is welcome.

Current browser version includes all changes.

Jam version with ricochet / voice over fix is available separately as a Windows executable, but doesn't features anything new as that would be cheating.

Try it here

P.S. I'm planning to stream tomorrow. You can join server where I will be posting in advance https://discord.com/invite/v9mwvt72Qj

~XpMonster

Cheer up Julio! He's waiting for you here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/poor-julio

first bug fix, now the end game's available.

I'm gonna try to play as many games as possible

Cheers to all.

I think my game won't make it has only 6 ratings and I need 20 for a placement. Rate it if you like it : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/sub-mersed

Hey, I'll throw my submarine game into the ring: Breachy Sub! Can you defeat the Eel King?

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/breachy-sub

Added an executable for browser crashes. Hope it works. Have fun!

That's great! Now you can even let others do it instead of you while you focus on the fun parts like driving the boat ~~and trying to not run them over~~. Check out Riches From Below here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/riches-from-below

Little game with some little windows and big story ! 6a24d.gif

Hi there! It has been a wild weekend but we managed to finish the game in 20~ hours. We had lots of laughs with the clunky physics and funny situations, hahaha.

I will be playing and reviewing the games from people that play & review ours! I will play other games too, of course, but I don't have so much time so I will prioritize :)

You can play on Web & Windows. Have fun!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/well-gnome

Help!!! Our Project Manager has trapped the BoboGames Team in the office!! He says he might be willing to let us out if people play our game. Can you check out Depths of the Heart so we can get out of here? Please, we haven't seen our families in days!!

Depths of the Heart is a fully voice acted story game where you play as a lonely fish, looking to find his true love! This is BoboGames' most ambitious jam game yet - we really hope you enjoy it. https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/depths-of-the-heart

• Please note this game contains adult language about animal mating, player discretion is advised.

Go out and touch some stone! :P Try this way: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/astervoid

https://protzz.itch.io/hark

Ordinarily I wouldn't make any changes to a jam submission, but this was reported by several players. I have uploaded a new version of the game that fixes the bug where the tutorial window does not close if you walk away from the sign. I have not changed any other aspect of the gameplay and hope that anyone who had issues will give me a second chance.

Cheers, all! I'll be playing submissions on my stream tonight!

I was really happy to make this game ! Try it if you want to !
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/depth-self-a-narrative-game

Were you able to make it to the bottom of the mine (without clipping through the geometry :wink:)?

In Mine Goblin, you control your goblin as he tumbles down the mineshaft. Get bonus points for how hard he hits the ground, and keep an eye out for the barrels, they'll multiply your score!

This is my fourth time doing Ludum Dare, and Mine Goblin was easily the most fun to make. The physics based ragdoll posed a lot of issues for us, but we managed to get things running fairly smoothly. Turns out when you accelerate a ragdoll and throw it directly into a wall, things have a tendency to break. :laughing:

I'd love to see what you guys think of the game and of course... Lets see those high scores!! :japanese_goblin:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/mine-goblin

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/confession

~ If you’re curious to try it out, here’s the link: ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/green-tastes-funny

Some of the feedback I received on my little game was truly something I hadn’t even considered, it’s just mind blowing that when you develop a game and you play it so much, all it takes is a minute or two for someone else to play and say “hey this can be done a bit better by doing X”.

I have also decided to not act on any of the feedback until the voting and ratings have ended as I want to keep the game as is throughout the process. I just think it wouldn’t be fair. Posting updates after the jam has ended feels like I am going against the spirit of the process but that is just me, I wouldn’t personally judge anyone if they decide to do this.

If a player has identified a real show stopper then absolutely yes, a fix should be added. Anyway, enough rambling. I did not expect to generate so much attention and I am grateful to anyone who has given me 5 minutes of their time to play something that I made. Thank you ❤️

Manage your elevator and descent to dark mines, survive and reach the last floor. https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/the-final-descent

I am a long-time GameMaker hobbyist, therefore I decided to keep developing in GameMaker studio for development speed reasons, while trying to keep somewhat close to the pico-8 look & feel, because I admire the pico-8 games. So I thought "Hey, what can one do on a 128x128 canvas? And how do I include it with the theme 'Depths'?"

So I thought, "depths" can mean two things: the literal depth of the map/world (hence, the underground pyramid), but also "depth" as in: there is more dimension to what you see & interact with.

This led to an idea (word-for-word in my design document):

"You carry a crystal, and the camera follows that crystal. If you fall, you come out of the top of the screen again"

This way, the level itself would gain a whole dimension of depth, because just changing the camera position, the possibilities would change completely.

And by quickly hacking things together (as I usually do), I went from this... ...to this... ...to this!

That's my thought process. How did you come up with your ideas & designs?

(If you like, have a look at DYAMID)

I spent a couple of hours drawing this skeleton warrior guy :D

https://quasilyte.itch.io/ld57-game

Timelapse of me making my game for the jam. My stupid video editor added in fade in/out for some reason, I only noticed it when I exported the project. https://youtu.be/DPPCwVjJSYM?si=i3Qu8cteWkZogTG6

PLAY PLAY PLAY

Hey guys!

This is our eleventh entry for Ludum Dare: A Quest To Bear. We had so much fun working on it!

It's a relaxing puzzle game, where you explore the depths of a cave and make or rather slide your way through 11 levels. We hope you want to take some time and test the game, leave a comment and maybe some rating.

Play & rate our game: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/a-quest-to-bear

Thanks so much :smile:

Best regards @nivbeth, @fis & @johncoffee

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/swoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooord

Phew, that was a tough game jam. :smile:

Now it’s time to play! Try my action platformer about digging, greed, and shotguns. Short levels, tons of coins, and everything around you can explode. Feedback is welcome!

The fate or the spirit and it's loved ones count on you, yes! You personally, the very you. :point_down:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/a-final-deed

"Okay, maybe moving the whole universe to avoid moving the submarine wasn't the play."

(please play our game)

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/dont-wake-him-up

I hope you like the game as much as i like. So i am happy to hear your feedback. I want to make a postjam version so any feedback is important.

Cation: Some rooms are harder yeah - so you need some fluid platforming skills :)

Play it HERE

The top score of the game is actually pretty high !

Come and try to beat it ! Click on my profile, because I can't post links :neutral_face: don't know why

Will you reach the finish line ?

Will you be the best digger out there ?

One way to find out, DIG DIGGER :pick:

:gem: Game page here -> https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/dig-digger <- :gem:

We hope you'll DIG it and await your score and feedbacks in the comments :eyes:

You should totally try Out of Nothing... no? Why not? Come on, you can do it...

https://xhuriken.itch.io/out-of-nothing <- just here you know..

Here's my little composition. You play a free diver. The twist is that you have to hold your actual breath while holding a button. It's a bit gimmicky but if you follow the rules, it's kind of fun. I reached the 80m goal.

Instructions

Press "spacebar" while holding your actual breath to reach your goals. Release "spacebar" when you're out of air and try to improve your apnea.

Links

LD Page : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/apnea
Itchio (Web) : https://julienlussiez.itch.io/apnea

That’s it—we’ve reached the magic number: 20 ratings, which means Depth-Self will now officially be ranked 🎉

We're really happy to see people taking the time to play and rate the game. Whether you loved it, found it weird, found it hard or just mildly interesting—we hope it left a little something with you.

The week is just getting started, and we’re planning to keep playing and rating a bunch of other jam games. If you want us to check out your game, feel free to drop a link or comment below—we’d love to take a look!

Thanks again for the support!

Shrimply Fishing, my submission for the jam category, is out! You can go play it right now in your Browser of Web or download it on your Windows/Linux machine!

To close off the project, here's my thoughts on how my experience of the jam went:

This is my second solo jam game I’ve managed to see through to completion, the third one I've attempted solo, and the sixth one I've been a part of in general. Nearly every asset used in this game was made by me, with the exception of a couple of sounds I pulled from freesound.org.

I took part in this jam almost entirely on a whim. I’ve been occupied taking my last semester in my undergraduate studies, and I didn’t even know that Ludum Dare was being held this year – especially after their initial announcement in January that Ludum Dare wouldn’t have any events in 2025 - until I saw other people mention theme voting. The weekend it was held just so happened to line up with me having some free time to crank out a game, so I just decided there and then that I'd give it a shot. I didn't exactly expect to come out the other side with a finished game. Somehow, I did!

(I Heart Default Godot Labels)

As I keep learning, working on a jam game all by yourself is a taxing yet incredibly rewarding experience. Letting the game's scope creep up is really easy and compromises are inevitable given how much a single person can scrap together in 3 days, but the beauty of game jams is how imperfection is inevitable and encouraged. I wasn't able to make an actual UI (there's placeholder text that uses Godot's default theme instead lol), but it's still just enough to convey the information the player needs. I made all of the fish art in under 30 minutes, but they're honestly funnier that way. And the "adaptive" music fades are not synced up at all, but wow! Three music tracks! I'm still very proud of what I made, even if I don't end up polishing some of its rougher edges after judging ends.

But, like I said, compromises! Here's a few things I'd change/add to the game that didn't make the cut for my jam submission:

• A more polished UI, obviously! Health would be positioned to the left of the shrimp, a depth meter would be at the right, and a distance meter would be at the bottom. I'd also add a little more feedback to prompt players about what to press when a fish bites.

• More fish variety! Not just what fish show up - I had a lot of fish types drawn up that I didn't have time to implement - but also differences in fish behavior. Maybe some fish have a detection range that make them chase the hook if it's close enough. Maybe some fish would need you to already have a smaller fish as bait to catch them. Maybe some are hostile unless you bait them into hitting a mine, which gives you an opportunity to catch it!

• A fish bestiary/"money" values for each fish - Some progression would've been nice to fit in, like tracking all the unique fish the player has caught in a bestiary, or assigning money values to each fish that add to the player's total amount when they catch one.

• More landmarks on the surface - Initially I wanted to put in some landmarks scattered across the ocean surface to indicate a certain type of fish spawning there or something special about the area. I still think that'd be a neat way to telegraph something noteworthy!

I didn't need to provide the source code since I didn't submit to the compo category, but I may open-source it at some point if I decide I don't want to update this game.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for checking out my dumb li'l shrimp game!

Hi everyone! It turned out to be a fascinating jam with so many amazing games :) Check out my game! I didn’t have time to finish the entire planned plot, but I hope you enjoy the atmosphere!

Play: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/depths-floor-404

In those three days, so much work has arisen with DeepCrown. It literally could have driven our team crazy. But together with our friends, we did so much and jumped twice as far above our heads. As usual there were a lot of problems and difficulties at the end, but we overcame them and now the game has seen the light of day! What a lot of emotions there were after the project was submitted. A smile literally appeared out of nowhere on my face :) I'm proud of what we've accomplished. Many thanks to my friends lampo4ka, OSDI and Altairus without them we wouldn't have had this project! Wyzal have special praise from Wyzal - me :-), i'm pleased with myself. Good luck to everyone.

Doug Douglas is a free-spirited, free-willed, freelance miner. As a dwarf, he’s seen his fair share of underground caverns and crevices, and he’s not afraid to go as deep and the job requires. He has an eye for treasure, and a knack for bargaining, so any spoils he finds become weapons in his arsenal. If you need some digging done, Doug “The Digman” Douglas is destined to be the dwarven delver for you!

D.U.G. is an action game about digging and finding gold. Gather skills to dig faster and harder and make as much gold as you can! Don’t take too long and beware too much power! Who knows what will happen? 😉

W/A/S/D to move, E to open shop

Space to jump

Left click to destroy rocks

Have fun and let us know what you think!

Pushed a patch today that fixed vsync issues causing the game to run at 1/2 fps on some PCs. Now you can rescue your beloved frogwife in glorious 60+fps

If you haven't yet, give it a try here!

This game jam felt easier for me compared to the previous ones I took part in. At first, the theme didn’t seem all that exciting, but we gave it our best shot, and I really hope you’ll enjoy what we’ve created! We’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback—it means a lot to us.

👉 Play it here:https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/explorer-of-the-depths

Build your onion and keep the light in the dark dungeon. And there are cookies at the end, but that's not for sure. Test yourself in hardcore tower defense with direct controls!

Check your checklist:

✅ 👀 View the post ---> ⬜ 🏆 Play a game ---> ⬜ 🥇 Rate it ---> ⬜ 💹 Raise your karma!

🎮 PLAY: https://alopar.itch.io/onion-rings

💢 RATE US: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/onion-rings

Image from Mk3 CORE training manual:

Partial cassette recording, dated 06/08/81: R: For Christ sake West, you can't just- W: We don't have options. You know that. R: I don't know that. Talk to him, Paul. P: Look I- look- sit down. Hear him out. R: This isn't what I agreed to you know. W: We are past working with preferences. P: Let us just talk about feasibilities. R: Christ. [Transcript degrades into static.]

Recovered legal document from ~~classified~~ Affected Region 18:

Pilots, internally referred to by the moniker "asset", were tasked with delving into the subconscious depths of an ██████████████'s mind. The lifeform had been discovered by then K-COMPLEX co-founder Ruport M██████ in spring, 2081. It was their belief that the awakening of this lifeform would unleash incalculable damage to the ecosphere, with a high likelihood of total civilizational collapse. Through the research of Paul M██████, K-COMPLEX sought to decode the complex brainwaves of the lifeform to lure it █████████ until a more permanent solution could be arranged. It would be unfortunate that [Remaining document is unreadable.]

DELTA BREACH is a short simulation. · Research · Rate

We're a small team of 3 french students creating games in our free time, we took part in a couple of game jams before but we're particularly proud of how this one turned out !

You can click my profile to play it, or check it out here : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/d-m-c-dwarves-mine-caves

We're really excited to hear your feedback and to see what you all came up with in this jam !

Asking for a friend. And also for the sake of my own game. :D

Your squad of divers is waiting over at https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/riches-from-below

The only place where your mission is to shoot someone's broken thoughts with a plasma revolver... and that's considered therapy.

Dive into a glitch-infested brain, fight flying bugs made of regret, and explore the digital lava pit of someone’s midlife crisis. ! We’re not saying it’s dangerous… but the floor is lava.

Warning: REPAIR system not liable for emotional damage. Jump in, reload your existential dread, and shoot memory errors in the face.

!

Fight glitches. Jump through memory voids. Fall into emotional damage (and bottomless pits). The brain is melting. And guess what? You're the janitor.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/minddive

Play games. Love games. Question your reality later.

Have you ever wanted to send a Skeleton down to Hell? 🔥💀

Now you can!
🦴 In pieces, obviously. 🦴

BoP | Bone droP is a simple endless "runner" game optimized for mobile.

Grab the Android .apk or desktop build now!

⟱ Bob's head must really hurt after this ⟱

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/cult-of-the-whisker https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/cult-of-the-whisker https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/cult-of-the-whisker https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/cult-of-the-whisker

It's been a day since the jam ended and everything has settled down a bit in my head, because the pace of development for me was really frenzied.

It was my first jam and this experience, hopefully, will lead me to something more.

Thank you all <3

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/the-depths-of-space

This was our first time participating in a game jam with my friend, and it turned out to be a really fun experience!

It all started with, "It would be a terrible idea to make a Civ-like game for our first jam, we should go for something simpler."

Well... we ended up making a resource and building management game anyway (playable on a hex grid, so does that count as Civ-like?), and we’re actually really proud of how it turned out!

My friend discovered a new passion for hitting every object in sight to record the perfect sound effect for a lava slug (spoiler: the one he found is amazing).
As for me, I managed to cram about two years’ worth of technical debt into two days of spaghetti code.

But all in all, the whole experience was incredibly fun and refreshing!

Links

LD57: Shelter from the Blight

Try our game and see if you can make it to the high score! It is playable in browser.

Hawwwooo everyone!

Pheeeew. It's been 20 hours since it ended, and I'm finally starting to recover from those intense three days. But—we made a game. We did it in time!

Yes, it’s not perfect. Yes, we couldn’t fit in all our ideas. Yes, the fourth rhythm game is a bit of a beast compared to the rest.

But I still love it. I think we did a great job and created a lovely little adventure. We’d be super grateful if you took a bit of time to check it out and maybe leave a rating!

You can play & rate our game here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/grimm-syndrome

Huge thanks in advance! ❤️💙