What do you think guys?

I am low on time this weekend, so I decided to mix things up a bit and make an endless / high-score puzzle game. It's been interesting trying to tweak the mechanics to be fun and engaging.

My initial mechanics idea here came from the concept of signals, but the gameplay didn't end up being very signal-like... Oh well, lol.

Now it's time for bugfixes and polishing, and no big visual changes for a while. How do you keep yourself motivated? I tend to sneak a little feature from time to time just to see that something's changed, but sometimes it creates even more bugs.

there's always talk about doing small games

am i doing it right?

I am using the Godot editor from within my Quest 3s headset, to create the game directly in it. No computer. It sounded like an "interesting" experiment.

Progress is... slow. Long story short, my body... understandably disagrees. The Godot editor port is fine for the most part, my keyboard is janky, but the main issue is that at any point in time, I either feel sick, really sick, or about to feel sick. So I can take breaks, which loose time, and don't fully help anyways; or I power through, feel miserable, and work very inefficiently.

There are parts of this setup that have impressed me for being more usable than i expected, but overall, a 3 day jam like this would already be a feat of endurance. Besides comfort, a big weakness is that there really isn't a good way to create or import assets of any kind. You need a PC, or a teammate. I could probably go on for an hour listing all the jank, infuriating things and inefficiencies i encountered. Making a game like this is possible, but not fun.

I have not given up yet: i like the game idea, but the odds that it will be playable in time are very slim. My plan now is to revert to a more "normal" setup: move the project folder to my old slow 12 year old Thinkpad, and testing the game with godot's quite decent "Build and Run" feature. Despite the computer's age, this will be the least bad compromise. I will probably end up with working movement and player mechanics, but no gameplay loop.

Those little critters are running around in complete chaos — gotta tell them where to go, somehow...

The core mechanics are implemented, tough the game looks pretty rough :sweat_smile:

Hopefully I will be able to create some interesting levels with the mechanics tomorrow. For this game I want to try out using vector graphics instead of my typical pixel based assets. I am a bit nervous about whether it will be a decent entry, but I'm still hopeful

Keep on jamming everyone!

Going slow but we're starting to get somewhere.

I finally chose idea! A game where you manipulate enemies by shooting them with signals that change their controls. Thus forcing them to destroy each other

Due to horrible death weather and misaligned scheduling, I'm going to start my Ludum Dare game on Monday and finish by Wednesday. This will be my 31st Game Jam game ever, and my 25th Ludum Dare specific game! :military_medal:

With the extra bit of planning I have available, I might be able to make something cool. I have a very bad habit of over-scoping at the beginning though so I'll toss some ideas around. I have had a hankering to do some 3D Level/Environment Design lately though so maybe I'll build around that :smile: Best of luck to everyone! Remember to sleep well, drink plenty of water, and get some good exercise! If you can anyways :cloud_lightning: lol

Peter was asked to bring water to his friends outside and now awaits a divine intervention (yours) - a sign to guide him toward achieving that goal.

What’s the usual plan after a tough week at work? Catch up on sleep, go for a walk, hang out with friends? There are plenty of ways to unwind.

But we chose a different path: gather the crew, accept that sunlight and a good night's sleep are now just a dream, and step into the fog of Ludum Dare. For total immersion, our squad set up a "base camp" in a single apartment. Hauling heavy PC rigs around is a challenge of its own, but the main thing is that our spines survived the durability test.

Before we show off our early progress and reveal where our boat is heading, let's meet the crew:

Dmitry — Game Designer (charting our course in the dark) (@rionisse).

Ivan — Unreal Engine Master (@towercrane).

Igor — Unreal Master in the making (@koldrif).

Alexander — 3D Guru (@ferot).

Lerka Dverka — 3D, but not a guru (at least that's what she claims, though we strongly disagree) (@lerkadverka).

Polina — 2D Master (@insomniapill).

Stepan — Master of notes and sounds (@steff).

Vitaly — The guy who dragged everyone onto this boat, and the one everyone will blame for their lack of sleep come Monday (@graf).

I hate gifs compressing

Here's my progress so far on making something for Playstation hardware.

https://youtu.be/UJZoy4E77P0

The basic idea is sitting alone on a space station exploring signals from a dead world below.

In a weird place with this because I've built a lot of stuff and it's working but the actual game side of it isn't coming together very well.

All my best Ludum Dare events are when I have a strong idea at the start and I make that thing. All my weakest are when I struggle with the game idea.

This weekend my idea is a bit nebulous and I'm kind of building and iterating hoping to find the game. Sometimes this works out for me, often it doesn't. Going to mull over what I've got tonight and see if I can find an interesting game in this.

It's still recoverable but it's on a knife edge.

We're finally managed to show an animated wheat field on screen without lags! First step to our game about sending signals to Aliens :)

I made dynamic animation for all the fish using spine :fish:

Feels very alive

First sketch

Colored

Art by: Forshley (@forshley)

But where is the game?

In short, the game is about fireworks and alien`s DNA collection. What do you think you should call it?

One of our best starts to a jam yet. The theme may not have been one of our favourites but we've made it work and made a lot of progress. Our idea is a horror game set in Space. Where the player navigates a damaged Space Station and tries to avoid detection by an unknown entity to send an SOS signal.

@Pegasys and I have built several minigames to complete in order to repair the station and to send the signal.

@Theoconfidor has been working on the ambient SFX and music and created an intensity system to adjust the audio based on the danger onboard the station.

@Ruslana has been making a bunch of art for the station and the mysterious entity that has taken over the ship.

I'm conflicted what to share so as to not spoil too much of what will happen. So here's a completely inconspicuous hallway. Nothing to see here.

Tomorrow we plan to link all the sections of the ship together and all the minigames together. We also plan to add emergency lighting as well as volumetrics and post processing effects to set the mood.

Its going to be visual novel with some puzzles

First location + first puzzle done.

Core gameplay is added, but man is it gonna be a short experience if I don't churn out content :P

We're Cat in Hat — a team that came together during a game jam back in November 2023. Today, we're a distributed team of 15 people across the world, and game jams mean a lot to us.

Right now, part of the team is here at Ludum Dare 59, while the rest is finishing Intersectio — a game that also started as a jam project.

For this jam, we're building:

Pinky Guard: The Celestial Facility

A management/strategy game where you run a complex containing an immortal celestial being — balancing exploitation, safety, and the constant risk of everything going wrong.

The vibe: Inspired by a cartoon universe we genuinely love — we want to capture its humor, absurdity, and that slightly chaotic energy. Something closer to watch-control balance with playful systems than high difficulty.

We're aiming for a short experience (5–10 minutes) with multiple endings (currently: Suppression and Dialogue) — depending on how you choose to deal with the celestial and upcoming objectives.

We’re also experimenting internally:

4 game designers — each responsible for their own system. Not sure yet if this pipeline survives a jam. That’s part of the test.

Also, one more constraint:

during the jam, we have only one programmer working on the core.

(Luckily, it’s our strongest one)

Others will join development after game jam

What we've locked so far:

Characters

Character models standardized — all share a standardized body, with identity defined through helmets. (It saved us a lot of time.)

Visual preparation

We also locked in our visual direction — colors and palettes that will guide the entire project moving forward (see moodboard & palette below)

The game loop:

You assign characters to roles inside the facility. Each role pushes the system in its own direction — and eventually everything escalates into a Crisis.

From there, you either stabilize the situation… or it collapses.

Audio

On the audio side, things are already coming together — we’ve got an atmospheric, playful main menu track ready, and our sound designer is absolutely on fire as always.

Since it’s our first time at Ludum Dare, we’re still figuring things out… what’s the best way to share audio during the jam, if not just in the final build? 🎧

And yes — the theme is Signal.

Honestly? This is our weakest point right now. We're still searching for a way to make it feel natural, not just stitched on top.

Why we're here:

For us, the goal isn't just to "make a jam game." We use jams as a way to start something bigger — to test ideas, systems, and directions that we might later expand into full projects. Pinky Guard: The Celestial Facility will be one of them

A few intense days can sometimes unlock things that would take months otherwise.

We'll keep sharing progress — including the messy parts.

Stay tuned for project updates 🐾

Want to wish everyone a great Ludum Dare and share a small piece of my today's work :3

Crazy part is that I could stream all 12 hours while drawing it (I'm an artist in our small but strong team) day 2 and 3 here we go!

@laminariy does the programming @tim-medvedev does the sound

I did this for LD59, but it will need to be redrawn to fit the theme of our game better.

We've been brainstorming for quite a while, trying to dig out an idea that doesn't feel too obvious. The lighthouse has disappeared. Space too. But something much more promising has appeared — ICE SHAMANIC DRUMS!

(Art by @saitoni & @venomousmouse)

I think this has been the first Ludum Dare where I've actually nailed the game logic during the first day. Well, now to sleep and tomorrow it's time to work on the graphics so that people other than myself can actually see and understand what's happening on the screen. :laughing:

Sleep, graphics, audio & polish, here I come!

(Kill me please, if this messege is not posted)....)

We have 10 fps grass fields and a cool glowing flying saucer. All that's left is to assemble a game out of it.

Lumira is not a guide. She does not speak. She does not interfere.

A mythical entity — the embodiment of Light and Creation. She is the origin of the Lumiric Language, a sacred system of symbols used to channel and stabilize the Lumiric Flame.

Some believe she is trying to help. Others believe she is simply… observing who is worthy.

Some progress on my compo entry today. I've made music and drawn a lot of character art and backgrounds. Tomorrow will be all about implementing the game mechanics and making it into something that can actually be played :)

This is shaping up to be... ....something, I guess?

Tomorrow will tell if I can keep on track with some of the initial plans I've laid out for myself.

Also bumping my earlier post since I actually put some effort in writing it. :scroll:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dBt3mJtgJc

...aaand to top it of with a theme-appropriate good night's song to be received by your auditory sensory organs.

G'night!

Hi, we've never written devlogs on Ludum before. For most of us, this is our first experience!

We're making something like a horror game. If we don't die from the workload, we'll try to describe the gameplay tomorrow! Cheers.

In the meantime, here's a fake screenshot we threw together.

"The question is, how am I going to get back to my planet with a rocket that is out of service?"

Okay, there's still a big chunk of the gameplay left—looks like it's going to be another long night. Good luck, everyone!

First ever compo participation

Code is 80% there, hope to be able to finish everything by tommorow night!

Capture d'écran 2026-04-18 232530.png

spent entire day generating the city from Open street map. Filled with a single soviet building, but spread across the actual building spots. Now I have to invent the gameplay. Probably something about interference/ getting the signal in right spots in the city. Maybe to get some food coupons or some soviet thing like that.

First level, tutorial and player movement and animation complete. Now needs sound, a main menu and more levels!

Err... I guess it looks like something that has to do with signals to me... I guess it's close enough. This puzzle game I'm making is about trying to enable all signals. However, signals in this game have the ability to interfere with other signals, Not sure how this fits in well with the "Signal" theme personally, I'll try my best to finish my game.

My game explores the idea: what if the Beacons of Gondor were used to transmit information? It’s been a productive 14 hours — more to come!

Me and my partner ran out of time, so we scrapped the 3D side of things. Posting what I got done before it just collects dust (Godot Engine)

Usually i make a hard game thats hard to play. not this time. And because of that im already done.

My fisrt LD jam but my 4th jam all together. Hope everyone is having fun and im looking forward to playing your games and will hopefully be streaming them.

It's coming together, but I still have to work really hard to finish most gameplay by 6 PM.

We're in!

Not allowed to share any other details...

Woof.

https://youtu.be/JGaaVgjCrc0

just spent way too long trying to figure out why the characters were trying to path to the roof, turns out I was just assuming the ceiling would be at least 4 meters high >.< 'edgelen' is 8 here:

First time tryna making something like an actual game in Godot. So far only made THIS (TW: EXTREMELY LOW QUALITY)

I'm calling day one done. Didn't get as far along as I wanted, but hopefully I can catch up tomorrow.

Art is always early for me. Inspired by the outros of The Rising of the Shield Hero (if anybody with colourblindness has issues let me know!).

This is almost it for the art, except for the aircraft - seeing them head-on is a little bit easier than the whole thing in profile - , now it's figuring out points and pose sequences.

I did a lot less than I wanted today. But here's my update:

The idea is that there are these "emitters" that keep sending signals to the canons to fire. There will be other types of emitters too, more specifically to move the canons. You, will have to disable/enable the canons in order to have them correctly aligned with the enemy objects to be fired.

I don't even know if that will work or be any fun. But I'll keep working on it. :)

See you all tomorrow.

Ok I am about 4hrs in and have to end my day here... given that I am approximatelly in the half of my whole time I feel pretty good about the progress. It will not be the best game ever, but I am having a blast actually :D GL everyone

"Everybody lets move this way!"

Hope I can make some fun levels tomorrow. :sunglasses:

I’ve decided to go fully 3D this time. Creating 3D assets is very time-consuming, so I will mostly rely on the excellent assets I’ve purchased over the past year. This will allow me to focus more on the mood, story, and overall gameplay. I’m very excited to continue tomorrow!

The stage at which you have to choose that one idea out of dozens is always complicated. Finding a concept that will make the whole team feel included, a concept that is actually doable in a short amount of time and, most importantly, will be actually fun to play (and not just to think and talk about) — this is one of the hardest stages of the jam for us, as it is the most uncertain. When the goal is finally clear, then everything that comes after is just a straight path followed by a bunch of sleep-deprived people.

Here are a few snapshots of our concept phase.

Had to start way later then I would have liked but surprisingly I am feeling confident. During work I managed to think of a simple concept that plays too my strengths, experiences, and interests. Excited to see if it will be as good as I am hoping

(edit: it occurs to me, you can barely see it, in this shitty gif, but basically there's dots and lines at the bottom to show what you pushed) ok so the basic idea is that you control some... thing. top down with morse code, where you just press the space bar in different patterns.

I don't know if I want to make it turn based or what, maybe you just have to explore something and avoid the spikes, that's a game right?... I'm really thrilled with the idea, though I don't know if I can make it to Compo or if I should just do Jam. Time management is a real b-word

Whew, that was a lot of work! Though it certainly doesn't look like it. 😁 Tomorrow I'll work on the audiovisual side of the game a bit. Once it looks and feels alright, I'll see if I can implement some of those scope creep ideas I've thrown out of my head and into the notepad. But for today, it's time to rest. Good luck to all of you still going today! o7

The first day of development has come to an end. I finally have a little time to share a sketch We did earlier today

https://youtu.be/PdAdJ8xTLbE

I'm working on an incremental game about spreading a signal, with a twist: evil creatures lurk in the darkness, trying to absorb it for themselves. (Not implemented yet.)

I'm working on an incremental game about spreading a signal, with a twist: evil creatures lurk in the darkness, trying to absorb it for themselves. (Not implemented yet.)

https://youtu.be/PdAdJ8xTLbE?si=XePxzXm339hji529

kidney in the morning made me too tired to work, then when i was up i was too sleep debt and had a bee WAY too close to my computer (they keep getting into my bedroom somehow and then trap themselves behind the curtain by my desk??) and im scared of bees so :sob: :sob: :sob:

so i took a nap to get into a better less-sleep-debt mood and wait for the bee to fall asleep and NOW THE KIDNEY IS ACTING UP AGAIN

y'all this is DEFINITELY gonna be an extras entry if it even gets made at alllllll the universe really be SIGNALing (haha) that i should not jam this weekend lol

if i dont get anything done by tomorrow im just gonna put up a picture of my brainstorming paper :sob: :sob: :sob:

Got a long way to go before this is a game, but it's going in the right direction.

ONE BAR is a one-shot signal ritual.

You get one transmission. That’s it. Your location becomes your score.

You move, you search, you try to find a better spot. Then you stop, you hold still, and you commit.

The idea was to make something that feels physical and a bit tense, where the real world actually matters. Not something you grind. Just one deliberate action that you have to decide when to take.

Find the highest signal you can, then lock it in forever.

How it works:

• The game reads your location once
• It computes a signal strength from your environment
• You hold to transmit
• Your score is written permanently to the ledger

https://ldjam-59-signal.vercel.app/

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/59/one-bar

Best played on mobile, outside, while moving around. The more people try it the best result we will get! Desktop works, but it’s not really the best experience!

Thanks all!

After a long afternoon of work I finally got the full gameplay loop done! The player can escape the map by finding the dropship, or die after reaching 0 HP. I also got the radar fully working and it runs out of battery fast adding to the tension. Tomorrow will be all about polish, as well as adding some pickups to replenish HP, ammo, and batteries for the radar. This is shaping up to be my best game jam game ever, can't wait to finish the game and share it with you all!

My cryptography game is coming along nicely. I have seven cipher texts to crack, dialogue to guide you through it, and a hint system in case you get stuck. As ever, there's the lingering feeling that I could have done more today if not for my ADHD, but also the feeling that I can get this done well within the time limit.

Tomorrow should be a case of simply adding more cipher texts (including ones that use multiple layers of encryption, which should be fun), more dialogue to go with them, and an autosave/load system so you don't have to beat the game in one sitting if you get stuck. I'd also like to add some kind of "visualizer" effect during the dialogue scenes.

See you all tomorrow!

Even after taking a long rest without any programming, I still have some knowledge left and everything goes (almost) smoothly. Finished the main gameplay loop, now just need to add more mini-games

My game is about a newbie witch cat who's starting a new job in witch society – your job is to send messages by using powerful spells and conserving magic, which then can be used to receive different signs. You're sending signals to earn your way to receive signals! The main gameplay consists of micro-games (Warioware inspired), you can take different requests with various difficulties The only problem is art. I can't draw and design, so it's really difficult to come up with something interesting and plausable. This is really demotivating, but it's too late to stop!

As always, I don't have enough time, but I'm too tired to continue (3 AM btw), so taking the rest Hopefully everyone's having a great and productive time!

It was fun, but it took far too long for what it was. Tomorrow, if I have time to get back to the jam, I’ll work on sound modulation as well as the (fictional) waveform. And maybe by the end I’ll have something to show you.

Finished up day one of SignalOS. Hope you’re okay with tables... because I’ve got a ton more of them coming.

My first LD! Cheers! My plan is simple claude is doing code, I'm doing the rest. I'm begginer at programming, so code will take weeks for me to get shit done. The game will be all from the spaceship cabin's view, so don't ask my why I'm started modelling the exterior, I just love to work in Plasticity hahaha

How can I predict these errors? 😭

Finished up day one of SignalOS. Hope you’re okay with tables... because I’ve got a ton more of them coming

No no I meant runspeed=80, not 800!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbjSCgtXphk

Extremely proud of what I've gotten done, but still hungry to somehow get as much as I planned into the game. I've decided to turn it into a sort of one-screen gauntlet like a lot of my other entries, but I'm going to try to include some fun story stuff and progression, and maybe an ending.

Pending some error corrections and enemies, map, etc. But a great advance for me. The rest of my team also cooking with their work!

We got a (pheromone-)signal! Finally some order!

So after a full day of non stop coding I got all the mechanics in place with quick ugly sprites. Now Im going to sleep and tomorrow will be the day to create sprites and do some music and build the actual level. Hopefully in time :D

Aha! I have added some new sprites to Signal Baiter! It was getting kind of boring staring at those bland shapes all of the time...

All I need to do now is add one more core mechanic (should hopefully be done before I go to bed tonight) then I can start adding all of the content and polishing the game. I can probably actually finish a game jam game this time🙏

Here's another preview:

The gameplay loop and all the mechanics are almost complete. Tomorrow I'll finish it up and then start working on the Level Design and graphics.

PS: If you're curious, I'm using Cave Engine, the easiest and fastest Python game engine for 3D. Worth checking it too. :smiley:

We've decided to make a game where you control a little robot man via the use of plugs and random doohickeys. It has been a complete disaster so far but we'll be getting the job done regardless. Just one more disastrous merge conflict and we'll be out of this mess bro I promise

COMMENTS FROM THE REST OF THE DEV TEAM:

Jungledorf: Reduce the tax on nicotine

Jacoblo: Please God help me

Yackety: Hopefully better than Heart-Blob (which you can play here! - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/heart-blob)