If you like woodland creatures than go and check out Perdita Creaturae. A cute puzzle game where you must use the unique abilities of a fox, bear, and hare to get to the goal.
Play the Game Here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/perdita-creaturae
Can't keep up with all those amazing entries!
LFG!
... And if you are already here
I can already see the chosen theme even though there is still more than 3 hours until 23:00 CEST. Did the jam start earlier today?
https://www.twitch.tv/arcanerituals
Submit a game here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bieDY063coQpdTLPGkU0ItQ7yGw-LevH2SX5A6LTsLc/edit?gid=0#gid=0
Ballverse is a casual arcade game. All you have to do is to destroy as many enemies as you can before you die from the spikes or the void.
Do you accept the challenge?
Link: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/ballverse
P. S. This game has a secret. Can you discover it??
look at our monsters——their design is based on tiny creatures in the nature like tardigrades, diatom and amoeba… and they are presented in a stunning way with frame-by-frame animation
look at the frame-by-frame animations and bizarre design of our monsters!😉I bet you’ll like it!
You thought memorizing 1,000+ Pokémon was tough? Well, it's time to forget those oversized, overrated critters and make room for something better. Introducing Mini Monster Market—where you don’t need a Pokédex, just a sharp mind and 20 of the cutest, quirkiest mini monsters to master!
Why bother with Charizard when you could be meeting Eggilepsi, the dizzying delight? Or trading in your Butterfree for Curricricket, the spice-loving insect. And don't even get us started on Pearcado half fruit, half storm, all chaos!
So, why waste time remembering Snorlax when you could be learning about our lineup of pint-sized terrors? Start practicing now, because trust us—these mini monsters aren’t going to catch themselves!
Please try our game here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/mini-monster-market
We are thrilled to present our game, Through the Leaves, created during this Ludum Dare!
In Through the Leaves, you will embark on a heartfelt adventure as tiny critters with unique abilities journey through dense forests and magical landscapes. Help them solve puzzles, switch between characters, and navigate obstacles as they search for home in this vibrant, nature-filled experience.
Thank you for your support, and we can’t wait for you to play and share your feedback with us! Please Rate our Game!!
Thanks a lot, I reached 30 ratings quite fast with always really nice comments and constructive feedbacks. It means a lot and give me the will to continue and improve this little game.
For those who haven't tried it yet, you can play it here (it's a +/- 30 minutes puzzle game) :
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/tiny-heads
Maybe Alice should have been on the dark side?
https://ecaterinaaa.itch.io/escapefromwonderland
Hello jammers, we still have only 7 ratings! We need your help to get 20 points to be graded!
Please, make sure that you left a link to YOUR game in the comment section below!
Hey everyone,
This isn’t the game I worked on, but it’s a great discovery, and I think it’s a shame it hasn’t yet received the ratings it deserves.
« For you my lord » is, in my opinion, one of the best game jam games I’ve tested, with a very simple mechanic that works perfectly, blending humor and strategy.
Congratulations to @szrnano and his team for their job !
I’ll let you try it out and show them some support!
Hey everyone! Hope you all had a fantastic jam. As we make our way through the play and rate phase, I've been getting asked how I made the ghost drivers (or replays) in Insect Racing League. Here's a breakdown of the key aspects.
First up I modeled the data that I would need to recreate a run. This ended up being an array of data points, where each point stored the race time, XYZ position, and the orientation as Euler angles in the X and Y axes (racers cannot change their orientation around Z axis).
I also stored some metadata such as the name of the player, the insect that they used, and their final time for the run.
Special note: I used the Newtonsoft.Json package because it handles arrays better than Unity's built-in JsonUtility.
During every run, this recorder script is saving the player's position and orientation at regular intervals. Once a run completes, that run data gets turned into a JSON string and saved to disk (if it's a new personal best) and submitted to the online database if it's a world record.
When you start a new run, that JSON string that represents your personal best and the world record are given to two separate ghost controllers, which use the current run time to interpolate between the positions and orientations in the data points.
And that's really about it! The code I removed for these images was mostly just the file reading and writing. Let me know if you have any further questions.
Do you like cute ants with a hat? Do you like mazes? If yes, you'll like A Bug's Maze!
Find your way out of this maze by finding your insect friends (such as the Rhino Beetle that can crush boulders!) and reach the golden cup before time runs out! The game is playable in your browser and features cute pixel art, a few dead ends and an option to deactivate the timer to let you enjoy your little trip throughout the woods.
We are welcoming any feedbacks to make the game better :)
This was my first time participating in a Game Jam.
Before this, I had already been making indie games with @catzp and @ke-huang. When Cathie asked if I wanted to join them for Ludum Dare 56, I was initially reluctant. I always thought that these time-pressured game-making events weren't really for me.
I consider myself someone who doesn’t handle stress very well. If there’s a tight deadline, the pressure and anxiety can actually reduce my productivity T_T. However, many of the games I love were born out of Game Jam events. This made me think that maybe I should step out of my comfort zone and give it a try.
In my view, these kinds of events can really sharpen an indie game developer's ability to distill the essence of a game. What is the game I want to make? What is its most important, core gameplay? With only three days, you obviously can't make everything perfect, so what core content needs to be prioritized?
With that mindset, Cathie eventually convinced me to join the event. Those were three exhausting yet fun days. We probably only slept about seven or eight hours in total. I bought a lot of energy drinks, trying to keep myself awake. But after working too long, my productivity dropped rapidly, so I had no choice but to sleep for a few hours and then wake up after two or three.
In the end, we managed to finish the game! Despite all the goals we couldn’t achieve due to time constraints, I’m already very happy with what we produced in these three days. My team and I are even discussing how to expand on this project and find a balance between “testing” and “gameplay.”
All in all, it was an unforgettable three days. I’m incredibly grateful to Cathie and Chloe for doing this with me.
Cathie’s “persistence” is what ultimately gave me this chance, and Chloe helped me make my first game with purely original art (you know, as someone who can’t draw, I’ve relied heavily on free assets for my past games XD).
Of course, I also want to thank all my friends who helped test the game, and everyone who played it and gave valuable feedback. I believe this experience will be a treasured one in my indie game development journey :)
Oh, sorry, I haven’t posted the game link yet XD: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/inside-creatures-out-what-is-your-gaming-mbti
A game about these little guys:
I started by modelling, rigging, and procedurally animating the character:
Then I made them walk:
And jump:
And fall:
Here's a playthrough of the game:
Springtail is a Foddian/rage game that plays similarly to Jump King, so expect to fall a lot. First time playthroughs can easily take an hour. It’s not a genre that everyone enjoys, so I describe how to enable cheat tools in the game description to make the game a bit easier!
Thanks for reading :)
Hooray everyone, for all people who were waiting for it, Linux build is now available on Itch io page, hop in!!!
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/tiny-wreckers
I have seen so many awesome games already, ya'll are amazing!
... And if you are already here
Currently live at https://twitch.tv/ategondev playing games from the jam! Feel free to stop by and watch me play your game
I run a raffle system after every game for who gets played next
Try your best to manage a chaotic bee colony, grow your army and protect your dear home from predators, natural or otherwise in Nectarmancer!
This is our last individual creature spotlight, and I have to be honest, I was saving the best for last! Each minion is based off of a VOCALOID, one of our team members, or a close friend. This one is actually our dog!
Sir Paws can defend or attack - he's a low cost unit that summons a pack of attack hounds! He has pretty high speed as well, so he's a solid all-arounder.
Play Miku's Minion Madness here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/mikus-minion-madness
Also, dog tax:
We almost at 20 ratings, so go and help little creatures to feed to spirit of nature
Portal to a magic forest: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/whistleberry
Play and Rate: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/whistleberry
Hello there! Thank you all for the great feedback. I released a post LD version on my itch.io. You can still play the compo version as Desktop version. Would love the feedback.
A couple of changes introduced based on feedback:
Now go rescue your creatures!!
https://rhewid.itch.io/no-my-creatures
If you love relaxing atmospheres and puzzle solving than Perdita Creaturae is the perfect game for you. Play as an arrange of forest creature solving tasks to reach their goal. One of the magnificent creatures is the bear who, while not being able to jump high, is able to move large boulders to help his other friends.
Play Here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/perdita-creaturae
I would love for you to play Undersengen.
It's not much, but it's honest work :smile:
Come on down and join the madness at https://www.twitch.tv/coleslawski!
We plan to be playing games for ~4 hours, and you'll wanna make sure you're in chat if you submit a game. Otherwise, we will likely skip it!
Hope to see you there! :pointright: :cowboy: :pointright:
(Quality content not guaranteed)
Thanks to everyone who played, rated, and/or gave me feedback on my Ludum Dare 56 game, Battle Dots! It has enough ratings that it should get a score.
I've started implementing improvements to get me ready for jamming out an improved game next time. Would love to hear more feedback so I can know how to make a better game.
Have fun jamming!
Play our Cuphead inspired boss rush game!! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/critter-conflict
Thanks so much to everyone who has played my little game so far. I appreciate the feedback very much. Feel free to drop your game in the comments and I'll be happy to play + rate it too.
Time slows down so you can line up your shot.
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Use cover when you can!
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Fewer shots = Higher score. Get on the leaderboard! .
We all know that gnomes don't exist, but just in case - you might want to gnome how to deal with a gnome-infested house. This ~~game~~ program will help you develop a keen eye for detail and traverse through this special place with ease. Just...try not to gnome too far? :eyes:
Alone in the forest, you awake to a different world than the one you knew. Seek out other fae; more are lost as you are, and with numbers comes strength. Once you are many, you may find your way home.
Play Will of the Wisp here:
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/will-of-the-wisp
https://youtu.be/ozTJHDkepi4
Ballverse is a casual arcade game. All you have to do is to destroy as many enemies as you can before you die from the spikes or the void. You can also upgrade your ball to destroy the enemies easier and change your skin to have a new look!
Do you accept the challenge?
Link: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/ballverse
P. S. This game has a secret. Can you discover it??
Another Ludum Dare has ended and the next Score Chasers tournament is starting!
Score chasers is a tournament where people compete to get high scores in games submitted to this Ludum Dare within a certain amount of time. This includes things such as completing a game in the lowest amount of time, getting the most score in a game, or other ways a game can be competed in. The tournament is taking place on Saturday, October 19th, 2024 4:00 PM UTC (with it being broadcasted on https://twitch.tv/ategondev).
This thread is a spot where you can share potential games for competitors to look at and possibly submit to be played in the tournament. Its not guaranteed that games will get in as there is a very large amount of games submitted to the jam and only around 6 or 7 get played in the tournament based on what competitors vote on.
Games that typically work well with the tournament are ones that either have a score system that can be competed in or can have speedruns, and where runs of the game dont end up taking a large amount of time so they can be run through multiple times in the tournament.
If youre interested in the tournament including watching it or participating in the event feel free to join our discord! https://discord.gg/FhP4jaZ7KS (please dont join the discord just to share your game though, thats what this thread is for)
Can't keep up with all those amazing entries!
LFG!
... And if you are already here
https://youtu.be/TpYCUFFrS2M
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hi all
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we were lucky to be able to partake in the LD56 at the Electrolab, Nanterre, Greater Paris Area
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this video is a sneak peek of what it was like at the Electrolab for 72h
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more to come!
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check out our games!
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happy testing, yall :-)
Thanks for you valueble feedback. It seems like folks are enjoying the game.
I added custom greetings to all my guests:
```rust pub fn fetchgreetings() -> Vec { includestr!("greetings.txt") .lines() .map(|lines| lines.trim().to_string()) .collect() }
.......
for puzzle in selectedpuzzles { // Setup ....... let rndgreeting = greetings.choose(&mut rand::thread_rng()).unwrap(); loop { // Render the puzzle and question ...... ```
I also just made the game way harder using this:
rust
let psychic_damage = rand::thread_rng().gen_range(1..5);
paint.answer_result =
format!("{guess} was INCORRECT!
Guest did {psychic_damage} psychic damage to your ego!");
game.health -= psychic_damage;
I dare you to guess what the above piece of code achieved.
Finally I made it so Audio is a disabled by default feature, to promote developer experience using cfg!()
Greetings!
Last post where I asked for danger zone games went really well! The game I tried were a treat and criminally underrated gems!
So following this trend I ask upon the great community of Ludum Dare to hand over your danger zone (less than 20 rating) games! I shall try and rate your games to help the game get out of the danger zone!
(also yay new art style)
Looking for a puzzle game to play? Check out my game!
This game was made by 7 hardworking and skilled people, without any ready-made assets (except for stuff like font and game engine features) or AI generation. So if you want to play a game which is 100% human-made, we got you!
I decided to share my little ink shader, since it caught so much attention!
I used Unity Shader Graph, it turned out rather huge, but pretty I think
And since it is obviously unreadable, here is a diagram:
Feel free to ask any questions :heart:
Please let me introduce you : The Drunk Bassist of Hamelin the movie
It will take you less than 3 minutes to watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QL9t8TGi2g
If you like what you saw please play our game and be sure to leave a comment so we can improve and find your game to play it too.
Edit :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uA0eK7vO8s
PS1 was a difficult platform to work with, but all the wobbly quads were definitely worth the hassle!
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/friends-adrift
Can I post an improvement to my game on the game page even though it was made after Ludum Dare? Please help!
Home -> Ludum Dare 56 -> Me -> My Grades
Or by clicking here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/my/grades
And if you haven't played my game! Play Shrimpy
We want YOU in our team, mostly to play our game, but still, we want YOU!!
(https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/aqualens)
[hey guys, here is AquaLens a diving fish photography game, it's our entry to this jam! Any feedback would be very appreciated!]
Because they have tiny ant-bodies!" 🐜💪😂
After failing LD54 and LD55, I'm glad to have a finished game once again for LD56. So thought I'd just write up a classic post mortem of what went right and wrong.
Ambitious but tight scope - I knew I wanted to make something story focused but with some tactical sections to break up the dialog. So during ideation I mulled over a lot of different combat systems but I ruled out anything complex and kept trying to think how do I simplify this down to something I can code in a few hours. I really wanted each race you ally with to bring a unique flavour to combat and when I finally decided that each ally would essentially just add extra combat abilities like healing or tanking I realised how simple I could make it. When adding a new race just meant adding one extra button that heals 5 hp you're onto a winner for a jam length game.
Simple art style - I was planning to do the art for this and I'm not an artist so I needed something I could do quickly. 1-bit low resolution pixel art with a striking colour scheme was something I was sure I could do passably. Thankfully we ended up switching roles so I had a much better artist in the end but the quick style meant she wasn't overworked in the process. I don't always think enough about art style ahead of LD but this time it really helped a lot.
MVP first - I'm a big believer in get the game playable asap and build from there. The "it'll all come together at the end" approach so rarely works. So I had all the basic gameplay systems build by the end of saturday. That way we were going into Sunday with a clearer idea what was working, what wasn't and how much time we had. Made adjusting scope and delivering much easier. At one point the game had four tribes and four bosses but both went down to 3 as it became clear how long things were taking to build.
Untested project roles - I worked with the same partner on LD54 and we made a cool little deductive adventure game. We wanted to try mixing up roles and trying different stuff for this jam, however we neglected to really test or prove out these changed roles were going to work ahead of time. It didn't quite work out and Saturday night when we looked at progress we knew we need to make a change if we were going to deliver. So we reverted to how we'd done the last jam and that worked out great.
Genre confusion - To me this was always an interactive fiction game with some combat sequences to break up the storytelling. However from the LD feedback it's clear a lot of players were enjoying the combat but felt the storytelling was long and getting in the way. I don't normally run into this because when you show screenshots of a point and click adventure game you kind of get a self-selecting audience who are into that style of game. I think screenshots of this game draw in RPG players who aren't down for pages and pages of dialog. There's certainly improvements I could make to make the dialog more engaging but there is a fundamental problem of mechanics driven gamers are going to be frustrated by half of what is in this game.
Monday commitments - I was sure I had Monday clear to finish up the game. Wrap it up, polish it, release it. Instead I rerealised thanks to social media it was one of my best friend's birthdays that I'd forgotten about and spent a bunch of my evening being social and hanging out with them. So I had to finish up the game on Tuesday. It was always going to be an "Extra" game anyway as I'm non-competitive but a recurring problem for me is not having time on Monday to finish up.
Learnings for next time is to keep a tight achievable scope, focus on MVP first and make sure we've got a clear idea who's doing what and that they're prepared for the work involved. I would like to say "make sure Monday is free" but I say that every jam and then somehow it's not.
Great jam folks, see you all at the next one...
Keep playing and ratings games!
... And if you are already here
I've started working on a post-jam version of the little fishing tycoon game that I made for Ludum Dare 56, Snow Flipper!
I've posted a video on YouTube with a couple details and the announcement of a newsletter that I've set up!
https://youtu.be/QAtNNlHIKu8
I was rating games, right? Well, then I came across Springtail, one of the hardest games to beat WITHOUT CHEATING. And I guess all that's left for me to say is this: I currently hold the speedrun world record...
Here's the whole story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eJq3y1sJfc
I want to rate your games :3
We want YOU in our team, mostly to play our game, but still, we want YOU!!
Boil em, mash em, stick em in a stew :musical_note:
Play our lil' potatoe game :arrow_right: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/fry-quest
Play and rate Fastigrades here! (there's a Web build ;))
If a trebuchet can launch a 90 kg projectile over 300 meters, how far will a very tiny cannon launch a 1 mm tardigrade?
I'm still going through my backlog of games to try, but I feel like most games are still struggling to hit 20 ratings. We certainly are! So if you think our tribute to Yetisports sounds fun, I'd love it if you could take a look! It's a very quick game to try.
Come on down to https://www.twitch.tv/coleslawski for the usual shenanigans!
Just a quick thanks to everyone who took their time to review our game. You all are amazing!
Every LD I had fun programming our entries, but this time was specially fun. When we were deciding what to do, we let our imagination run free, and after we chose this idea all I could think was "How the f* am I gonna code that?"
In the end, I think we ended with something really cool and unique. And please ignore the UI shenanigans, we had a full 30 minutes to throw it together :laughing:
Here is a quick trailer we made showcasing the gameplay:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ8IrMEK4YA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS88u4WOtLQ
I just made my first game trailer ~~(and created a youtube account)~~. Does it give away too much? Ehh ... probably.
I'm just glad I got something. I wanted to quit halfway trough making this because my video editing software crashed two times and the first time I totally forgot to save the project. And it was almost finished. Yeah ...
If you haven't already and are interested in playing my visual novel "Are you listening?" you can find it right here:
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/are-you-listening
Hi everyone our team continues to work on The Ritual We are adding new mechanics, visual and sound effects to make our game more atmospheric and immerse the player in the Lovecraftian atmosphere. New versions of the game will be here https://logovostudio.itch.io/the-ritual :wink:
Use !submit <game link> to add your game to the queue. Don't like reading? no problem I will mention the instructions A LOT during the stream. Do you like reading? you can use !sh to help spread the work in the twitch chat. Thanks so much. Love always, TigerJ.
Just wanted to share the game I made during gamejam since not that many people have played it. Don't hesitate to do so and give me some feedback. I'll check out your game aswell!
Alright thanks for listening. Imma head out now
Hi everyone our team is still working on The Ritual We are adding new mechanics, visual and sound effects to further immerse the player in the Lovecraftian atmosphere.
New versions of the game will be available on itch.io
Hi everyone our team is still working on The Ritual We are adding new mechanics, visual and sound effects to further immerse the player in the Lovecraftian atmosphere.
Rate our game: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/the-ritual
New versions of the game will be available on itch: https://logovostudio.itch.io/the-ritual
Hey guys!
This is our tenth entry for Ludum Dare and we made a game about tiny creatures – bunnies! :slight_smile:
We would really appreciate it, if you take your time and test the game, leave a comment and maybe some rating.
Play & rate our game: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/the-pasture
Thank you so much! :hearts:
Best regards @nivbeth, @fis & @johncoffee
We started off with a spark of an idea to make a game about a fly that's trying to get out of the soup. And then we thought, "Why not up the ante?" — instead of a fly, let's have a person in a fly costume!
This was starting to sound like one of those crazy Japanese game shows — complete with bizarre costumes, wild commentators, and lots of yelling. And so, our game evolved into the epic tale of a human in a fly suit sprinting across a giant sandwich, fleeing from a colossal mouth trying to devour it — all set against the backdrop of a crazy real world show!
Everything went just as you expected — pure chaotic, just like in those shows. For example, sound production there is insane, there's not a single tiny fraction of a second of silence - so after listening to many different "funny challenger in a stupid costume" shows our sound designer actually got a migraine.
Nevertheless, here we are with our crazy take on Tiny Creatures. Enjoy!
Hey guys, I just finished editing and uploading a devlog showing how I made Tiny Terrarium. Wee bits of stupid and silly humour throughout, hope you guys can check it out!
Do you have what it takes to control a swarm of bugs to victory? Be fast and take tight curves, but don't lose ants!
Play and rate Traction Bugs here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/traction-bugs
Also got affiliated today ^_^ All thanks to you all :heart:
https://www.twitch.tv/xpmonsterx Submit your game by dropping a link into the chat on stream
Games played count: 34
To everyone who has played the game left reviews thank you so much. We have passed the 20 ratings mark which is crazy for me. This is my first Ludum Dare and second ever game jam. So thank you everyone for all the amazing feedback. For anyone who hasn't played it yet, head on over and play Perdita Creaturae.
Play the Game Here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/perdita-creaturae
Come and submit your game on stream :arrow_right: https://www.twitch.tv/tobugis
Two alien bugs trapped in a meteor hurtling towards earth get split up as they crash land. One bug quests to find the other by making use of his powers. The bug can control its stages of metamorphosis! Swap between your different stages to dodge enemies and obstacles and find your alien partner.
We had lots of fun making this :D we hope you enjoy playing it too!
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/metamorph
I was unable to join Ludum Dare this part week due to the war (fr), but now that I'm finally back at my office, I can spend some time to make a game for the EXTRA!
The original idea was to create a vampire survival style game, but instead of guns and skills, you had "minions" (tiny creatures) around you. But as things evolved, I decided to change them to sheeps (so you could be a Shepherd). I like this most, even tho it doesn't fit the theme so much anymore, but well... I'm already at Extra, so I think it's fine. :smiley:
PS: I'm making the game using my own Engine (Cave Engine) and I did the characters myself in Blender. The vegetation assets are from Quaternius.
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/tiny-creature-breeder
It was really cool to participate in this Ludum Dare, it was really fun!
However, some things could be improved in my game, especially in details, and that's what I'm doing, adding particles to the game.
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/tiny-wreckers
'ello again!
I sat down looked out my window and pondered "man I really should try a larger project with max effort and all fun" something just large enough to keep me entertained and working for a while on my game dev stuff, but not so much as to demand a team... don't get me wrong working in a team would be great, but finding people that have the same vision as me to help me out is hard, and still not confident I can manage and get a tteam running again...
So that leaves me with 4 choices!
A. I could push a rework/update for John's Visage (LD 55 entry of mine) so it reached maximum potential because it's my favorite jam game...
B. I could retry with Bermuda, concept has been refined in my head and I truly hate how it came out... a retry/redesign would let me sleep soundly knowing it is not awful now...
C. I could start a fangame project for a game got this idea to combine my stuffs with this game's stuffs and I know one of the devs would be thrilled!
D. keep making whatever the hell I'm making in HTML... yeah I got into this checkbox pseudo-minesweeper coding for my class and I really like it, just need to add all the effects for the different checkboxes and it would be done...
So yeah lot's of things I could try doing, and sure looking for a team to start up maybe in advance to LD 57 would be fine but more so those 4... so yeah erm...
INTERACTIVE SEGMENT!
Randomly pick one of the 4 letters above! most voted might win or I may spin a wheel!
And share your future plans with game dev! I saw many cool games so I'm hoping atleast a good portion of people will update their games!
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Cleanse the undergrowth from a grub infestation in this fast-paced, challenging archery shooter!
11 challenging stages, can you beat them? Let us know what you think!
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/grubbo
I somehow got enough ratings pretty fast despite Mimic being 'just' a text adventure. Its not 'just' anymore now with the feedback that is positive and guiding- Plus how frustrated I could get with only writing, writing and more... WRITING :rofl: . Goals for next time (when solo) in order of importance: - Experiment with the thing called stylesheet more. - Learn how to add art. - Learn how to add sounds.
I hope to continue keep rating other games (no downloads usually) but for now I have to prepare my DMing sessions as LD56 delayed them :sweatsmile: After that, my priority is to play web games of those who left feedback with me and the dangerzone ones. :blueheart:
There will be a next time, solo when SO is with his friend. I will continue practicing this kind of game and with Twine! LD is perfect to give met one time projects to learn with purely because of being able to do things and the great community.
:video_game: Play it here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/karma-keepers
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My game has reached 60 votes, and I thought it was a good time to share how I made it.
The last time I participated in Ludum Dare or any game jam was 10 years ago. Since then, I didn’t have the time or energy to commit to making a game in such a short timeframe. But this year, everything aligned. I had free time, a quiet house, and a new Rust framework I’ve been working on for the past month. So... LD 56 it is! I chose the compo and used my custom engine, sounds crazy, but I wanted to have fun doing something I enjoy.
For me, the theme reveal was at 11 PM. I brainstormed for a few hours, trying to find an idea that excited me. Interestingly, I had originally voted for Tiny Creatures because I had a concept in mind. However, just a few hours before the event, I changed my vote and removed Tiny Creatures because I’d forgotten my idea :sweat_smile:
Anyway, after discarding a few concepts, I came up with one I liked: an incremental game where you, as a god-like figure, lead tiny creatures to convert corrupted souls to the light.
With the idea settled, I went to sleep and started fresh the next day.
I began by defining the map size, soul spawning system, and a karma system that ranged from -2 to 2, where: * Neutrals: -1 to 1 * Shadows: -2 to -1 * Luminals: 1 to 2
And then added interaction with the mouse:
At this point, I realized that RNG was playing too big a role in determining whether players would win or lose, so I made some adjustments. One change was introducing Eternals, a new kind of soul that’s incorruptible. I also implemented blessings, passive power-ups that increase the chances of winning.
On day two, it was time to work on the visuals. As a programmer, I was a bit worried since I’m not much of an artist. But for my first attempt at art, I think it turned out pretty well! It’s obviously not the same as having a dedicated artist, but I really enjoyed learning Aseprite and creating some simple pixel art.
Suddenly, it was time to submit the game. The compo was ending, and I had to rush. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to add sound, so my game was released without any audio :pensive:. I also made a few last minute gameplay tweaks to make it easier before submitting. I had some issues embedding the HTML game due to absolute paths in my index.html, but I managed to fix it. Then, I finally went to sleep.
The next day, I noticed the game was really laggy in the mid/late game. I found the issue in my engine, made a fix, and uploaded an update that improved performance. The lag was somewhat expected because the game features thousands of entities on screen, but making the game run smoothly was a priority for me to ensure players could enjoy it as I envisioned.
And that’s it! I’m really happy with the end result, even though the game is challenging, unclear at times, and lacks sound or enough feedback for players to fully understand what's happening.
I’m grateful for the feedback I’ve received and am taking it seriously. While it’s too late to improve this version, I’m planning to develop this game into a “real” project, hopefully one day on Steam. Thank you all!
https://twitch.tv/funbasealpha 
Still going back and playing games in my spare time after work. Looking for hidden treasures with low ratings. If you are just a little short of 20, you can leave a comment and I will try to rate your game!
And we made a game about space, resources, destruction and cats, check it out: There's no place for us https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/theres-no-place-for-us
We want YOU in our team, mostly to play our game, but still, we want YOU!!
When creating our entry we decided to do a mix of 3D elements as well as 2D sprite work. Whilst it didn't create the most coherent end product, it does make it unique.
For the weapons, I 3d modelled a really rough version of the weapons before rendering out shrunk down (pixel count) version of all 8 directions for aiming. This allowed for rapid re-rendering if we didn't like the look of certain renders (different angles for example) or wanted to change the colours. However in hindsight I wish I hadn't rushed so much and spent time creating a full lighting rig to ensure consistency.
We also have part of our intro cutscene pre-rendered. If that sounds interesting check out HAIRDIVERS at: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/hairdivers
Hey, all! The Tech Valley Game Space community will be live-streaming ourselves playing Ludum Dare games tonight, October 12th, from 6:00 - 8:00 PM EDT on twitch.tv/techvalleygamespace and youtube.com/c/techvalleygamespace
To have your game in consideration for playing and judging, you can sign up on this form: forms.gle/kbUdacxVfnVaGrq17
As the form states, we do enforce a Code of Conduct in our live-streams. As such, we do reserve the right to cancel streaming and rating a game for any reason.
Hope to check out your games soon!
Thanks so much to everyone who's played the game and given me feedback :) Molerat Rescue is on HTML5 now! TIL that checking the "enable progressive web app" box while exporting a godot project makes it work on firefox (fingers crossed :D)
Play it here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/molerat-rescue
Just some stress testing for Beetle Era. Can’t believe it’s already been an entire week.
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/beetle-era
The problem was, it was very difficult to determine how many characters to guess, but now it's clearly indicated.
I used a simple little algorithm to get it to format it just the way I wanted! With rust, it was fairly easy to build out
my intent, using psuedocode first, and then translate that into imperative statements, blocked into functional code.
edit: oops im still calling the whitespace asterisks in one spot XD
Hey and welcome to this Post-mortem ! I'll talk about what happened or went well, what went bad and our overall feeling about this this Ludum Dare :)
Hope you'll learn things or have advice or subjects to share and the comments :)
The start was a bit rough 'cause 'Tiny Creatures" was absolutely not the theme we wanted. It didn't inspired us... Or I may say "didn't help us a lot".
The thing is that creativity is boosted by constraints. And a theme like "Tiny Creatures" is... WIDE. There is not much constraints in it... It's like just a "skin" to apply to a game. We were at this strange crossroad where too much freedom give you no clues on what to do.
But we had to find something...
We thought that "tiny" was easy : it's size comparison so we'll add our game space into a "big thing"...
So we decided to focus on the "creature" part of the theme.
We asked ourselves : "What does something can give to players the feeling to have creatures in front of them ?" What make a simple square, on a blank screen, feel like a creature ? And this without a text telling us it was a creature, or a sprite of a mouse :mouse: , bee :bee: , microbes or others tiny creatures. The answer was "free movement like they have their own will". To achieve this we thought of making our squares moving around and going back and forth to predetermined places, so they act like they were moving on their own.
Then we needed some way to interact with the player. For this we had the idea of something like a "ping", or a beacon that* would incite/motivate creature to go see where the player clicked*.
Then we came with some ideas : - A puzzle game were you have to push/incite creatures to pass through traps and mazes - A disk where creatures would wander upon its edges. The disk/2D planet would molder over time and you had to keep you creatures alive the longer you can - A "big thing" need the tiny creatures to be in some place for a said time to make the "big thing" move/act/wake-up...
So we chose the later idea : Tiny creatures interacting with the inner body of a fantastic beast to help it wake-up.
Under the surface of a dead planet, an ages-old god was let dead. It body lying in a deep dark cavern. But by chance, a lost tiny elemental creature made it into it's body. This elemental tiny creature, led by pings creatures by the player clicking, had the power to activate some magic ("shut up it's magic" time) part of the host's body that could summon more the first elemental. This part would also make the host start breathing again.*
We had also in mind that the player will start with only one tiny elemental. The game would tell they to click somewhere to show that the creature would go there, at least for a moment. Then we would led the player to understand were the creatures should go to activate host's functionalities. We wanted an organic tutorial.
Then, after summoning other elementals, they would be able to activate a new host body : making open its eyes so the player could see the host surrounding. Then a new type of elemental would allow the host creature to walk.
The host would eventually walk into different area which would change how the inner body was to function, forcing the player to move elemental in a new way.
Example : if the host was walking under water, the inner body would be flooded, water elementals would thrive, fire ones would disappear and rock ones would act slowly. The player would have to move elementals to different body part to make them keep the host walking until it get out of the water.
And so on...
Eventually the god-host creature would get out of the cave system, would then look to sky and make a long scream that would bring back life to the planet, ending the player journey.
We are 3 friends and therefore we easily laugh and have good time together. So, this is a good thing to start on :) We ate well (and a lot of snacks too) and listened to Metal :metal: and Synthwave :wavy_dash: all 3 days long.
It was not our first jam so we knew some traps to avoid and some ways to generate ideas, so what could go wrong ? :angel: (foreshadowing...)
Saturday morning we were confident about finding the right ideas and put them together by the end of the day in a prototype
We struggled a lot (as you'll see below) but we managed to publish a game, just in time, with only few minor bugs and some friends (@freego and Zat) successfully made a music for our game :notes: We also recently pass the 20 ratings received mark so we will have a ranking :trophy: (thanks to all of you who dared reviewed our game !)
But shadows were casting darkness upon us all along...
The first, and I think the biggest, of our mistakes was to go head first into creating a world for our game that wasn't even a prototype a this point... We created goals for a gameplay loop that wasn't even fully conceptualized. This lack of focus on the main game mechanic (the ping thing) left us with a taste of "meh-ness". We hadn't identify yet that is was the main problem, so we thought that adding things around this (not enough developed) game mechanic would help.
Saturday evening we hadn't even started coding yet, we were busy arguing about why adding this or that, about how to best identify better game mechanics to get out of the "meh-zone".
We eventually decide to go ahead anyway and add those "add-on" around the "ping". This led us to making a sort of management game with lots ponderation, statistic of creatures movement, percentage and so on... This should have alerted us... While @arktas was coding the creatures decision system, @lut1n coded the path finding and I was thinking of more graphic design and creating sprites that we already needed. But we were feeling that it will not be our best LD entry.
Git ! We love you but FOR GOD DAMN SAKE why did you failed us ? :sob:
Two times, our private Git repository just... removed several commit from our main branch ! We didn't, and will certainly never will, understood what led to this. It was the first time we saw that, and just to let you know, we're 3 pro IT developers and are using Git in our daily work life.
And off-course this occurred when two of u had to push something important :sweat_smile:
With all of that we were more and more tense and exhausted. I personally lost interest in the prototype we were trying to make and was sure that we wouldn't be able to include all we had in mind first (The host-god and its lore, the animation, diversity and more important the organic tutorial) so I was less an less motivated to work hard...
@lut1n had warned us that he wouldn't work on the game jam on the third day, before the jam started, but @arktas and I just keep developping the game like we had a third pair of hands on the last day. Why ? I don't even know... Bu that was stupid, we should remembered what he said to us and re-scope our work because on the last day we missed him a lot :slight_frown:
On the last day, I was hope-deprived and was thinking to give up seriously, @arktas kept the line like warrior and managed to finished all the code we needed to make... our prototype... On the last day we had.. our prototype
But we had something to ship and @freego came with his music, after some back an forth, he handled us a sample that was a blast, it re-booosted us a bit and kept going.
I made a bit more sprites. I wanted to hint the player on were to move the tiny creatures. But because we had so little time left, I just went for some sprite that weren't to ugly.
And then it was time to publish.
While @arktas was building a web build, I had to prepare the Itch.Io page (we prefer using Itch.io than the LDJam site) but... I couldn't FOR THE LOVE ALL GODS log to the Quasar Shrine's page...
And to this day ItchIo support didn't answered me, to the email I immediately sent them, yet.
So I had, in full stress, to go to my own old Itch.Io page and upload our build there 5min prior to the end of publishing hour.
In the same time @arktas uploaded the zip to the LDJam, to be sure.
With all that tensions, I didn't add the Quasar Shrine logo and animation we usually add to our games. :cry:
To conclude, that was not our best and most loved Ludum Dare for sure but we delivered... a game ? A tiny creatures vivarium ? Something at least and some of you seems to had liked it, so that the most important thing done ! :smile:
The most frustrating thing is that, we already did those mistakes but on our 2 first game jams ! Several passed after those two and we didn't repeat those mistakes until this last one.. Why ? Maybe a bit of overconfidence...
Anyway what he would have done was to focus on the very lone ping mechanic and make our prototype around this, then iterate with creating a world around it and add those "add-on" I talked about.
Keep it simple as heck !
And if you want an example of a game that has a really good an simple game mechanic for this game jam, I present to you : Souls of the Lost and Insignificant by @nondev. By the way go check their game, they have a problem we their LDJam account and can't make link to their game (it only appear as "link" in their posts :frowning2: ) and have only 9 ratings !
Like our "God Awakener", if you didn't checked it out yet
Turns out, I accidentally created an army of tiny warriors bent on world domination! 🌍💥
Who knew ants had such big plans ? 
😅😂
If you can't launch the web build, you can download the game and enjoy the game and this cute icon on your PC!
Let me know if you face any issues with game.
arrow_right https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/candyween
it's simple. I used a late build of Lily Adventuresses! Episode 1 as a basis for this game, the prologue of Episode 2. Personally, I didn't mind some unused data, graphics, and music in the game, as long as this method increased efficiency and cut down on development time.
And regarding the names I used for the characters? Well, I'm gonna tell a short anecdote. For my future games, I have a stock of names I gathered from various sources, from receipts to internet posts to even spam email. But I noticed that the number of female names outnumbered the male ones by a huge margin, and thus I came up with the concept of a series of WLW RPGs, just so those female names will be used for the all-female main casts of all five episodes in the RPG anthology, as well as some NPCs.
Now then. Lily Adventuresses! Episode 2 Prologue needs six more votes in order to be qualified for scoring, so play and vote away!
After rating comment below and Ill be quick to play+rate yours. :smile:
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/shrink
My team made an idle game about little fish making a rocket! I just wanted to make a post to see if any idle game enjoyers want to try it out! :tropicalfish: :blueheart:
