We were so close to some awesome games with way better themes. LOL WTF. How is that a theme?

Tiny Creatures.

Not a big fan of the theme, but that's where the fun is I guess

Well, I guess the older among us will be overwhelmed with nostalgia when they'll have to test and rate hundreds of tamagoshi-style games and other stuff like that :rofl:

hello all,

i've just released a DLC for one of my recent games: https://verysoftwares.itch.io/85butterfexe

just heard that Ludum Dare is starting, i'm already in my work mode so i might as well take the plunge!

First time doing solo game jam. Good luck and have fun everyone!

I think I'll try to write a sort of 2d pikmin thing.

Starting from scratch again, as you see below, but I may recycle some JavaScript code from previous games, possibly. Hopefully this time I can make a game a bit more challenging.

Good luck everyone.

Moo Deng

If it isn't the theme I had no ideas for.

noun. an animal, especially a nonhuman: the creatures of the woods and fields; a creature from outer space. anything created, whether animate or inanimate.

I think I'll make the avatar a little guy with a flag.

In all the years I've been doing LD, never once have I had a theme I like. But I always end up with a game I like... so I say to thee once again... LFG.

my first ever ludum dare!!!

Picked a random theme to practice brainstorming and thought of ideas for "Strange Machines". Was surprised by Little Creatures, BUT I'm sensing some potential overlap from my previous brainstorming session!

I'm excited :) Good luck to everyone!!

Tiny does not mean cute...

Come back in 48h to see what I mean !

Pretty confident I can make this good, see you in 48 hours!

didn't think one of the only 2 i voted for would make it through lol!! Did I have any ideas for it when i voteD? nope!! Am I stoked as hell and have some ideas already that i came up it while getting read to cook a late-ass breakfast? YEAAAAA

GLHF EVERYONE!!!!!

Problem one ... come up with an idea ...

My concept for first game evr Ngl, I'm not shure I'll finish it till the end, but I'm gonna try Let's make some games

Theme is not what I wanted, but I'll make it work in story with my sequel (kinda) to LD55 game "Death Beckons", but this time it's not a platformer, but Top Down Naval game! :speedboat:

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8yl84c

ANY TEAMS GOT ROOM FOR A CHEEKY WRITER?

Hello, folks! My name is isaac. I’m a Game Writer and Narrative Designer.

I've been making games for about a year. love collaborating and building worlds, characters, and scenarios. I'm very active on Discord and have two mentors. I'm not a programmer or an artist but I like to think I have a discerning taste as regards design, visuals, and audio.

My website http://jisaacgadient.com features a Sci-Fi short story about gamedev.

Our team is fully prepared for this challenge! We are already diving into discussions and generating ideas for our game.💡

Each of us brings our own unique skills and creativity, and we are sure that we will be able to create something really interesting and beautiful! 💪✨

I HAVE BEEN DEALING WITH THESE THE PAST FEW WEEKS WHAT A GREAT WAY TO RELIVE MY NIGHTMARE

Ok the flag sort of morfed into some long hair for the leader. I have him spawning men (minions? Dwarfs?)

I think it will be some sort of smurph themed dune/pikmin thing? It's definitely coming along.

I'm throwing out the old (terrible) collision system that depended on the chip-8's xor sprite drawing and am going to use hit spheres (er boxes but with the taxi cab norm. I think that works anyway it's been a few years since I did linear algebra.)

If you're having trouble generating those pesky ideas, I would recommend a documentary. The one I used to find my game idea was Kurtzgazate in a nutshell's (probably spelled wrong) video on ants.

That is my Creature

Started using midjourney to create some images of tiny creatures.

Used Meshy.ai to turn that image into a 3d model for the game.

Will make game where you play as a little bug-like creature in a world of bug-like creatures who is helping to make big woods-y moss-y circuit boards for a new "electrical grid". You place down "circuit board pieces" like puzzle game then have to wriggle in the spaces between to lay down "copper-stuff" for "electricity stuff". But as mechanisms come on line, there are hazards.... how good can you be?

Work flow plan

Day 1: Make all basic mechanics and "rough" game flow. Draw out ideas, characters, world building. Figure out rest of plan and get in "the basics"

Day 2: Refine the game, get it basically "done enough" and get to polishing and improving.

Day 3: Lock it down and get it all ready to go. Finish early for time for extra bug testing and polish!

got some ideas and an early creature design

I made a new project, due to some personal problems i had been running a sole unity editor from a usb stick. turns out that old project run fine, new projects didnt even have UI as an option ;-;

But yall be careful im finally in the race now! :D

I haven't taken part in a good game jam in a few years and I think it's high time I got back into it!

Bonus pic of my setup:

Hi, we just started the concept design for the game, and came to the concept of a green little boy

It's been a few years since I last took part in a game jam, so I'm excited to get started!

Bonus pic of my setup:

Excited to see everyone's stuff! Gotta churn through all my ideas for this theme in a jiffy to decide on something lol

This is perfect. I've had something in mind that almost any of the themes could work for, and Tiny Creatures gets voted in. Even Echo would have worked to a degree.

So, the theme's out, and it caught me a bit off-guard.

But as always, I worked out the theme and integrated it to the original idea for Lily Adventuresses! Episode 2, which involves a military woman forming a bond with a sentient being in order to wield a sacred weapon. This is mainly due to the influence of Ultraman Arc, which I'm watching every week.

And here's the title screen of the game I'm making.

Now to explain the title. "Arcritter" is the combination of "arc" and "Ritter" (the German word for "knight"). It also contains the word "critter", which is analogous to "tiny creatures". The four main characters in this game are pacted to sentient beings called Arcreatures, which usually take the form of ordinary animals such as cats and dogs. These Arcreatures can then transform into sentient weapons to aid the Arcritters in combat.

And now I'm gonna write the story on this lovely morning.

Tbh I didn't really like the theme, but after seeing someone here talk about making a game Abt a snail, it reminded me of that Undertale minigame. I think it'd be interesting to recreate that. While I like how you can't spam to win, and how the snails combusts lol, I feel id have to put my own spin, mostly bc the minigame is a little bit annoying to win lmao.

Aha - got a bunch of stuff to do on both Saturday and Sunday, so this may be a 24-35 hour thing. I have managed to get mobile controls and separate controllable mice working so far. Now for everything else , and cats.

Even cows, sheep and pigs are teeny tiny creatures if you look from far enough away :)

Tool Set :

Godot 4 GDScript Krita paint.net Blender

Happy Jamming

I have to prep for D&D night, I should have cancelled but i didn't, so now I have to go DM.

Tasks done:

Game Idea Player Controller Player Model

Next tasks:

Enemy model player hurt enemy enemy hurt player enemy movement level design audio animations

I would like to offer music composition for this LD to anyone who needs it. I can do normal tracks, or dynamic music that changes with the action. Some examples from my previous LD entries can be found here. If you normally go solo but feel like having help with music this time, please reach out to me. Thanks!

No goblins!

These boards must be stacked, and then glued together with a special sap which conducts electricity. The red boards are "critical" and have important but dangerous components which have to be worked around.

No problem with the ideas, But mechanics is a different story...

I had largely not realized LD was this weekend! But it's a great theme, so let's give it a go. We have a sweet little parakeet who's been living with us for a few years now. His name is Little Bird. He's very sick right now and just came back from several days in the vet ICU. I'm gonna make him a game so that he can feel better! Therefore, it's time to make:

LITTLE BIRD'S LITTLE ADVENTURE! :bird: :bird: :bird:

I'm going to make it in Pico8 and it's going to be wonderful. Just you wait.

Look at the silly guy that is not cast into any torment! what silly name does this silly guy have?

Man, what an absolute 💩show of a week!

Started it off with a visit to the ER, and a second of my three monitors blowing out (leaving me down to one functional monitor!)

Wednesday and Thursday I spent dismantling the monitors, fixing broken internal wires, recapping circuit boards, and getting them all mostly functional again. -- The third one still has some minor issues, so I've orded some parts to fully fix it next weekend. For now, I'll live with two monitors.

I also noticed my laptop wasn't turning on, so last night I ended up replacing the battery for that as well... -- Though I plan to do my gamedev from my desktop, it will be nice to have a lower spec system to test on.

Apparently though, something I do have going for me, is that past Mikey had the foresight to take Monday off -- likely, he was anticipating that I will want to sleep the whole day. -- Thanks, past-Mikey!

As for the "Tiny Creatures" theme, I'm got a number of weird ideas floating around in my head... haven't ruled out the idea of finally doing a Brain Slugs game. -- But something about my ER visit really wants to go in the "Fantastic Voyage" route, where you get shrunken down and injected into the veins of like... some BS thing... like the president's horse or whatever -- to save it's life (because obviously, the fate of the free world hangs in the balance). I feel like I could make a really absurd and funny game out of that premise...

A third option that just hit me while installing Unity and Visual studio is... maybe something with toys... like in a haunted doll house or something? -- It is spooky season after all...

Or maybe I'll do something completely different, like the little electrical creatures that live inside of power cables and make computers work (low-tech Tron?). So many choices!

Wish me luck! --Mikey

Here are some pictures of the monitors, laptop, and final desk setup:

I've participated in 48 hours jam once, but I am really excited in participating in LD! Hope I am able to create something

Hello internet!!

We are proud to announce that CLOWNWORKS, the ultimate team behind INVERSIO NEGOTIUM, is IN for LD56 Jam! While we're not too happy with the theme, we already have a few ideas we want to explore.

THE TEAM

• Kacper "Pierogo" Herchel - The Ratmaster (gRATphics & progRATmming) 🐀
• Krzysztof "Lisek Gagatek" Dobrzański - The Rat Wizard (progRATmming) 🐀
• Maciej "Bułke" Ziółkowski - The Rat Hacker (progRATmming) 🐀
• Tomasz "tako" Pijanowski - The Ratatouille (song wRATer) 🐀

THE PLAN

THE TOOLS

I told y'all I'd bitch and moan

!!!!!!

I set up the CI for our game: https://chimpenseurs.github.io/LD56/

That is very basic, but hopefully, I'll have time to improve it.

Awesome theme, have a great jam everybody.

give me some 4 digit codes (that do not include 0) that seem hard to put in when trying to go fast (its for my game trust)

I'm planning to create a Hearthstone-style card-battler where your deck is an army of insects, chosen from the mighty forces of the Spiders, the Bees, the Moths, and the Beetles.

Rather than fighting a symmetrical opponent, you will be fighting a single boss with powerful abilities - those larger predators that often make meals of insects, such as toads, bats, and snakes.

For building your deck, you will be able to choose 2 out of the 4 insect armies. Each army has a specialized playstyle: - Spiders: Poison, web traps to slow and control the boss - Bees: Strength in numbers, buff your forces - Moths: Support, stalling, healing - Beetles: Defensive tanks, raw attack strength

...Anyway, I probably won't finish, but this will be a fun weekend project regardless! Yolo

With a full time job, 2 little daughter and my uncle birthday tomorrow i dont have too hope finish a game but i have the intention! Have a nice Ludum Dare to everyone!

I would have forgotten if I wasn't at my dad's birthday party and Uncle Lance didn't say, "Hey when's your next Ludum Dare?" I said, "I don't know, probably later this year. I'll look." And it was today. This is for you, Uncle Lance.

wooooot let's jam!! :D

First graphics... Some cute little creatures. Now to put them in an environment.

You can now place the boards

The little smurfs (purfs?) can target things. I have them following the avatar. I'm using a low resolution atan function for now and I'll fix it later if I have time. I tried to do the full angular resolution but I'm not debugging that.

The last gamejam I did was in college. I tried to do a chip-8 game then but had this crazy idea that I'd do wireframe 3d graphics for it. I wrote all these vector drawing functions for lines. triangles, filed and empty circular arcs etc and then realized I was pushing just a few pixels per frame and got bored and did something else.

I think it will be a sort of smurf themed dune game with mushrooms or something.

Took me literally hours to decide on what kind of game to make... but now I've got a mockup and it seems like my usual un-decipherable kind of game, so let's go for it!

Setting up more stuff

I said I wouldn't do it this time but let's see how far we can take em

https://twitch.tv/squuuidly

Doing everything myself so far, come on in for good workin' vibes and music and cool peeps!!

lil demon guy.gif

ive had the idea since like 46 minute into the jam but the OG concept sketches were awful LMAO, this one aint better but it helps me visualize because i am All Over The Place

scrungy quality cuz zoomed in on the camera lmaooo, anyway its basically snake + those god awful mobile game ads, which i have heard called 'Number Dungeons', so thats what im calling it too lol

Little late but I'll be joining the Jam with my usual combo of Construct 3, BeepBox, paint.net, and whatever homemade software I need. Currently streaming live on YouTube!

https://www.youtube.com/live/-44ne8lZbBE

our imagination has been completely drained

Come on in and watch this lil demon guy come alive!!!

https://twitch.tv/squuuidly

lil demon guy.gif

grtounp join now

https://www.twitch.tv/sabrinaross6502

Original idea do not steal. These creatures are tiny enough that you can fit way more than 6 in your pockets.

Sterket #1 is Tadcoal. The top of its skull produces a combustible venom. It's in constant pain from being on fire all the time. Once it learns to ignore the pain, it matures into its next form.

Forgs, slimes, ants, or some sort of plankton.

🫳

I like this theme. Tiny creatures is not one I've seen used before. I think it will give us a fun range of games and some cute art. I want to make a text based game about a small creature having a random adventure. If I have time, maybe I'll add some character pictures if feasible.

Greetings!

I'm seeing a lot of concept arts which is lovely! I'm doing well myself minus the 2D game segment of my game... I'm thinking about pixel art and well uhh...

Yeah... no I don't need aseprite... ms paint will do... right? RIGHT?!

​Not making a game for Ludum Dares this time around but still wanted to make something. Here's some tiny creatures for anyone to use ^_^

(Lil Wormy is a character I put in 7 of my games as a supporting character or easter egg, I would love to see him as a cameo in other peoples stuff too xD)

Gonna add more tomorrow and some UI/Decorations, feel free to post requests in the comments

Download is here

Firog is the matured form of Tadcoal. It's learned to ignore the fire on its back, most of the time. If it loses focus, it will start feeling the pain again. It matures to its final form if it can learn to ignore the fire 100% of the time.

I live at night, so I am counting this progress as friday for now :smile: Anyways, I have been having a good time despite the nerves and actually getting some symptoms I am getting sick.

First, the theme had me cheering. Even though I had not made notes of what I would make with which themes for multiple reasons [costs me energy I need and I might get disappointed or stuck] "Tiny creatures" was one of my few green, +1, choices in the final round. My relieve it did not become strange machines was biiig! Why? Well I likely could have managed, but machines are even more out of my comfort zones so to use the limited Twine to just do everything in text format would have forced me to get some description help from the AI. A thing I want to avoid as this is my challenge, not the bot.

Anyhow, I started with a Pinterest board to visualize the theme better. Wishing to not get into the insects too much, as a single creature. Ontop of that, the theme is a plural form. With the help of the images I made my mindmap, a form of brainstorming.

As I finished, I was planning to go to bed and rest. My plan is to do just a few hours a day on this project so it stays fun and to avoid over-scoping [if its called like that] like crazy. Plus a few personal reasons. Anyways... I ended up working a few hours on the text as I let a friend of mine read my mindmap and the prologue I wanted to use.

Friend: Thats fun ^^

Me: Whyyyy is it fun?

Friend: I just like that humor especially with last one

I as a person thrive on these moments, anxiety being a b*tch plus other stuff. I was confident enough to just start. Honestly, it is far from perfect and it will be not as grand as I see others do- But I am happy with the start!

For now, kicking myself to bed and trying to not spoil the theme for my SO who will find out later. I really want to ramble and tell him about stuff but patience is virtue~ Good luck ya all. :hugging:

Yes, I think "Tiny War" is a good idea.

In fact ,I don't know either...

Making good progress. Need to fix up the controls, though...

For those who don't know this, but there is basically a "beta" version of Aseprite called LibreSprite which is free. I think it is great especially for programmers who use it only once a year.

https://libresprite.github.io/#!/downloads

I had a late start, but I got a little bit working tonight. So far, creatures---represented by placeholder text---can stumble around and I can click on them for more info.

The theme is a cute one, but here is day 0 progress : ))))) for a lazy-ass creation - no trouble, no hurry (usually also no time bhahaha)

Day 0: come up with a plan on paper with the theme in.. without caring which one it is ; )))

How so? Magic

And of course, GL everyone ^^ and have a blast!!!!!!!

I decided to sleep, losing 7 hours from Compo. From 6:30 to 7am I managed to make the general game system, main character sprite + animation and main character controls. Still have a lot to do, but this is a busy weekend. Why did everything had to be at the same time as my first LD??? I won’t be qualifying for art, as backgrounds will be AI-made. I’m coding in python.

x,y,z,w?????? why not w,x,y,z or x,y,z,a???? :skull: :skull: :skull:

Testing.. Can't get my posts to publish. I think I'm in. Am I in? TLDR,it's my first time joining. Would be intetested in collabing! I do Unity, Godot, GDevelop...

Movement is much snappier now- it's tap based rather than "hold down". You can also press spacebar to either do a dodging dash (if in a groove) or a creepy "body extend" to go across gaps. (no visuals for those yet...)

Really looking forward to doing this LDJAM!

Had a bit of a rocky start, mostly creative block sort of feeling even though I like the theme a lot and have a bunch of ideas, but I think I'm moving now. Don't know if it will turn out great but it should be fun, and I'm going to try something a little different and try to stick to 2D. Back to using Luxe engine for this one, which is nice since I've been away from it for a while and it's a breath of fresh air.

Don't let the algae blobs fool you, this is supposed to be a terrarium, and it should be mostly fish and snails and critters like that, the algae blob was just easy to draw so I started with that. Let's gooooo!

Best place to follow me for updates is on Mastodon at https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@joeld42, I'd love to see more LDJAM people posting on there, I miss the old days where twitter filled up with LDJAM posts.

Good luck everyone!

Did not expect that this theme is going to win, but I think I am saying this each ludum dare, so. :)

I am going to adhere to the rule "one hour per main mechanic, or scratch it" so this is what I came up with first:

You are going to control magic ship and try to save lite creatures on floating parts of their shattered world.

Just because I would like to try 6 DOP flying, but without physics. I would like to be able to stop almost from full power to zero in no time, so it is going to be more about quick maneuvering.

At least thats what I imagine. :D