I managed to compile my game for Windows®, in addition to Linux and web browsers. You can find it on itch.io, and also as my Ludum Dare 52 entry. I would love for you to give it a try and let me know what you think!
In my LD38 game "Space Travel 15" I now got a new friend (@kidav52410). My new friend says some weird things, and really like to talk about traveling.
I thought you also would like to say hello to my new spammer friend.
I was messing around with it but always got laggy builds, but turns out it was just my browser :C
Thank you for over 20 ratings! And all of the feedback, we will 100% take it forward onto the next one :D (Also any issues please let me know, web builds are new to me!)
If you want to play the Web Build, you can find it on itch! Check out Brutal Harvest
This jam, along with my friends, I've made a game for the extras category. It was purely for curiosity sake and because the "EU friendly time" was quite unfriendly for me, as an European.
In total we've spent 3 weeks, but they weren't as intense as the first 3 days. Having a lot of time makes you approach games differently, which is both good and bad, as I think I would have perished if I crunched for 3 weeks straight. And that large amount of time has also made us feel really tired.
I can't say that it gone all for nothing. This game was using a custom input system which I've been working on for the past 2 years. It had some issues I had to fix during the jam, but I've even managed to code custom dynamic prompts that change depending if you use a controller or a keyboard. Sadly, saving keybinds doesn't work yet so I didn't include rebinding.
I think there is a reason that most jams take place during the weekend. You can dedicate a lot of your time and focus for a few days without many repercussions. Opening up an editor for a couple of hours daily won't get you too far. But at least I have the cool prompts :)
This is my first ludum dare and I gotta say this community is awesome. My only regret is that I didn't come here sooner. So many well made games and so much constructive (and also nice) feedback, thank you for being you.
To wrap up this game jam, I want to reflect on my experience and also take the opportunity to promote our game. This was my first game jam and I had little to no prior experience in game design. Fortunately, a friend reached out to me as they were looking for a partner and I had been wanting to collaborate with them for some time.
The weekend of coding was a lot of fun, but it also had its moments of stress, such as not having anything playable for 90% of the time. Despite this, it was great to have a shared goal and deadline with all of you. At times, it felt like we were just piecing our game together, but in the end, I am proud of what we achieved and I learned so so much.
I also had a lot of fun trying out all of the great projects that were created and appreciated the positive feedback. I am definitely looking forward to participating in the next game jam.
P.S. Even drawing the sprites was enjoyable.
Check out our Game: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/death-n-veggies
I played a bunch of y'alls games and these are my favorites.
Most polished overall: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/slime-crime
Most memorable: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/this-is-my-dream-job
Most relaxing: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/$318599
Most narratively-interesting: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/organ-ized-crime
Demented energy: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/click-on-fish
Most addictive: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/orchard-alchemy
Most likely to cause permanent brain damage: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/big-aussie-harvest
Favorite game featuring a rave: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/night-of-the-werevester#/comment-919235
Thanks for another great LD!
Like many among us - we've continued to improve and change our game.
We've taken into consideration a lot of your feedback and will for now continue working on our little game.
Check it out:
Just uploaded another quick bug fix to make sure the retry button doesn't break the game and everything should be good to go. Give Watermelon Rush a shot!
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/watermelon-rush
Wanted to write a quick "post mortem" of my game, mainly to keep track of the conclusions I have so I'll remember them for next time. The post is going to include some spoilers for my game! If you have some free time, you can try playing my game without spoiling it at https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/the-night-harvest
Surprising the players by the fact you do not play the farmer. I wanted the game to do a sort of "bait and switch" - all the screenshots in the main page show only the farmer, and the description doesn't reveal that you actually play as the creature who comes out at night. From streamers and comments, I think this was a nice surprise and worked well.
Fake language - was very well received by all players :)
Story progression and game ending - was very well received by everyone I saw who actually got to the end (but see "what didn't work" for why so few people actually got to the end)
Music adds so much to the game! I almost gave up on finding music for the game this time, since it was already an hour before the deadline and I didn't have anything. I'm eventually really happy I added the music track (with music for opengameart) because it adds so much to the mood of the game!
Building up stress during night sections - I wanted the game to feel a bit stressed out in the night sections - about running out of energy, and about getting discovered by the farmer, and I think that works well.
Strategy vs action difficulty - from the beginning, I wanted the game to have a trade-off between how hard it is to play versus how much you strategize, so you could either strategize a lot and get a very easy game, or strategize very little and still win the game but have to endure a bit more difficult sequences. Only very little of this was eventually left in the game, but the (very few) people who did find out about the way you can win the game without handling the trap at all were very happy with discovering these strategies.
Pixel art - this was my first time drawing the game with pixel art style graphics. It definitely took much longer than the art for previous games, but I think even though it is still obviously programmer art, it's my least ugly looking game so far :laughing:
I need to implement a way to restart the game from the current night! At first I didn't want to add this, because the game was supposed to focus much more on the "strategy" element where you need to build up your strategy in the first night to be able to solve the later nights, but in the final game this is much less crucial and I could have easily added this feature and made the game much easier to finish.
There are many improvements I should have implemented for the input system - e.g. maybe you don't need to long press X to harvest (or at least it should be better communicated). Also maybe hiding should be automatic (or use the same button as harvesting).
Anyway, had a lot of fun making the game and playing other people games this jam. Still not sure if I'll join the next one, but I'll definitely join at least one more Ludum Dare this year! :smile:
Week 2 of ratings is gone and done. Just one more week until results! Interacting with other creators is always one of the highlights of the jam for me. For that reason, I'd like to share 5 of my favorites from this week for you to consider!
(In no particular order.)
The genius of this game really took me by surprise. On the surface, it's a slow-paced game (with online multiplayer support) about gathering seeds and harvesting plants for upgrades. The surprise is that it plays like an idle game, overlaying your desktop so that you can multitask while you wait!
Void Reader by @aliiiii and @daivyishere
A charming lemmings type puzzle with simple and entertaining scenarios and a meticulous sound design that transports you to Feudal Japan.
Mountain of the Dragon Fruits by @thomas-olsson
This auto-shooter has wonderfully minimalist graphics and an addictive combat loop. You should definitely check out the post-jam version after rating!
Midday Garden by @dustyroom
A narrative game written in Ink, this one is a welcome change of pace. You are a traveling tea maker who desires only to serve every customer just what they need. The story has many branching paths to explore, and the artwork is absolutely charming. So make yourself a cup of tea, sit back, and relax.
Travelling Tea Maker by @annie-owl and @detectivelosos
RTS games are a rare site in Jams, I feel, maybe because of the complexity required to add depth. Martian Mind Hunter makes a great start, and the artwork feels like a just throwback to nostalgic titles.
Martian Mind Hunter by @thesmellofoxygen and @tukisboolukis
That's it for now! I'm looking forward to the final week of rating entries. I'll see you all in a few short days for results!
- Hawkin
Thank you so much for the feedback and ratings! It was really fun trying to make something simpler but with more polish than our previous Jam. We are going to keep working on the game based on all your feedback once rating is over. :)
If you like casual puzzle games (with a twist of course!) definitely check it out, its a great game to play on your phone!
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/hearty-harvest
Hello everyone! This is my first participation to ludum dare and I enjoyed it a lot. It is great to get all this feedback and inspiration from all these projects and talents. I already look forward to participate to the next one!
I recently went to the "Danger" category to help getting some game out of it and have been surprised to find some really good takes with so few ratings (including my favorite) ! So I'd like to share a few of those to bump up their ratings. I hope you will enjoy them as I did !
Test
Hello! This is not a Ludum Dare game. Instead, it is for the Mini Jam 124: Warmth.
I know some of the fans of our game entry Kobold Fishing might be around here. This game instead has Spiders, and no yip yaps, sorry. But we wanted to share it anyway.
It's a generally wholesome, short visual novel about a spider named Carl, who is trying his best to host a tea party with some friends. But his anxiety, manifested as an evil Teapot, is threatening to destroy the party.
We hope it brings you a few smiles and offers some hope for when you find yourself in your own tea party situations. Enjoy!
https://moonbowentertainment.itch.io/carls-tea-party
This jam was my first attempt at making chiptune/8-bit music, and I'm very happy with how it turned out! I spent a good amount of time before the jam doing research and getting things setup to prepare for it, so I thought I'd make this guide if anyone else is curious about the process. This guide is meant for people who already have experience playing piano and/or working with a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) - if you don't, there are easier options for making chiptune like BeepBox or Bosca Ceoil.
You can checkout the soundtrack I wrote here, or you can play our game Super Plantoid.
Setup
The main tool I used was Nintendo VST, which is best free tool for replicating chiptune sounds that I've found, and I was able to use it to create all the sounds I needed. Of course, if you're willing to spend money, there are much better VSTs available that I haven't tried myself. I prefer using this to dedicated software for creating chiptune because you can record all the parts using a digital piano, rather than having to enter each note in individually using a mouse.
The biggest downside with this tool (along with most of the other free chiptune VSTs I've found) is that it only comes in a 32-bit version. Depending on the DAW you are using, this might not be an issue. Reaper is one example of a DAW that supports 32-bit VSTs. However, I use Studio One, which does not support them, and requires a bit of an annoying process to get it working. I used a tool called NetVST to run 32-bit plugins and then stream them into my DAW. Here's a useful tutorial for learning how to use this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNKG9ho4dBE&ab_channel=ShaneDunne Once you have this set up, just open multiple instances of NetVSTHost for each track you need and increment the port numbers in both your NetVSTHost and NetVST track in your DAW so that you have a separate port number for each host/track.
Presets
One other downside of using a free tool is that there aren't really any presets available for it. I'm not an expert with making presets for chiptunes sounds, but here are some basic settings I used to create some interesting sounds.
You can use a slight modulation in pitch to create a vibrato effect.
You can use a wave of volume to create a pulsing, dynamic sound.
You can use variation in the duty cycle to create sci-fi-like sound.
You can save preset files in the Nintendo VST, but your DAW won't save the settings for the track if you're running it through NetVST. Therefore, I'd recommend naming your tracks in your DAW to match the preset you are using for it so that you remember what it was when you come back to it.
Musical Techniques
The NES only had 3 had melodic channels (two square waves and one triangle wave, along with white noise and DPCM channels for percussion), meaning only 3 notes could be played at once, which is a huge harmonic limitation. One technique that composers would use that allow them to work within these constraints is called polyphony - a musical texture consisting of multiple melodies being played at once that harmonize with eachother, rather than having a single melody play over chords (homophony) like the majority of western music. Of course, nowadays there aren't any hardware limitations on making chiptune music, and you can even disregard authenticity completely and combine chiptune sounds with modern instruments. However, polyphony is a really interesting musical technique, and using it will not only make it sound more like authentic 8-bit music, but it will also lead to writing more interesting music that you wouldn't have thought of otherwise. I used a polyphonic structure in the Surface Theme of the soundtrack I wrote because I thought it worked really well, but I also didn't limit myself and decided to use unauthentic homophonic textures for the rest of the soundtrack.
Another technique that is very specific to chiptune is including sounds that resemble video game sound effects within the music. Playing things like a fast, isolated arpeggio can sound like a coin pick-up or something similar, adding a unique quality to the music. Just be careful not to make these sounds too similar to the actual sound effects in your game so as not to cause any confusion. You can hear an example of how I used glissandos (slides) to create interesting video game sounds starting around 1:15 of the Fossil Theme in my soundtrack. One other unique sound effect I made in this soundtrack is using a single note square wave to make a series of beeps that resemble Morse code. I think it fits the "stranded on an alien planet" vibe that the game has, and I may have used it to encode a hidden message into the music :wink: I'm curious if anyone will actually be able to figure out what it means - no one has yet.
Final Thoughts
I could keep going on with this topic, but this post has gotten kind of long. If anyone has any questions about writing chiptune or music in general, let me know. Also, if anyone else here is a chiptune composer, let me know what your process is! I'm curious if anyone has better approaches to using a free chiptune VST in a DAW without doing some of the annoying steps I had to do.
Here's my incoherent post-mortem of sorts.
CW: Enthusiastic rambling about my decorative plants and how they influenced my dev-process
Fun fact: I actually got the inspiration for my COMPO-entry from these lovely lifeforms I've been maintaining.
It has been rather recently that I found the joys of keeping houseplants. A few years ago someone left cuttings of coleus scutellaroides in my apartment complex's shared space and I took them home.
Turns out it's a very popular decorative plant and easy to take care of. Not much sunlight available during winter where I live, but they're enduring quite well!
The big one in the middle started flowering in late summer/fall.
When the flower had pretty much dropped its petals and shriveled in november, I jokingly thought I should "harvest" the seeds.
I was surprised that one flower can produce hundreds of seeds, and you can barely see them with your naked eye.
Now, ain't they cute?
I thought it would be fun to store them in this quaint glass bottle.
I was actually one of the people who down voted the theme, but luckily I had my own playful harvest-experience to draw inspiration from.
That would provide the basis for my game.
So basically it's a plant growing-sim.
With a creepy head.
I decided to restrict the resolution to 640x360, which (I think?) is a standard for mobile devices.
I've always had a certain disdain towards mobile-games, so I thought it would be a personal challenge to make something playable on a phone, let alone in the portrait-mode.
Didn't really think about the UI much beyond the first mock-up, so I wouldn't say it's very intuitive, even though totally playable both on desktop and mobile. The final layout closely resembles the original plan, but I added indicators for moisture, soil and growth. Also scrapped the planned Sound-button to make room for the dialogue box.
At some point during the jam I decided to set the game in a "botanical space-station". One reason was probably the "spacey" synth-sound in the BGM I composed very early on, so it seemed appropriate.
I had situated the spawn-point of the materials on top of the plant, so it felt natural to present it as an actual dispenser. That way I wouldn't need to draw complex animations either.
Would have liked to "dock" all the tools and buttons to the environment in an effort to make everything seem like one unified structure, but didn't have the time to implement this idea to full extent.
I also imagined the floating "Station Head" as a central AI of sorts. I thought it could perhaps be a hologram projected from the surrounding structures. Someone pointed out that currently it looks like a soccer-stadium!
The character outputs a different response depending on the item you're holding. They vary from explanation of the mechanics to some background lore and a few humorous remarks.
I think this is a fun element as is, but venturing back to reach the head multiple times feels like a chore, so it's something that some players might overlook.
At first I wasn't even entirely sure what the purpose of this character was going to be. One idea was that you could actually use all the different tools either on the plant or the head (with disastrous results!)
BTW My previous game for LD51 also had a similar "infernal machine"-thing going on.
It too had a series of pipe-systems you used for (what do you know!) harvesting spider eggs! I guess you could consider that a thematic throwback of sorts.
And speaking of the game, it was recently included in this Surreal Games Iceberg. Now that's what I consider a major merit. My creative work is now canonized as officially obscure!
Another throwback to past jams would be one of the mini-games in our LD46 JAM-entry.
In that one you could either pluck the petals of the flower or give it some water.
At first I was a bit hesitant to repeat myself, but decided to go with the initial idea since the focus was going to be quite different this time.
But I digress.
Overall I'm pretty happy how it turned out.
I think there's plenty of good ideas there, but some of the things could use rework. The biggest problem was that I left no time to adjust the scrolling-mechanic and some of the tools, so the overall experience feels a bit sluggish and janky. The ending-event is also quite abrupt.
Continuing for the extra 24h and submitting to JAM would've left me the time to fix all the issues and make it prettier, but I insisted on COMPO!
It remains to be seen whether I'll update the game or use some of the best elements in some other project in the future.
Thanks to everyone who came and tried it!
Good luck with the results, and keep on the jam!
Taking into account some of your feedback, I've added a new random event to introduce some more variation and improved instructions.
Thank you all!
You are great, I got rated by 45 of you 😍.
Thanks for playing 👌
Oh my gosh!
Thank you all so much for your generous attention!! :D
We'll do our best for the rest of the time. Thank you always!