https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyvU-a52poA
I wanted to make something inspired by the old-school FPS games like Doom and Goldeneye 64 and ended up with this proof of concept. The twist with this one is that you can ‘edit’ your gun to shoot or harvest data. Collect parts from your enemies, hack terminals and robots etc. etc.
You can give it a go over at https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/agent-001
In case someone wants to filter LD games by full-text search
:point_right: https://ldjam-tools.live/
Source: https://github.com/themelektaus/ludumdare-tools
I got 20 ratings! Thank you all for playing and rating my Crops on fire game 😍
If you did not play my game yet, come and safe some crops from fire
Can you beat my score on Hell defficulty? 😈
I'm still surprised I managed to finish Reap What You Blow just in time for the compo. I couldn't come up with a better use of the theme than harvesting souls, but even that felt too generic so, with a small inspiration from Luigi's Mansion I ended up with a leaf blower and an office-chair combo. Definitely not as practical as a traditional control scheme, but I'm glad I did it, because after I laid out that baseline I didn't have any problems thinking up stuff that could be fun to do. I definitely wanted to do more than I was capable of finishing in time, and what I did finish had to be rushed out rather than refined, but I like the outline of what I did here and I feel like there's some more potential in the central mechanic
If you want to try it, check it out here!
Just like I did for Floppy Fish during last LDjam, I did the voice acting, foley art, and music for Poo Farmer this LDjam.
Music has always been a passion of mine and I've enjoyed it in and of itself, but being able to make the backdrop for a game is a whole new level of fun. Getting to make the sound effects with my voice and hear them while playing is so surreal and exciting at the same time. It's a fun challenge to come up with ways to represent expected game world sounds with real world objects.
For example, the poo pickup and drop off sounds are actually slightly bit crushed recordings of me picking up and setting down a sack of onions. Every other sound effect I made with only my voice and some slight bit crushing.
I used FL Studio for recording and also for making the music.
I can't wait to make some more sound effects for the next game!
Hi All! I'm streaming more games on Twitch again! I'd love it if some people came and said hi :)
It's been a a couple of days, now, so I thought I'd write up a post-mortem based on comments and criticisms of my game so far. There are a couple of things I'd change if I had the chance to redo it!
Perhaps the biggest issue I encountered in designing/developing this game were the controls, and deciding what the player should and shouldn’t be able to do. Players seem to be a little overwhelmed by the control scheme at first (and tend not to use the slow-down option at all, which I can understand), so I would refactor this if given an opportunity. Perhaps a one-button control scheme would be better, especially if I wanted to port the game to Android devices. I also toyed with the idea of allowing players to change direction when they like, and I think it’s an avenue worth exploring. Maybe two player characters could be a solution: one who can expand their radius, and another who can reverse their direction.
I should note that I failed to map the speed up and slow down commands to the arrow keys, meaning that you can only really control your speed with a mouse plugged in. This was a bit of an oversight, especially as someone who mainly uses a trackpad!
To better ease players into the gameplay, I’d like to introduce elements a little more slowly - and maybe even slow down the game speed as a whole. There is a small period at the start of the game in which powerups cannot spawn, but clearly this wasn’t enough. It’d have to be a careful balance, though, as a lengthy ‘introduction’ period would quash any potential for replayability. I think it’s important to maintain that arcade-y, straight-into-the-action quality and not risk hindering the pace of the game just to make room for new players.
A possible solution to the immediate difficulty is the reintroduction of a scrapped concept: separate fields with A) different vegetables to harvest and B) different gameplay timings and tweaks. The corn field could be a very basic, ‘starter’ field; a pumpkin field could introduce new powerups/hay bales to bounce from; a tomato field could focus on high levels of pesticide, etc. As well as offering separate difficulty settings via each field, the gameplay changes could be enough to increase replayability - especially with separate high scores, of course. They’d also allow scrapped items to make meaningful appearances (e.g. scarecrows would have acted like hay bales, but without the bonus crop collection).
Many players have described the game as ‘chaotic’, with ‘a lot going on’ - or, perhaps, just too much to keep track of. If adjusting the rate of powerup appearances didn’t do enough to fix this issue, I think a simple remedy would be to reduce the size of the field from 9x9 tiles to 7x7 tiles (essentially zooming in the camera and giving each tile more space to breathe). Some people have mentioned a lack of contrast between gameplay elements (such as the player character) and the playfield, which I agree with. I’d hoped that I’d done enough to make each tile distinct and not too confusing for the eyes, but I’ll chalk this criticism up to my lack of experience with the chosen palette. It’d be interesting to try experimenting with outline styles for certain objects - I had worried that white would be too distracting, but it may be worth revisiting. Maybe just cutting the number of browns for the soil from 3 to 2 would help to force it into the background.
An easy improvement to make would be to introduce actual hitboxes to each item. Aside from the hitbox used for the player character (or, more accurately, the player character’s tractor beam), each other object tests collisions against its sprite. This was helpful in saving time for the jam entry, but it ended up making collisions feel oh-so-slightly wonky. Many have said that the pesticide hitbox is too big (which it is, factually!), and I personally think that the hitboxes for hay bales are much too small. In an improved version/remake of this game, it would be nice to solve these issues alongside a proper implementation of layering: currently, some objects may appear to be in front of or behind other objects when they shouldn’t (again, I didn’t have enough time to fix it).
Lastly, I just want to give a big thank you to everyone who has taken the time to play Crop Circle. I’m overwhelmed by the response!
If you'd like to see your game played, swing over to https://twitch.tv/jitspoe and type !JamRaffle to enter your game in to be played. Each game I play, I reset the raffle, and each time you enter the raffle, you get an additional ticket, so the more you enter, the more likely you are to be selected!
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/the-harvest-of-the-corn-children
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/the-harvest-of-the-corn-children
This past jam was my 13th consecutive jam, but not unlucky - thus far. knocking on wood intensifies This jam was actually really lucky, but to understand why we have to go back a bit.
I struggled starting out with Ludum Dare. The first six games I made were terribly over scoped, unfinished, messes of unrealised potential with no gameplay. The first real game I made (and was subsequently very proud of) was my LD46 game, Conservation Inc. which at the time I never thought I could pull off, it was just too ambitious. And yet I did squeeze it by. The next jam I made a top down shooter and once again it became something I was incredibly proud of and didn't think I could complete. This continued and I decided I would make an RTS game in a weekend. A terrible idea because of how complex the genre is, and yet I once again somehow managed to pull it off. It was after that, when I got stuck in a rut again. LD50 and LD51 were both unfinished failures. Somehow despite being more capable than all of my past selves, I wasn't able to even complete anything.
It wasn't until the previous Ludum Dare that I had noticed something. At some point the 'fun' had started to fade. I had actually forgotten that a game jam was supposed to be fun. I had resigned myself to grinding away for a weekend on an idea I hated, for a theme I hated, with code I hated. It was a slog, and anything but fun but I felt like I had to. Worse, I hated the product that I came up with. This jam was no different. It was a job, and I was putting out terrible 'games' that I wanted nothing more than to hide from the world.
I sat down at my desk the second day and took stock of what I had, and all I felt was dismay. The movement was terribly clunky, the initial novelty of my idea had worn off and I was privy to the shallow gameplay it would entail and how little fun players would derive. I looked at the sorry state of my code where I had gotten nothing done as I sat and contemplated for hours how to architect my code the best to be something I was proud of and would allow for an extremely extensible enemy AI and weapon system so I could make several weapons, but had only succeeded in demotivating myself and making fragmented spaghetti code. That was when I made a terrible decision that ended up being the best one I'd ever make. Despite my terrible track record I decided to pivot. Just like with the unfinished Capsule #6453 and my LD50 game.
With half the jam already gone though, I was forced to take on a simpler idea or else I'd have no chance of completing it. So I went with the idea my friend - an avid bit-life player - had, which I dismissed initially as too 'simple'. A non-linear text adventure. After deciding I didn't want to make it in Unity (a first for me) I initially started with .NET Blazor so I could still use C# to make the game. There was one thing, though. I wanted to be able to release it as an app at some point, and Blazor didn't play nice with embedded browser app frameworks (ionic, rn-native, tauri) I spent (wasted) hours trying to get it setup. But I took a break for lunch and when I came back I had a realisation. I don't need to use C# and Blazor. I ended up making it in typescript so I could have the type safety of C#, and at the last moment decided upon svelte-js for UI (this was my first time using svelte in a project, and it was a treat!)
The decision to pivot did some incredibly important things for me. I realised I had unkowningly felt this invisible, building pressure after every jam. I felt like I had to make some big complex game, something with amazingly clean, well-architected code that I could be proud of and show off. Something that shouldn't be possible in a weekend but is. I had liked my friends idea but couldn't do it because it was 'too simple'. I justified this as just me wanting a challenge, not wanting to be bored making a simple game. But really it was this pressure to make something bigger and better than my last game. And it kept building. I felt guilty making a simple game. But starting over halfway through the jam meant there was no time for a complex idea. I was able to do something simple, I had to, and without any guilt.
Thus began the most fun game jam I have ever had in recent memory. Finally breaking away from the heavy Unity Editor and heavier Visual Studio Editor to the lightweight browser window and VS Code with hot module replacement... It felt amazing. I was able to iterate so quickly. And Svelte was so intuitive and so fun to write UI in, and with typescript I didn't even miss C#, and unlike Blazor I felt like I had a handle on my situation, I knew where I was going and how to do it. All these things combined and built on each other. Even my music which had sounded so dull the day before suddenly sounded like the best thing ever.
And through all that I came up with the best game I've ever made. Not really, LD49 still takes the cake there I think, but for the first time in a long time.. I had fun, and now I realise that's all that matters. I don't know if I will be able to stick with this knowledge by the next jam, I don't know if the next jam will even be as much fun, but. The idea I had for this jam ended up being just perfect. I have such fond memories now of writing crappy horse related jokes for Horsepower at 03:00 and I was super excited to make my first truly 'narrative' based game. It was just all so fun.
So pivoting during a jam. Is it a good idea? Hell no. But it forces you to do things you haven't done before. And if you are stuck in a rut and not enjoying your LD anymore, it might just be the thing to shake things up that you so desperately need.
One last closing thought, this version is rough, a draft. Because I accidentally hit CRTL+R and reloaded the page whilist working on this and wiped ALL my work and had to start over and... I just felt like I couldn't find the words. This version is so much longer and more rambly... But I just don't have the heart to work on it more after I already lost so much work. Note to self, don't write future look backs IN the ldjam.com editor. That or I need to PR JammerCore and add a 'are you sure you want to leave' popup or something...
Anyway, happy jam everyone, I hope you all had fun, and if you didn't I hope you realise that jamming should be fun and are less hard on yourselves next time. I thought it was just me getting older, having done this 13 times that the fun was gone but this jam has taught me that it truly is as fun as it always was, I literally had a blast, found myself thinking 'just another hour' at 04:00 and contemplating all nighters because I wanted to not because I had to to finish a feature, and that was amazing. So trust me, ld jam can be fun again. I don't have the magic pill or advice to fix your jam but I hope you are able to, at some point.
use the connect card(no num) to join 1234567-join-1234567,than you can play 15 cards at once
try this on line : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/seed-of-hate
Play Pseudo-Harvest !!
When governors put their will above science and nature, bureaucracy breeds deception
What do you do if you just cannot meet the strict produce quotas?
AND THE HARVEST SHALL COME!
Try this out 👉→ Pseudo-Harvest ←👈rate this!
Finally have time to start playing and rating games. Feel free to share your games in the comments and i'll definitely check it out/rate it. I've only played a handful so far but this one stuck out to me for being so dang cute:
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/plot-luck
We didn't manage to finish a full game with win/lose, but if you want to check out our submission we'd love to know your thoughts. https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/dew-drop
It's harvest time!!
Thanks to everyone that has played and rated our game so far! The feedback has been amazing!!!
If you would like to, you can click here to go to the game page, or here to go to the itch.io page!
If you play, be sure to leave feedback so I can play yours this weekend!
The Harvest is a new point and click adventure for the 8-bit Nintendo Game Boy handheld.
In this adventure motivated by games such as Shadowgate and Deja Vu, you must survive a night that no one will believe.
Thank you for trying our game: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/the-harvest
Thank you to everybody who played and rated my game! In the 3 days my game's been published, I've already reached the 20 rating threshold; and while I'm going to continue to leave feedback on games/get feedback on my game, I'm grateful that I don't have to worry about being eligible for a placment! And now I've got more than 14 days to continue LD-ing! :clap:
I'm personally still not 100% proud of my result, but I think I'm coming around to it after a few days! Thank you everyone, have a good rest of your day (or night, I guess)! :wave:
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/worlds-best-soul-harvester
I've received some heartwarming comments and i'm really grateful for that! I am very touched to see that some of you enjoyed playing it! This was the second time i joined Ludum Dare, and i'll be there on next editions without a doubt.
In Buzzy Business, you are a mosquito whose goal is to harvest a certain amount of blood by biting people.
Easy? Not so much as you will have to dodge annoyed hands trying to smack you and hungry frogs.
Will you opt for a strategic approach or be a reckless mosquito?
Try it here! (play in browser)
When the theme was announced… Well i was a bit disappointed.
I voted -1 for this because it felt too specific, even if the word "harvest" in itself can have multiple meanings. It is quite close to "collect" (and myself can't really tell the difference to be honest), and it tends to focus the harvesting on two main ideas: agriculture and the Grim Reaper. As many, my first thought process was: wheat>souls>???. The first night, i was devastated because i was unable to find any good idea besides that. (don't get me wrong: i've played amazing games where you harvest plants or souls, and i don't think a game jam is necessarily a place to revolutionise the world of video games)
I went to bed, let this infuse and when i woke up i decided to go for the mosquito idea i've had hours ago and left out. I think i left it out because originally, i wanted to make an abstract game and i excluded any figurative idea. I think i've made the right choice not to stick to my original idea, because i'm quite happy with the mosquito result.
On the first day, i programmed the main skeleton of the game. Since i have absolutely zero knowledge about code, i use GDevelop, a free app that works with boxes of "if something happens, do that" (kinda). I've done some projects on this app, but i still consider myself as a rookie, so i was honestly surprised and happy to see that i had a pretty decent pace (apart from a 2 hours nightmare where nothing worked as i intended and i was completely losing my concentration)!
The second day was mostly making art and trying to make my draft look nice and adding some gameplay features. The last day, i took care of the sounds (digging sound effects on free sample banks, editing them, making the music) and polishing as much as possible the look and feel of the game. Everything was ready literally 3 minutes before the deadline.
I ended really happy and proud of my game, and something strange happened: usually, when i finish any kind of project, once it's "delivered" i don't want to touch it anymore (i know that you can always add and improve things, and most of the time, i don't go back to a finished project because i know that it'd be a loop of "wait i can do more" and well… we gotta stop at some point haha). But after finishing this game, i really wanted to add some features i had in mind but got no time to implement during the jam.
That's why…
you see it coming
Play it here: Buzzy Business (post-jam version)
For obvious reasons, if you haven't played the original game yet, please do it and rate it before trying the post-jam version.
Thank you for reading this post, i hope i made you want to try Buzzy Business (both jam and post-jam versions, but at least the jam one) and i am looking forward to get your feedbacks :heart:
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/farmtown-mowdown
Of course, we continue to fix bugs....For make the game more perfect!
Thanks to your feedback, We're becoming more perfection.
We're so appreciated guys!!! :D
Sooooo- You wanna play this game?
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/charles-the-bee