My game SCANLINE scored 16th in the compo. Yes, that means it was 1 place and 0.004 rating points away from getting the Twitter shout-out, and, yes, it does sting a bit, haha. But I was not expecting to place this high in the first place, so I'm just incredibly excited about the good result.

I went into this LD kind of on a whim. I found out it's gonna be happening on the Thursday or Friday of that week, and missed the chance to vote on the theme. I really wasn't a fan of the 'unstable' theme, and spent the first 5 or so hours of the jam scrapping prototypes and trying to think of something interesting and feasible with my limited time and coding skills. At the end of day 1, I really wasn't sure if the project would come together. Contrast this with my LD48 entry, where I had a fun prototype up and running after a relatively leisurely day 1, and could focus on polish the following day. So to pull out from that uncertain situation and make something that far surpassed that previous entry was really gratifying.

Now I'm at the point where I think I may develop this concept further, maaaybe try to turn it into a full release (a first for me) - I think this idea has potential, and I was happy to see one or two people giving me similar feedback. We'll see where life takes me, but I haven't been as fired up about gamedev as I am righ now in a while.

So if you haven't played SCANLINE yet, go give it a shot: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/scanline And if you dig it, and would like to be up to date about a potential post-jam version, give me a follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/pmaslencenko

Finally, some stat comparison between my two LD entries. Really happy to see an improvement in all but 2 categories, to be in the top 100 in 6 categories, and in the top 150 in the remaining 2. Maybe surprised to see the relatively high placement of audio - though I think the music track I made for the game is quite nice, it doesn't really stand out - and the relatively low placement of theme - I really patted myself on the back for a clever spin on the 'unstable' idea. One last thing worth noting - I knew I had made something really good even if the individual components of it were not the strongest, and it's cool to see this 'better than the sum of its parts' thing play out in the scores as well. 'Overall' and 'Mood' scores are noticably higher than the more specific categories.

Thanks to everyone who played my game, thanks to the organizers, and thanks to everyone who participated in the event. An unexpectedly gratifying and important experience for me.

I decided to join Ludum Dare 49 in the compo category, as I knew I had no time to work on the project after the weekend and I liked the idea of having the restrictions that were involved. I immediately set to work on the first idea which I got. I have read that it is not a good way to make a LD game, but I think that it worked out just fine this time. I think my idea was actually the strongest part of the entry.

The game, Unpredictable Shapeshifting, got its best score from Innovation and Theme. It is about what I expected after reading all the comments. The idea was that there are two teams, hunters and wolves, who hunt each other. The player switches teams on unpredictable interval, making them turn on their allies and wildly changing the way their character controls and should be played. The best scored categories after those two were humor and audio. I am not sure about the reason for the humor score, but perhaps people enjoyed the unpredictability combined with the arcadey sound effects. As for the audio, the score is probably because I managed to create some decently satisfying sounds of rifle being fired.

The weakest parts were Overall, Fun, Graphics. The game has some bugs and lacks polish in key gameplay elements, which makes it unfair to the player. It is also a bit too unpredictable, as the enemies can turn (and kill the player) at almost any moment, with no warning. The graphics are entirely placeholder quality, and there is a visual glitch where the characters can look in a direction while their sprite is looking into another, making the enemies even less fun.

I had fun making the game and I am happy with it, even if I could not do everything I wanted. I also learned and created a few small things I can use in future projects.

Thanks to everyone who tried and reviewed my game. Lastly, congratulations to the winners, and to everyone who managed to pull through and make a game during the jam!

Nice! Shame we're not one place lower in innovation though...

Anyway, come play our game - :sparkles: The Conflicted Merchant! :sparkles:

The results for LudumDare are in!

Couldn't be happier with what I got! A big thanks to all those who took the time to play and rate 'In Search Of Water'.

Congrats to everyone else that took part, some amazing games this year !

Let’s Bring The Community To Twitter - We should all follow each other!

Are you developing your game further post-jam, or maybe working on something entirely different? Let’s keep the conversation going even after Ludum Dare has ended!

Comment your handle and we should all follow each other on Twitter! I can’t wait to see what you make.

I’m Tom, and you can find me on Twitter here:
https://twitter.com/DeveloperTom1

Finally, I have the result for my submission for LD 49.

It's not spectacular but at least I have score unlike my previous entry.

Thank you for all people playing my game :smile:

Comrade Ruman Vodkovich Teknikov would like to thank you all for your votes. He's very pleased that he got 7th place in humor and 5th in Audio! So pleased that he's now pestering me about doing another improved version of his game. Not sure if I'll do that though, because than he'll want a full game, than another game...

I’m so happy with this rating :) Especially getting this high in graphics was a surprise

Thank you all for playing my game ^^

... don't put your best joke at the end of a puzzle game, because most people won't make it to the end.

Hope this is helpful for some of you guys, keep jamming, see you all in 6 months :D

This was my first LD jam and a first time making a game compo style (didn't do art before). This was such a great experience! I've received tons of great feedback and ideas for further improvement, played many very cool and unique games and felt like I belong to this community.

Main lessons I'm taking away as a developer are: - You must explain all the mechanics in the game. Especially those that are uncommon in popular games. Better dedicate a separate level to such mechanics - UI is important. Not only it's presence but it's placement. I changed UI in a post-jam version from a static on-screen bottom-row to in-world and it makes a huge difference - If your game relies on how things sound make sure to give it a listen on different headphones/speakers. I heard everything loud and clear in my studio-quality headphones... guess what -- it didn't sound that good on laptop speakers :sweat_smile:

Thank you to everyone who participated or made this event possible!

Let's stay in touch! This jam I realized how motivating and inspiring it can be. I'll be following back anyone who follows me on Twitter

I'm funny? Me? Uhhh ok, 100% intended. OK. Yes. I'm letting it get to my head and making a bad comic. No, you can't change your rating now.

Also sorry. It's an inside joke after reading my comments. I'm sure you can relate, especially if you had to make sacrifices in your game from the time constraint. If you didn't sacrifice anything please write a book. Take my money you scope god.

Thanks to all of you, I did not expect my game to get two times top 50, I had a ton of fun. I hope I can make the time for the next LD.

If you have not tried the game, you can play it here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/you-can-not-start-this-game

Yesterday we received the games' results - and I am really surprised by my good ratings. In 4 categories "Take Your Meds Darling" is in the Top 100. More than 2200 projects were in competition as Jam entries. So it was a very fierce battle between a lot of very good projects. Also I am surprised by the graphics evaluation - almost 4.5/5. However it was not enough so as to place my game in the Top 100 in this category. I forgot to uncheck the Humor category. It could be better to get this possibility even after the submission time. Overall, it was a very good event and I was happy to participate with you. For the last time until the 50th LudumDare session next year, I wish you the best. Take care yourself. Bye my friends ++

Just wanted to pop in to say a massive thank you to everyone who played and rated Rocky Rhodes and the Cracked Case this jam! We seriously never expected 6th place overall - we're all ecstatic and so super thankful.

Massive congratulations to everyone for their entries this jam - there's been so much creativity, hilarity, and fun this event. We're so excited for the future, especially the milestone that will be LD50. Looking forward to seeing you there!

I'm just speechless... I didn't bother waiting for the results because it was late and I was tired, so I just logged on and I see this.

Not sure what to say but... for getting me in the Top 10 for Theme and Top 100 for Innovation, thank you so much. I've been taking part in Ludum Dare for eight or so years and never thought this moment would come.

Just... thank you everyone!

For anyone interested, you can play my entry Unstable Ground on Itch.io. If you wish to follow me for whatever game jams I plan on doing in the future (and see what I also ramble and share) you can follow me on Twitter @gamepopper.

I am glad at my results. Thanks everyone, it was a very cool ludum dare, I am glad that I have improved my results compared to the previous game.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/unicycle-balancing

From all the ratings this was the one I've seen the least coming. Quite unsettling. I guess my expectations were based on shaky and uncertain information about my own abilities. My risky choice choosing this unproven game concept has paid off (theme-wise). And I certainly did not open a thesaurus to fill this post with as many dizzying words that are related with "unstable" as irrationally possible. I have to make-up for the humor rating.

Thank you for all these solid ratings.

It's not the most organized or pretty sheet but it's a start if you want to input your own data. There are 4 charts. Here is my LD Ratings over time.

File->Make a copy to make it your own. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QuPtK8dCmu4-bgWC9VdOLFgQ3RYkexo8G0MxqGqxl4I/edit?usp=sharing

So, results are here. This time they don't really matter to me (or I'll like to think they don't...), as the name suggests this LD went awfully and in the end getting anything out was a success. Now was it something good ? Well, let's see what people thought :

(no audio this time)

This graph shows the percentage of people who did worst then me. On one hand, this is my worst score in three different categories : Graphics (only 1.7% of people did worst then me), Humour (3.5%) and Mood (1%). To be honest, there were no graphics, the only humour was on the game description and the mood... there wasn't any either, so I'm not surprised. On the other hand, this is by far my best score in Innovation (better than 36% of people). It's still far from "good", but for a random idea I had 3h after a mental breakdown while making a cake it's kinda insane.

Looking at star ratings is going to show us exactly the same things, but the differences are not as visible :

Technically not the worst Overall I ever got (2.368 vs 2.211 during my very first LD) nor the worst Fun (2.184 vs 1.921, again from my first LD). Also, for the second time in four participations I manage to get one item over 3 (3.132 in Innovation, my only other score above 3 before was last time's 3.268 in Graphics). Still, no real progress score-wise, I still suck at making video games.

If anybody's interested, the complete graphs with scores from every LD game I made is available over there : https://i.imgur.com/lG1wA2F.png

So conclusion : meh. Getting to the end still is a success to me and I'm very surprised by the Innovation score, so I'll give myself a "technically didn't fail" / 20.

Shaky Structures Post Jam Version is out !

First of all, I'd like to thanks everyone who played the original jam version of the game. As I'm writing this, Ludum Dare results have just been revealed:

I am particularly pleased with the Overall and the Fun score, the jam version had lots of quality of life issues and I thought that people would be more bothered than them than they really were.

What about the post jam version now ?

As teased in the title, this post is less about results and more about the new update of Shaky Structures. So what can you find in this update ?

• New levels! (15 levels in total with an additional Sandbox Mode)
• New gameplay mechanics in the latest levels
• A lot of quality of life improvements, better feedbacks when deleting lines, a replay button and a mute button!
• Graphic update, overall harmonization of the game graphics (and a new title screen to celebrate)
• Bug fixes (mostly physics issues)

I'll probably leave the game as it is and won't work on it any further (maybe a mobile port if the game does well on itch?) but it was a great fun to work on it!

Feel free to try it and leave comments !

Thank you all so much for giving our first gamejam game a shot!

We're proud of our scores and loved reading all of your feedback!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/un-stabled-3

Congratulations to all of you for submitting some truly amazing games!

We'll be back!