As promised last week, we're back again and playing your games at our Omiya Games Twitch and Youtube channels today at 7 PM CST, and going until at least 9 PM CST. If you want to submit your game, we have a submission form here: https://forms.gle/y1S6rWWFHX7P7vCh6 Note that we prioritize those who's in the chat first.
Looking forward to all of your entries!
The Keyboard Cowboys back for one more weekend of shenanigans, playing your LD games!
Generally at this point in LD rating season, submissions are pretty slow, so we anticipate our queue will be fairly light, if you wanna get in on our lunacy. You can submit your game at this google form, and we'll play it (provided you're in chat for us to talk to)!
(...and sorry in advance...) :pointright: :cowboy: :pointright:
*Feed them now!! 👉👉👉https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/vintage-space-restaurant-with-ai *
:fire: Save the sick trees by burning them ! :fire:
Less than a week left for the results, thanks to everyone for the great feedback! If you haven't tried our game yet, you can click the link below:
* Not for children or those who are easily disturbed.
Been very busy with school the past week but now that the weekend has begun I finally have time to play and rate some games.
My game if you have time: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/get-rich-or-die-tryin
If you want to play it:
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/vomit-up-the-universe
You can post your games below and I will rate and give feedback!
I took some time off playing games, but now I'm back! Stunned by how many are still below the required 20 ratings. I'll be playing strictly out of the Danger Zone :musical_note: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/games/danger/all
Even breaking out the old Windows Laptop to get to some of those download games!
Can't wait to see everyone on the other side! 5 days to go!!
You'll have to take my word for it because I'm not giving you spoilers. it's a very spoilerific game. However here is an old gif from mid development. I cannot tell you any more but I promise you will enjoy it.
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/flat-earth-not-another-rude-bear-game
You can play this in the browser on NewGrounds ... the game is below 20 ratings which is a sin! It needs to be rated! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/kazprzak-saves-us-all-again
(This is not my game, it just needed some promotion!)
We reached our goal, our game was rated by 100 wonderful game creators. Thank you sooo much! <3
Hey, we listened to your feedbacks and made some adjustments in our game! If you haven't played it and you like magic and dungeons this stuff is definitely for you!
Leave a link below and I will 100% gonna rate you back :v:
Play play me :)
When I designed our game Unstables, I thought around 100 - 200 points would be the high score I'd see in the board. But look at this, 1000 points limit has been broken by @sunnyrx! :first_place: (Check out their game, it's beautiful! :sparkles:)
Think you can do better? Our game can be found right here. I also created web leaderboards, which I check on my phone few times a day. It's always exciting to see new names on the top 10! Just today my own high score (33) fell of the top 10, but our audio engineer is still holding the third place.
Thanks everyone who has posted scores on the board! It has really warmed my heart to see some real competition on the boards :horse: But now if you excuse me, I need to go get my name back on the top-10!
https://youtu.be/3WS8plVPVrw
Hey everyone ! Just a small post saying that we kept working a bit on our LD49 entry, today we released the version 3.0 !
We would like to thank everyone who played our game, for your feedbacks and the kindness you gave to us ! We're super proud of the result and we hope we'll keep making games and updates you will like ! <3
For those who haven't tried it yet, DrunkFist is a silly RetroShooter where you have to escape a mall invaded by huge Cockroaches ! Use your fists and drinks to unlock rooms of the mall !
Here's the link : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/drunk-fist
Have fun ! :)
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/enhanced
We have launched an updated version of our game Enhanced with a few fixes and improvements based on the feedback we have received, come check it out!
Changes: - Added a Linux version (untested)! - Added the ending! (We didn't manage to implement it in time during the jam), - Fixed punching inconsistency, - Player now has far more health and increased his range of attack, - You now need to clear the room to advance to the next one, - You can hold the attack button to combo (no more mashing the mouse or controller button), - A few other minor fixes
It's always a fun time to do this, so I'm back! https://www.twitch.tv/buzzybee26 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL6LI--2xTw
The moment you've all been waiting for has arrived, pepper addicts. I hope I deserve 5 stars now. Thank you to everyone who has supported me from the beginning.
I wrote part one of this post mortem without spoilers. I'd highly recommend taking a look at our game before reading this or checking out the OST.
Ok, spoilers out of the way - here's my overanalysis of what we did to have the music work with the theme and the game.
My goal here is to show some of what I did, but also give people ideas for how they might want to approach music in their future games. If you've come across any Ludum Dare entries that do interesting musical reinforcement link them below, I'd love to see what other people have done.
Our peaceful little village gets invaded by aliens and dinosaurs as the game progresses and we wanted the music to reflect this turning point. I had a few goals for this - A) to synchronize the surprises in the music with the gameplay, B) to make it seem jarring while still being a smooth transition, C) to play with the idea of stability through rhythm, D) to make it sound metal without alienating people who don't enjoy the style.
We knew fairly early on that the game was going to have a complete shift partway through. The storybook aesthetics felt a bit like a kid telling a story - he's happy with it, he thinks it's fun, but he gets bored and wants there to be dinosaurs and aliens instead of stupid villagers. There's something fun about arbitrary shifts in tone and I really wanted to use aggression to highlight the absurdity. We think the surprise is hilarious, and general consensus so far seems to agree with us. And if you get the chance, I highly recommend screaming about aliens and dinosaurs.
For a quick glance at the surprise happening to a couple different LD jammers on their streams:
Twitch clip thanks to @coleslaughter
Twitch clip thanks to @erikengineengineer
The transition point needed to be surprising, but it also needed to flow. A jarring change in music is easy and I've thrown plenty of them into my Ludum Dare entries over there years. But a change that FEELS jarring but still allows people to smoothly adjust to the change is a completely different animal. (see the videos above)
This attack section begins by throwing a synchronized arpeggio over the last vocal line from the happy section. The introductory riff accomplishes a few things - it announces to the player that SOMETHING is happening, establishes new instruments, and provides a pivot to the parallel minor key. All while adding rhythmic spice and being a pain to play cleanly on guitar. By giving just a few seconds of this transition, people have a chance to acclimate to things shifting before I start screaming "aliens" at them. It's just a couple seconds, but without this transition, EVERYTHING would have felt worse. It feels abrupt, but it's still connected to what came before.
My goal for the rhythm was to have a few aspects of rhythmic instability that would reinforce the world getting crazy without making it too confusing. By using a couple rhythmic tricks and swapping them out in each section, nothing feels super crazy on its own, but makes the larger flow of things feel more unpredictable.
Aliens - After the transition arpeggio, we hit a section with a shifting time signature of 4+3+4/4 while I scream "aliens" over and over. This rhythm feels off-putting on its own, but by phrasing the vocals in a repeated pattern and giving clear movement in the chords you can make things feel fair more natural. If people can latch onto vocal rhythms, you can get away with a lot of other trickery elsewhere.
Verses - The verse sections use the same trick of letting the vocal melody guide things. The vocal melody mimics the happy section - same melodic movement (just in minor), same rhythms (still in 4/4). But underneath the vocals the rest of the instrumentation is accenting a 5-beat rhythmic pulse that resets every 4 bars. Polymeters are fun, but take a lot of care to make sound both clear and natural.
Lasers - The last interesting rhythm happens on the "lasers" bit. It's a bit more common of a trick - the same 12-beat phrase gets used in two different ways. Initially it shows up as 3 measure phrases of 4/4 before converting to 4 measure phrases of 6/8. This change to 6/8 marks the only place in the song that doesn't have a strong quarter note pulse. Neither of these feel particularly unstable on their own, but allow for the transition back to the verse feel differently unstable than it did the first few times.
I'm a metal guy, that's my default, but I know not everyone enjoys harsh vocals. So my goal was to keep the harsh vocals as discernable as possible and limit them to just a few words - aliens, dinosaurs, and lasers (with a few linking phrases here and there). By keeping the harsh vocals in controlled contexts makes them feel adequately extreme without demanding the listener to power through vocals they don't like for the whole second half of the game.
Similarly, on the instrumentation side of things, I tried to keep things in the realm of "controlled chaos." You can get away with a lot of dissonance so long as you let it either be a) spice, b) enough of a focus that people get time to acclimate. I had a lot of ideas that I rejected throughout because they felt like the chaos overwhelmed the purpose. I love chaos, but usually a soundtrack benefits from the IMPRESSION of chaos instead of actual chaos.
Thanks for checking this out. This post is way longer than I intended, but figured some people might find it interesting. I'm really happy with our game and the response it's gotten so far. Looking forward to playing more games this week and seeing what gems I stumble across.
This is part of a 5 part Dev Log where I will be talking about the process I took through implementing 2nd Law, a short, adventure-style game about cause and effect. https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/2nd-law
0 - Lessons | 1 - Design | 2 - Development | 3 - Music | 4 - Artwork
This is a topic that I've felt the least authoritative about but also the most excited to talk about--perhaps that is why I left it to last. While I have always felt artistic, I don't know that I've always felt successful. Or maybe I should say I don't practice it very often. I haven't truly created a lot of art assets for my prior games, so I was equal parts excited and fearful to try this time around.
I knew that wanted a pixel art style, maybe because I thought that was the easiest path to something looking decent without looking odd. Or perhaps I was already sensing a nostalgic feel to the game. After deciding the style, I had to think about the toolset and workflow--something that I have not established for myself. The design of the game also demanded a lot of assets--too many for being a solo developer--so that worry was in the back of my mind as well.
I had tried making pixel art in the past, but tools like Gimp just didn't lend themselves to efficient art creating (nor did they seem to like my little Wacom Bamboo tablet). Instead, I decided to give Aseprite a try. I had seen amazing artists like AdamCYounis create fantastic works fairly easy. After downloading the program and watching Adam's getting started video, I felt like I knew enough of the tricks to get started.
I had originally imagined a fairly simple main character, so I sketched out a rough shape and worked on a short walk animation.
In the end, I wasn't happy with the result. I could have spent more time refining my own, but I felt like I could have wasted a day on a character spritesheet. And since I wasn't doing the Compo, I knew I had the freedom to take shortcuts where I needed to. I went to OpenGameArt.org for a player asset from MoikMellah. This ended up saving me quite a lot of time and allowed me to focus on the more important pieces: the backdrops. So that's where I moved to next and really solidified the style.
I started with a larger, blank canvas in Aseprite (640 x 360), and much like I do when I'm creating physical art, started to block out the composition. Generally, I wanted a large central area framed by an expansive background but focused by a low-detail foreground. Exporting layers allowed me to enforce perspective into the gameplay, such as having the character disappear behind the grasses or putting clouds in the sky (more on that later).
I followed this process for two scenes (the Meadow and the Forest). Some reviews have noted the "rough" style of pixel art, which I attribute more to my lack of experience than any direct decision; but I do agree that the final result was somehow appropriate, even harkening back to an older style of game.
Sometimes it felt like I was spending too much time painting the backdrops, but it was also cathartic and a nice break from debugging code. Especially when I got to the forest, shading all the grasses got to be quite a lot of work, but I was really pleased with the result. While I had originally envisioned 4 different areas, I knew I would not have time to fill that many environments with interactable elements.
At first I painted static clouds as a layer in the Meadow, but I knew that having motion in the sky would really set the scene, even if it was subtle. For this, I made a 1280 x 180 canvas that "looped".
To achieve the loop, rather than have two sprites end-on-end that swapped positions, I decided to import the one as "tiled". What I realized is that when I adjusted the width at the same time as locking the trailing edge, it created the illusion of motion. When the left edge of the sprite equaled the total width (i.e., we've reached the end of the sprite), I reset both the position and width. I had to play with the math to get it work out just right, but the end result is effectively seamless.
If you're at all interested in the source code, it is available on gitlab.
This was ultimately one-half of the downfall: the number of individual assets to create. (The other half was the coding behind each new interaction, which I discussed in my Development devlog). While each individual piece didn't take that long, in aggregate it would have been quite a lot of work if I wanted to achieve my original vision. I also used two more animated assets from OpenGameArt.org here (the rabbit and the fox), as I knew that animation was not something I wanted to put my time into.
I did end up fighting a bit more than I would have liked to with Unity's animation system for interaction results like the boulder and tree, especially making use of the Animator Override Controller, which has the potential to save a lot of time (or waste it if you need to specialize one of them, but end up ruining all the others). In the final hours of the challenge, I definitely turned to "hack mode", even naming some functions "MakeStuffHappen" when I couldn't think of a better one.
That's it! These were all the subjects I really wanted to discuss, and doing so helped me think through a lot of what went well or what could have gone better. Thank you for reading, and if you missed previous entries and would like to read more, the links are at the top!
I do hope to make an update release for the game, once I've worked in some feedback. Stay tuned!
- Hawkin
Hey everyone! Looking for some HTML 5 games below 20 votes to play! Send them in the comments
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/the-bridge-is-out
Have you ever wondered, what if the ambulance driver was mentally unstable ? Well in this game you can be one !
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/doctor-psycho
Put your ship back together over 3 levels in Under the Weather:
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/under-the-weather
Link your games below and we'll rate back :)
Hey, all! The Tech Valley Game Space community will be live-streaming ourselves playing Ludum Dare games, starting today, October 16th, from 7 - 9 PM EDT on twitch.tv/techvalleygamespace, youtube.com/c/techvalleygamespace, and picarto.tv/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.
Note: we at Omiya Games did livestream yesterday, but this stream will be on a different channel.
So, I have hit 20 ratings on my game a few days ago, got some feedback on it, so I think it's a good time to reflect on it a bit. It's a long one, so, I'm really sorry if you needed to scroll somewhere, but I kinda needed to vent
TL;DR: Don't ever do what I did, that way lies madness.
Link to the game for reference
For those, who decided to not play the game (or at least look at the comments), here's a quick rundown. Horsey Computer is a game about an unstable game that you break and end up hopping from one game to the next. And those games can be completely different genres and have completely different art styles.
Oh dear.
That's why you work in teams, by the way. You really do need another person(s) to slap you across the face for thinking this is a good idea for a 72 hour game jam.
But what's really surprising is that this decision had some positive effects. Yeah, I was crunching like hell to get something playable and somewhat complete in time (more on that later), but at least I was never stuck on one thing. As soon as got bored and frustrated with some part, as soon as I felt that writer's block (well, a gamedev's block, I guess), I immediately switched to a different genre. Got tired of making pixeart for the point-and-click? Switched to 3D level design. Got stuck there? Opened sfxr and generated some blips for the OS.
That approach did not come free though. Apart from the obvious crunch exhaustion, the game did not come together until an hour on Jam timer. I was playtesting this game on my girlfriend 40 minutes before I was supposed to be done. That led to the discovery of some minor bugs, the 3D character's speed felt a bit slow (which I decided to leave as is, because dialogue timers kinda depended on this (fucking whoops), and a couple of reviewers complained about it), oh, and an entire fucking character was missing.
Not, like, a bug, where some character wouldn't render or whatever. No. A kinda vital character referenced by others and it was just not done. Not even started. No sprites made, no dialogue written. 40 minutes before the deadline. It's the device in the point-and-click bit, for those who are interested.
Yeah, no, seriously, this is not right.
And speaking of writing. I have outlined a completely different (and longer) story with even more genres and characters. There was supposed to be a fake out shooter bit, where you were given a gun and told that you'll be needing it soon (you absolutely wouldn't). That was taken out because I just forgot to reserve a place in 3D level for it. A joke that was written, recorded, had sounds of an empty gun clicking made specifically for it had to be cut because someone is a dumbass.
There was also planned a text adventure thing, that would've always had "horse" as a valid response. That's as far as that went
And a mock racing section, kinda like the shooting bit. That's as far as that went
And of course the existing sections were significantly cut down. More levels for a platformer, a proper folder structure for the OS, a second screen (with another recurring character from my past game), inventory and actual puzzle-solving for the point-and-click
Oh, and an actual gameplay mechanics
So, let's touch first on the recurring characters and an honest to god fan service. And I know what you'll say. Who are those fans that you wanted to service? I know, right. But that turned out to be another excellent time-saving technique. I need a bartender character? Why not a carrot from one of my games? I have the fitting sprite that wasn't drawn in a hurry and the dialogue writes itself. You served the food made from sentient (and angry) vegetables, now they serve the food out of you. Hilarious. I hope. Whatever, doesn't matter, at least it was quick to write. The three-legged alien referencing someone who stopped existing? Here you go, the fourth icon on the left on the screenshot. Was it funny before? Eh, kinda. Great, that would have to do. Better yet, It saves me time not drawing an entire new character and a part of the background on the second screen (that was cut, but whatever, at this point it's a part of the joke). Fucking perfect.
So yeah, the big one. The gameplay
So, the game is "unstable", right? So how do you make it unstable? By messing with the properties of some objects, of course, through some sort of cheat menu. And that was supposed to be the main mechanic of the game. Puzzle solving through some meta means. Opening a console, screwing with some objects and solve puzzles in a wacky way. That's a solid pitch for a small puzzle-game right here. Simple, yet deep mechanic, level-based, so can be as big as the timer allows it to be. A prefect little jam game, that could, potentially, be expanded to the full game. So why the fuck didn't I do this
What a knob I really am sometimes
So yeah, at the middle of the second day, the game became a walking simulator, basically. Just do what you're told and look at all the jokes. Which seems to be fine, people are liking the jokes, but I just wish they were attached to the actual game. The narrative also suffered because of this. The developer is blaming you for breaking the game, because, well, it was you who actively breaking it, because screwing around in this kind of sandbox is fun. But just listen to this nonsense. A narrative fucking design in a game that has to be made in 72 hours. But then again, people like the madness that happened because of the ambition, so I don't even know anymore. There is a neat game in there somewhere, right at the point, where I should've reigned in the ambition and started making a coherent experience that is focused on some point.
So yeah, as you might've guessed already, I was on the brink of giving up for one and a half days. Well, I guess, that's not strictly speaking true, because I was ending it all out of spite, sunken cost fallacy and some little glimmer positivity that was me genuinely liking the damn thing and wanting it to be made. And you know what, I'm really glad it got made, even though it's not exactly what I wanted and it sucked all the energy from me to the point that I'm still couldn't be bothered to properly set up an itch.io page.
After all that negativity towards the game and myself, let's end on a little bit of positivity. The game's not shit and I don't hate it, I'm just (as always) very critical towards myself and the game, because I genuinely like it and want the final result to be better, because it can.
I also like the jokes and I like what I wrote for the game in general. Picking a theme and just rolling with it really helped to make a coherent-feeling game (even though, I know how much of mess it really is). It was really heartwarming to see people laughing at my silly horse puns and jokes and the general madness of it all. Because, after all, isn't that why we're doing this? Just, don't do it like I did, it is absolutely not worth it
influenced by Slay the Spire, Griftlands and many other great games.
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/spellblade-legacy-2d-deckbuilding-lite-dungeon-crawler
Spellblade is a world where several unstable events have happened across the biomes. The hero can help shape the world into a more stable for by collecting the crystal gems and cleansing the void realm!
Thanks for everyone who has commented and left feedback to get me to closer to 20 ratings, I really appreciate it!
I added instructions and increased clarity of the game as many suggested!
I would love if whoever is interested could checkout the game and give some feedback!
Feel free to drop a link and I can check out your game too!
Hey! I'm having misbrains with this LD session.
I mean, I was hoping for so many weeping sims. But hell, I suppose most cried out loud at LD48.
Still, when the phase comes, the LD page becomes a real mess (or massacre) of ideas and reflections at the world or personalities, or whatever psych-a is there in your life.
I know we're coming naked here. I mean, I try. Some - prototype, some do for the portfolio, some just need to be here (even if there is no game at all).
Maybe at some point we have to realize, that we don't have to get here every time the jam is, get away, have a boozy somewhat near the sea-waves. Without a computer. Or even a phone.
Anyway, I still don't get this many games on stables, horses - this LD. Hey! Is there a secret Squid Game metaphor? Don't be mad, the show is not that unique, just had to check the fuss about.
And I'm not the one pretending that our game (a dare from Ardskape) is some kind of freaking masterpiece, no way.
Have we pre-prepared? No time, sorry, but we polished some skills. Learned new stuff. Had no time (again) to use it.
Have we tried to make an illusion of a game? Nope. It's a thin line what the game is called, of course. If there's fun, and you can play – yep, can be game. But many of us are quite aged to get that nowadays games need narrative, and it's better if we introduce at least some hint of it throughout the gameplay.
And there's narrative in art and sounds, of course, not only text and voices, we know that. Well, one of my previous collegues couldn't understand at all me saying that the narrative can be created by only the usage and placement of the sfx.
Still, there's no much of that dribble in our game. But we come from those parts of mind where we don't use assets, and create whatever we can on our own. Art, sound, voices, anything... it may change, though, maybe in 3D. But for now it works fine, and we really like to get it done on our own, even if it's fucking deadline.
Language, aye.
So, what's the deal with horses anyway?
If there's another game on a mosquito here, please do share! In the meantime, get a grip on our bites.
Here's Pharaoh Mosquito!
As promised, I played today as many games from Danger Zone as I could. Next round tomorrow.
I'm really happy with all the unique games I was able to see today. I had a great time! If you want to join the fun and help other LD participants as well as play some crazy and interesting games, go to the Danger Zone:
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/games/danger/all
If your game is in Danger Zone, leave a comment here. I will play it tomorrow! I'm done for today :)
Stream is over for now. Next one is Wednesday @ 5 PM pt (Removed image to save space for others :)
Hello all. Come join me and I'll play your game. I haven't had too much activity so chances are if you come I could play your game right away. I give feedback and thoughts live. https://www.twitch.tv/crefossus
Video rendered quicker than I thought - here's an almost released version.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT0qF3zpOBg
Current version here
Hey all! I would just like to thank all those who rated my game, it's finally got 20 votes!
It was a lot of fun making it, especially since this was my first ever game jam, and it was super fun playing all your games too. Again I would like to thank all of the people who've given us such wonderful feedback, and I would definitely like to do more of this next time.
Anyway, see you later!
We're finally back after a small hiatus - and we're ready to play your games!
Leave your games in the comments below, and be sure to play our entry too! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/unstable-ship
I tested a lot of games during the last 2 weeks and played my fair share of awesome entries. Among them, some fly a bit under the radar which I find pretty sad and undeserved. So there's my list of the best games I played that (imo) didn't received enough attention.
This guy, ALONE, made a functionnal and addicting grand strategy game in 3 days. Six months ago, Paradox published the worst rated game in Steam history, an extremely unbalanced and bug-crippled piece of junk they sold 20 euros/dollars. Do what you want with these informations but please PLAY THIS GAME!! It can't miss the 20 ratings.
For your game to appear in the Ludum Dare filter, you need a good Karma. Then, a good thumbnail should attract people to test your game. So why on earth this game, which has both karma and thumbnail, has only 42 ratings?!? This is without a doubt one of the most polished, well-thought and complete experience you'll play during this LD, so you have to put this right.
Another one-man effort. Defuse each bomb just by turning it, using the power of your brain and a few clicks, all wrapped by a really smooth execution. Simple but really efficient.
Killing hundreds of alien in a heavy metal atmosphere is cool. Micro-managing your space empire is fun. Building infinite tower by piling geometric blocks is fine (though, you did it too much during the last two weeks). But you want something else. Take control of Caleb'childs emotions and let yours be touched.
Let's continue in the "feeling" vibe. Though here, we're not in the wholesome nostalgia but in the thoughness of life's unexpected misfortune. Once again, gameplay try to emphasize emotion convey by the experience. Once again, we get a nice game to enjoy.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe said "Less is more". So once you removed the unnecessary, only remained the very best of your experience. Clic, drag and admire the soothing ballet into your stellar system.
Once theme was revealed, these guys read "Unstable" and thought "Mazespin!" (or probably something like that). Oh yeah, I'm talking about Formula One. Here, you'll have to prepare your car for the next race, hoping it'll be fast enough but still under control. Warning : it's really difficult.
So, you play as our good old planet, trying to espace the dying sun. It has a huge reactor coming directly(?) from it's core. You racing across space, going near other planets to scavenge them and keep your reactor at full speed. In the meantime, you manage the planet, in a simplified Sim-City like, to get even more fuel. Honestly, at this point, you should have already clicked.
Gorgeous. The art alone make this one shines among the hundreds of games they're here. Enjoy.
We have made an autochess where rules in the shop change slightly each turn!
The four families of monsters are mushrooms :mushroom:, merchants :money_mouth:, spiders :spider: and robots :robot: :)
You can check the list of cards here!
Play Unbalanced Brawl, please leave a comment so we can try and rate your game too :heart:
Want to defeat wave after wave of zombified scientists? Jump right in with simple controls and a Web Version!
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/unstable-apocalypse
I need some more feedback for Unstable Apocalypse!
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/lapis-vitae
I'd appreciate it if you gave Mad Zomber the final push it needs to qualify. It's a third-person Hack 'n Slash game where you fight zombies until you become literally too angry to die.
I'm thinking of doing a post-jam version. Here are the features I'd add:
| score | user | | ----- | ---- | | 684 | Anonymous | | 250 | annie-owl | | 231 | ivysly | | 213 | m1nus | | 200 | kepcukhusamettin | | -300 | varundevs |
My best is around 800, but I don't count! Try your skill at:
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/klop-un-stabled
Leave a comment and I'll put you on the board!
We can get to 20 ratings!
We've put together a video showcasing the original soundtrack for our game A Gift in Good Faith! We hope you enjoy it. NES colour palette psychedelic backgrounds are surprisingly time-consuming to make and sync with music. Make sure to play and rate the game if you haven't already! You can also download the soundtrack on Bandcamp.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SIWC3-tN4k
Bandcamp: https://samgorman272.bandcamp.com/album/a-gift-in-good-faith-official-ost
Rate the game here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/a-gift-in-good-faith
Thanks for listening! :)
Not wasting any time, you know what a post mortem is :D
Older Posts: * Day 1 Progress * Day 2 Progress * Day 3 Progress * 6 ways to beat Karawan * Camerons Music Post Mortem
Originally, i wanted to make a tile laying game with hex tiles, maybe themed with an animal ecosystem or medieval society.
The tiles you'd place would interact with tiles around it, adding or taking resources from them. I knew this could be interesting, but would very much depend on if i could find fun interactions between the tiles, and proper chain reactions.
I went about designing this on paper for 2 hours, after which i hadn't come up with anything good. The interactions were simplistic and chain reactions always carry the risk of not being predictable for a player, and thus frustrating.
It was great to reach that point without having to implement anything, saving time and allowing to move on early to the next idea.
a few early ideas - none of them made it
For game jams i like to have something new and fresh, which poses an interesting challenge for us, without making it impossible to deliver a good game. You'll see that in our game jam history, as we wildly jump genres. These are among them:
- life/body simulation
- pacifist thief stealth game
- strategy chess like board game
- god simulation
- restaurant tycoon
- sokoban-like animal puzzle game
- bird flying action game
- taxi driver game
- resource mining action game
some of our games
We also wildly switch the 2D perspectives and whether it's tile based or not. This time we tried something very new which i was always interested in: hex tile maps. This was a challenge and i spent way more time implementing this, than i'd have spent if i'd just went a path already travelled by us. But it is fun and facilitates improving as gamedevs. I think this can still work out great, if not too many aspects of the game are "unkown territory".
It was also our first time working with @cameron-paxton as a composer, and it was a great experience. We was very hard working and created a soundtrack that adds so much to the game :)
The only reason Karawan could have nice and varied sprites is, that none of them have any animations. Animations simply take a ton of time. We actually have only a single sprite animation, and that took what felt like ages. Bigger teams have other options, but we only have @idinakloppstock (Anne) to create all graphics for the game, so we have to plan accordingly.
the whirl is the only sprite animation ingame
Initially i wanted to have a really living caravan, with small people roaming the areas around it, and the player seeing them getting to work. Anne opposed this, explaining that this was not feasible. I reluctantly agreed to postpone this stuff to the end, if we had time left - which of course we didn't.
In other words: Know your team and listen to it.
I remember how we took the evenings off in our first game jam, playing some games or just relaxing during the day for some time. Over the jams and maybe with getting older, we developed a good discipline - now we really work all 3 days for the maximum time, probably around 14h a day. This helps a ton in getting things done.
Development was so fast that i had a lot of time to polish and playtest. I added a ton of small effects, tweens, delays and animations, also to make up for the lack of sprite animations. I think that shows, it is surely our most complete jam entry in that regard. The tutorialization also worked well, with context sensitive explanations popping in and explaining the mechanics wherever needed. I think that little can do a lot, if it hits right. For example, i made the star-like background in 5 minutes - it's just a basic, slow moving particle effect.
a lot of little things - the harvested resources scale in and out, the wagons shake while moving, the popup moves in nicely
We had our first real playtest on the second half of day 2. It quickly was clear to me, that the game had a ton of problems and was no fun yet. But i understood well what wasn't working, and what i needed to change to improve it. These changes were playtested again, slowly showing we were going in the right direction. For example, we had a fully implemented mechanic to plant wheat fields and harvest them, which i completely scrapped because it was too complex to teach easily. If there would have been little time to playtest, i wouldn't have understood the problems well enough, and the game would be worse.
wheat fields got cut completely
But even after these changes, i wasn't totally sure if the game would was interesting, understandable and fun. This leads to one of the bad points: the idea might have been too big.
We established a workflow over time, where we'd first sit down to establish a general look and palette for the game. If we have this ready, Anne creates placeholder sprites quickly, which i can use to implement the game. The final, polished sprites only come in after all placeholders are ready. Of course during development, new things come up which start their lives as placeholders too. This works great for us, as we don't need to discard as much work as before, because it doesn't fit. It's also efficient because the sprites later just need to be replaced, with no impact on the code.
different palettes for our tile sketches
We started "production" with a good idea what the gameplay will end up being. What moved a lot and only got clear after 50% of the time was up, was the mood the game. I had a rough idea where i wanted to go, but i didn't think it through and didn't communicate it clearly enough, wasting time and work from @cameron-paxton who made great music that ended up not fitting the game. We got a good process for finding the game design and art style, but it's clear that we have to find something similar for music and mood. We mostly made our games without a composer, so that's something we are still learning.
We had no one who could make sounds from scratch (as usual). I tried finding someone on the ludum dare discord, but had no success. So we used a soundpack - which is fine in general, but we had to opt-out from audio as a consequence, despite cameron making an original soundtrack with a ton of effort.
I'm not sure about this, but Karawan seems like a big game for a game jam, design wise. Content wise it is fine, but the concept feels like it needs a week of playtests to balance it right and make it really fun. I described that even during submission, i wasn't sure whether it was any good and would resonate with players. I'm not sure if that's a huge problem, but the uncertainty did really not feel good.
For reading this, and for all the feedback! I'm looking forward to see you on LD50. I love ludum dare, and it's a huge part of us growing as gamedevs. We are glad we could participate again :)
She won't read this, but i need to thank my mother here! @idinakloppstock and i have a 2 year old daughter, which means we can only take part in Ludum Dare if we get some help. Since LD47 my mother always visits us over the weekend and spends some quality time with her granddaughter, which our offspring loves a lot and which enables us to really commit to making a game with some ambition. All this is only possible thanks to her support, and i'm very grateful for that. This time they did some autumn handicrafts :D
Hello!
It has been two weeks since the our first Ludum Dare jam. Thanks to everyone who played, streamed, rated or commented our game.
We still only have 17 votes, so please help us reach at least 20!
It was honestly a surprise how constructive and nice the feedback was. I think it was because we are all creators and can know the intricacies of making a video games. It was thrilling to watch people play our game on stream or read comments, what people received most positively was: - audio & songs - humour in visuals, audio and setting - unique take on the Unstable theme - seagulls
There was also one thing that people universally disliked and that was surprisingly 500MB download 😄
We have identified couple bugs; auto item drop, chance of being locked behind walls, seagull jumps (that could be a feature though). All can be fixed without overhauling the game, and we hope to deliver that once the voting ends and have two separate builds; jam build & revised build.
Don't leave your game in the comments, if you want to submit it, please do so here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1LmBdCpd8v8K-64Dt-GiZtaAbaeIOXpUEPvSOAktf2q8/edit#responses
Come on down and enjoy! https://www.twitch.tv/buzzybee26 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1GSreh6TP4
Keep playing those Danger games!
Don't know how?
Play all those games :smile: Everyone wins!!
Hello everyone. I hope that all is fine for you and yours. I have a request about a post which I read just a few days before the 49th LudumDare session started. Someone had posted here a message, explaining what it planned to do for the GameJam. In this message, he posted a link to a video - a Dust Sci-Fi movie. I remember a woman in a white room popping colored balloons with a nail or a needle. I said to myself that I have to take a look at this short movie which seemed very interesting. And I forgot... I searched for this movie on Dust YouTube channel, but they share hundreds of movies and I cannot find it according what I remember. Also I tried to find the previous message here, but LudumDare receives several dozen messages each day, and mine is forgotten somewhere. So I ask you today - maybe someone knows this reference or the guy who had written the previous message remembers it? Thank you for your help. Have a nice day ++
Well, that's basically 30 ratings.
This game's basically on track to being the biggest LD submission I've ever had a hand in. More than that, we plan on bringing the game to Itch, Android, and possibly Steam over the next year. It's been a wild ride, this jam... and despite the many snags we hit along the way, it's all been worth it.
As a special thank you to the community for once again making this event something to cherish, here's a curated list of my highlights from the competition!
Note that this list is only comprised of games I've played myself. There's a number of interesting titles I saw on various streams that I unfortunately don't have the link to.
Please give these incredible submissions a look!
(also please make sure to play our game at https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/balancing-act-2/ we really tried to make something cool and also it's coming out on ItchIO and Android next year so your support is appreciated k thanks)
JAM:
I thought this was going to be a clever and witty noir-themed game. I was so wrong. I was so wrong.
A short linear experience that will leave EVERYTHING to the imagination. Originally my Best Humor pick, I sent it up here.
The more I say, the less impact the game will have... so go play it. Go experience it.
JAM:
This one was VERY close to being my Best Overall, so much so that I broke my rules and made an honorable mention when I said I wouldn't. As a complete package, it feels like a love letter to Quake II with its own odd little movement scheme and a dedicated honk button. In short, this game NEEDS a postjam commercial release. When's HONK, Civvie?
JAM:
A simple puzzle-platformer that finds a tricky balance between adorable artwork and body horror with a unique revival mechanic, among other weird gadgets. Tightly designed and presentation first, with bonus points for a raccoon protagonist. Gimme the gawubage.
Innovation is going to be a two way tie... I just couldn't make up my mind!
JAM:
You did this in a weekend?! Everything okay over there?
To summarize the game in one word: Depth. It's a fully fledged Civilization/For the King meets Darkest Dungeon where you have to dismantle the unstable throne before your party naturally dismantles itself. From customizable battle tactics, to micromanaging units with weapons and stats, to a dynamic reputation system that forces you to keep on fighting so the enemies don't forget to fear you, Fellowship Manager can be quite unwieldy at first glance but has incredible potential.
JAM:
A physics-based building game about building your own solution-car with quality presentation of a fun concept. This almost went under Audio, but I would have felt terrible leaving this out of Innovation for how hard it tried to make this concept work, and how it succeeded in doing so.
COMPO
A slow-burn PSX survival horror game where you collect radioactive materials for research and evade a formless monster. Once again, DrunkardWolf has nailed PSX aesthetics for an easy win in this category.
Eek, another tie!
JAM:
The space theme of this title is complete with an inspiring soundscape and some impressive visuals for the jam. I do love me some space.
JAM:
A main beat that rocks, audio logs, and an adorable little isotope. This almost went under Theme as it gets the Unstable point across quite well, but I had to give credit for that main track and the voiceover.
Just pretend Rocky Rhodes is on this section too, okay?
JAM
A goofy physics based puzzle platformer about being a Verizon customer. Fling your way to finish the call through the most absurd yet effective means you can think of, and try not to get too far away from the signal point once you're there!
JAM:
A chaotic top-down arcade game where you chuck live bombs towards your enemies while avoiding the same fate yourself. This game ended up being the kind of quick fun I'd love to see scoped out into a small-scale party game.
JAM:
Next time just give me a virus.
What exactly am I looking at? I've been asking myself that same question, every night, for two weeks, all night because I can't sleep anymore. It's cruelty squad all over again. send help. I think Unstable is a fitting word.
I can crack jokes all I want, but this isn't here just because of the theme. This gameplay is incredibly tight, and it EMBODIES PURE CHAOS. It's one worth fighting over the best scores with. @rextgun, excellent work. You monster. I'm gonna go take a depression nap.
And with that, this concludes my list of personal picks from LD49! There's plenty of amazing games I played that didn't quite make this list, so share them in the comments!
Once again, it's been a pleasure jamming with you all again. I look forward to seeing you all again in LD50, and hope to see some of you around when BALANCING ACT gets its full release in 2022.
Took me a while, but I finally managed to have some time to play and rate some amazing games! Sorry for not being doing this before (busy work weeks). So if you want to play mine, feel free to (and I'll try my best to play and rate yours as well!) :smile:
It would be awesome if you could play our game. We put a lot of effort on it and we think that you could enjoy it.
Hello everyone. I hope that all is fine for you and yours. I have a request about a post which I read just a few days before the 49th LudumDare session started. Someone had posted here a message, explaining what it planned to do for the GameJam. In this message, he posted a link to a video - a Dust Sci-Fi movie. I remember a woman in a white room popping colored balloons with a nail or a needle. I said to myself that I have to take a look at this short movie which seemed very interesting. And I forgot... I searched for this movie on Dust YouTube channel, but they share hundreds of movies and I cannot find it according what I remember. Also I tried to find the previous message here, but LudumDare receives several dozen messages each day, and mine is forgotten somewhere. So I ask you today - maybe someone knows this reference or the guy who had written the previous message remembers it? Thank you for your help. Have a nice day ++
https://www.twitch.tv/thesoulselector
I am looking forward to being confused and impressed.
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/doctor-psycho
I'm now live on Twitch for the next few hours to play your Ludum Dare games! I'm happy to give constructive feedback or just have fun with it. I’ll also be rating every game I play (but not while I'm live). If you want me to play your game, type !submit url/of/your/game in the Twitch chat. I can't promise I'll be able to get to every game submitted to me, but I'll do as many as I can in the time I have. I hope to see you there!
If you submitted to me last week and I didn't have time to get to yours (I know there's a lot of you), just let me know you're there in the chat, and I can give your game priority for today.
If you miss today's stream, I'll be doing a stream tomorrow night from 10 PM - 1 AM EDT to make up for the failed stream from Friday. I know it's a less accessible time for many of you, but it's the only time of day I have available before the rating deadline. I imagine I'll be getting through some of my backlog during that stream.
P.S.: My entry is a game called Reactor. Feel free to check it out!
8 8 *slas.T DAYS
Las////t days to plaY Rate + Rate()
[PL =_AY]](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/ex-it)
Hello dear readers, here I am today to shamelessly plug in our game Ghost in the Party so I lure you to play it with an interview from our wonderfully talented artist Dre and our coding slave, ehem, I mean lovely team leader Fer. And just to be clear, I'm absolutely doing this because they're very interesting people, not because I wanted to share our game and ask for more great feedback, or because I told them to flatter me. Not at all.
Dre (@notaltright): It wasn't intended to be hard. The target was Manu's (qaeron) mom, so she could read his story without getting stuck in the runner levels and thus giving the real weight of the game to the narrative. But then I kept asking for it to be more difficult... sorry, not sorry.
Fer (@fer-gueler): I tried to make the game very easy except the last level, because I wanted the text-adventure part of the game to be the main focus. That's my best attempt at making an easy game, time to grind pals.
Dre: We were throwing in a lot of crazy ideas that would make the characters funny and really absurd. It would have ended up a mess and we knew it, so we were unsure and never wrote anything down. Then our savior writer came in and everything started to make sense.
Fer: I approached you on saturday morning after a few unfruitful hours of initial brainstorming with Dre and some sleep. And you saved our asses! We had the concept of the anxious ghost escaping the party already, but the game in our minds was a lot funnier and more lighthearted. In reality it was absurd and was going nowhere. After we explained you the concept you made your interpretation, spookier, more dramatic and sensible.
Dre: I enjoyed it a lot! And I think the time length partaked in that. Also, it was my second jam right after another, I was kind of sleep deprived and more loose thanks to that so I didn't overthink anything and just had fun.
Fer: It was so much fun with just the right amount of stress! I guess it would have been better to have you in the team from the start, although the mid-jam writer acquisition was good in terms of epicness.
Dre: I liked a lot of games, but the ones that still linger in my mind are Yura Yura (play it here!) and Revolver (here for that goodness).
Fer: There were so many amazing games. If I had to choose one I'd say Burning Ravager (check it out here!)
Dre: Marry me.
Fer: Thank you Qae, luv u.
This is all from us for the LD49! Hope you liked the game, had a lot of fun if you did one, and I'm eagerly awaiting to read all of your feedback!
PD: My favorite game was // OVERDRIVE, I had a lot of fun with that one. Go and try it!
Thanks to all who played our game and left feedback. In the Post-LD version we tried to fix some major noticeable issues and make the gameplay more enjoyable and the idea clearer. This includes:
Here is our entry: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/the-town-of-clarity
Oy!
We upgraded our little wizzarding game!
Come and throw some spells in a basemnt! It's fun!
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/dizzard-wizzard
Changelog: - fixed map not showing correct gem placements
Play our game here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/a-gift-in-good-faith
play here >> https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/ziggy-bungus-pizza-delivery-simulator
(Posting this because we need a few more ratings...)
Give him affection now: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/devils-sitter
This is a post-mortem for my jam submission for LD49. Click here to check it out.
So this definitely isn't the best looking LD game I've ever made, it's quite unwieldy, and rough around the edges. However, I think it is one of my more interesting boondoggles. This post mortem is likewise a bit of a boondoggle - just fair warning, this is going to be a long read.
I've had the title "50 Crowns for 50 Kings" written down in my notes for a long time. A world where the united states failed to form and split into 50 independent nations could be interesting. How would that world shake out? Maybe that's the kernel of a novel, or maybe that's a video game.
The LD theme (unstable) seemed like a reasonable fit for this world. It's an unstable political situation.
As a video game, something like a grand strategy game would make some sense, but I'm not usually one for the obvious route. Some people might like the idea of conquering America as Delaware or Wyoming, but that doesn't really excite me. I already build a game a bit like that during LD 38. Perhaps instead you aren't playing as a one of 50 little kingdoms yourself, but are influencing their actions.
So that was the initial idea for this game. There are 50 warring state that act as simple automatons which fight each other. You would play as a European power in a turn based game that is not about conquering all the territory, but rather manipulating the states. You don't control troops, you control diplomats and spies, and are choosing where to invest. Perhaps you would have additional special actions that could have major impacts on what was going on.
If I had known how complicated this game would be, I probably wouldn't have tried to build it during Ludum Dare. I was aiming to complete it in the compo window, but only barely was able to barely finish it within 72 hours. In retrospect, this should have been impossible.
I had built an interactive region map system for LD38, but that had been a tedious process. I knew I would need even more regions on the US map, so I needed a new system. To create the US map, I started with satellite images, then divided it into regions and painted each region a different color than it's neighbors.
Ugly, but the code doesn't care
The game then loads that image and scans it, creating regions on a grid based on neighboring pixels of the same color. Since I wanted some of the states to have multiple of these regions, I created a second map that grouped every region into real-world state boundaries. Running the same clustering algorithm on that image and cross referencing the two helped set up the initial board state.
I had planned to do something similar to create the visuals for the map. I would use a satellite image and extract each pixel to a tile in a tileset. That could allow for some detail like rivers and mountains. Once I had the current low res image in place, I never had the time to circle back to try that. I did eventually go back in and flatten the colors in the playable region. There is so much happening on the map already that the extra colors proved to be very distracting to play.
I expected delineating 50 different countries would be difficult. I settled on drawing the borders using one or two color patterns, and shading inside the borders of each territory. I started by making an image of the different lines, each one pixel wide. The top pixel of each line would be parsed and used for the inner shading. I started with a set of solid colors, then doubling that and painting in alternating colors that were mostly neutral, then adding a few combinations that looked good to differentiate further.
Each vertical line is a state border on the map (plus a few neutral lines for special cases)
Still, if two similar borders were next to each other, the results didn't look great, so I assigned each state a border, and then used a fixed random seed to shuffle the ordering. I tried a few random seeds until I found one that minimized adjacent borders of similar colors.
The first major challenge was to design "simple automotons" for the states. It sounds simple on paper, and I think it's fairly intuitive, but it is probably the most complicated logic in the game.
I knew there would need to be some sort of system of military strength and combat, and some sort of system of resources to feed that military. I really had to fight the urge to add additional complexity and realism to the basic systems like that.
The player was going to see a lot of combat and needed to be able to parse combat results quickly. The solution was to just have a single number of troops per region, and no randomness to combat. There would be no differentiation for different types of armies/cavalry/artillery or anything like that. Simple modifiers could then be added on top of that, but as long as the number remain small, it's fairly easy to predict outcomes.
Similarly the economy would be made of just three simple things. Taxes, food, and guns. Cities would generate tax revenue, and larger cities would generate much more. Food is needed to sustain an army. 1 unit of food would feed 1 soldier each turn. 1 gun created by factories would add an additional soldier. Guns would be less common and more expensive than food, so there's a benefit to keeping troops alive.
That sounds simple enough, but then I had to make an AI to use that system in a way that feels reasonable.
Each turn, the AI collects resources and pays it's debts. It distributes all of the food it has to feed it's troops. If it doesn't have enough food, it trades money for food. If it has extra food, it instead sells that food for extra cash. If there still isn't enough food, troops randomly disband for each food they're short by.
This probably isn't enough to explain the system in game, but it's about all I had time for
Then the AI determines the threat of all neighboring territories. For each region it controls it checks that regions neighbors and marks the magnitude of the possible attack that each region faces. For all of the regions which are under threat, it tries to shore up those borders by purchasing troops. Each gun resource that it has can create a soldier, which is placed randomly, but weighted in favor of the regions under heaviest threats. If the state doesn't have enough gun resources, they buy them.
Now the AI starts to think about attacking. It searches all enemy neighboring regions, and scores them based on what resources they have and how many troops they have relative to possible attack launching points. They select one region as their potential juicy target for the turn, and one of their bordering regions to be the spearhead for a potential attack. If they have leftover money at this point, they buy additional soldiers and place them on the spearhead. They won't spend all their money recruiting troops to attack, however. If they are under threat, they will spend whatever it takes to shore up defenses, but for attacking they are a bit more conservative. Each king is assigned a target reserve randomly at the beginning of the game. They will only spend money above and beyond that threshold to pay for aggression. This helps insulate them against future threats, and randomizing gives each game a little more variability.
The AI kings do that at the start of the round. Then players take their turn. When you click next turn, each king will look at their juicy target, and decide if they will attack. They count the number of troops they can attack with from their spearhead (minus one to stay behind), and compare that with the troops in the enemy territory plus any fort bonuses. I opted to make the AI a little hesitant, so the more overwhelming the attack, the more likely they will be to attack. That way things aren't entirely predictable, but you can have a pretty good idea. Assuming the attacker won, they distribute all the troops between the two regions similar to how they would be recruited. The order the kings go in could matter here, so the kings take their turns sorted by the number of soldiers they have. Larger countries go first, which is useful as that means they can make an attack and another neighbor can swoop in and steal it out from under them. This makes the Kings seem more aggressive and dynamic.
The kings serve their purpose reasonably well, acting as mostly intuitive automatons, even if the player doesn't fully realize everything going on behind the scenes. They aren't always the smartest, but when there are 50 AIs interacting, it's pretty easy to overlook a quirk here or there. The one thing this system doesn't do is allow for the AI to fail an attack or do something like skirmish without committing all of their troops. I'm not sure that's really too important, though. Importantly, it allows for a reasonable number of places for one of the players to interact with these underlying systems.
That all probably sounded pretty straightforward now that I'm describing it, but it took a lot of brain crunching to come up with that system. Figuring that all out and getting it all working took basically a whole day on top of rendering the map. By Saturday night I was able to watch the AIs fight each other automatically. I was pleased to see that given enough time, someone would eventually take over. Without having any way for the player to interact with it, it was fairly neat to see the AI go at each other.
One thing I noticed from testing the system out was that it would take a long time for someone to conquer the states. Much longer than I want an LD game to run. Having the game stop after some number of turns and the winner based on score seemed like an explainable approach. I was really hoping to have something like a newspaper headline each turn to indicate some world event, eventually culminating in a world war, perhaps with a bit of randomness on when that came. Having world events would be a nice bit of flavor and world building. Unfortunately there just wasn't time. The telegram you get on the last turn came from this idea.
Early on I figured players would take turns placing diplomats and spies, and take actions based on where you placed them. I wasn't really sure what the diplomat and spy tokens would do, or how you would select those extra actions. I thought cards would probably be involved, but perhaps there would be a heavier focus on the tokens having basic abilities that could be selected. I opted to move the idea for basic actions to cards to simplify the turn structure and reduce repetition.
I wanted there to be something like a relationship system between the player and each of the kings. Something like the suzerain system of the Civ games. Placing diplomats would improve your relationship, and perhaps some of the extra actions would require a certain relationship level. I debated having the spy tokens act as a counter to the diplomats and reduce standing, but that didn't seem very fun. I also ended up having the diplomats generate additional funds for the kings where they were placed as I noticed most of the kings were generally always strapped for cash, and there should be some benefit if every player is courting them.
So I built a system of influence for the kings. Each king has a "swagger" which indicates how much influence the players have to generate to become an ally. This represents kings with larger kingdoms being more aloof and self-important, where some smaller nations are much more interested in what Europe has to offer. The first player to max out influence becomes the king's "key" ally. That doesn't quite have the impact I expected, but that status does double the score the king provides the player. You can see this system in action in the kingdom detail popup. Visualizing this system so that it could be self explanatory was important, so it had a bit of extra attention for something buried in an info bubble.
As I was coding the other systems, I had written down a decent number of ideas for actions. I've been trying not to make card-based games for a while if I can help it, but cards are a powerful tool and I have a lot of support code for them. They really did seem like the best option here. It's an intuitive metaphor, allows you to explain complex interactions, and makes every turn have different options available.
So with that, I had the basic turn structure for players. Players take turns putting out tokens, then play cards that affect areas where your tokens were placed. I don't think I got all of those basic systems in place until well after the original compo deadline.
The primary problem with all of these systems is that they are so predicated on having AI players to compete against. It wasn't enough to build the "automaton" AI for the kings, the other players needed to place their tokens on the board and play cards. If I had realized how much work I was signing myself up for, I would definitely have built this game differently. Luckily, the player AI was not quite as complicated as the kings.
Distributing the diplomats and spies is actually two separate problems, which just adds a little cherry on top. The players try to distribute their diplomats to different kings each turn. They look at all the possible regions and score them for much impact a single diplomat would have. (it might be buggy, but) they score regions where they could become the key ally highly, and regions where they already have an investment higher than regions where they don't. If the diplomat won't really do anything because they're capped out or almost capped out and can't take the key ally slot, that regions is rated lower. Spies also look at all the possible regions and similarly position based on a weighted score, scoring areas where there are multiple nearby diplomats highly, and kingdoms with a lot of total other-player influence higher.
Since I've built card games a few times, I had a decent idea of how to structure the AI for the card play, at least. Each card has a little async function running through the series of steps needed to resolve the card. The same function runs whether the player is human or AI, but each time the card requires a selection, the card provides a heuristic function to the selection which is used to calculate how to rate various selections. For humans, the player interactively makes a selection or cancels, but AI players use the heuristic to score all the possible regions and pick a positive score randomly based on the weight. That means each card actually has it's own little self-contained AI for how to make a good selection. Each turn, the AI basically just shuffles their hand and tries to play each card it can. This isn't particularly effective, but it can also crunch numbers better than a human and still appears to be somewhat competent. So the overall code flow wasn't tricky, but building out all of those little mini heuristic functions really ate up some time.
Each card looks something like this
Once all these systems were together and there were enough cards to make it interesting, it was an absolute mad dash to the finish line for the 72 hour jam. I lifted the dialog system from a previous game and slapped it in place as a tutorial. I also used that to create a quick and dirty final score screen. I built out a series of lenses to visualize the various types of data on the map. I put together the intro text and menu selector. I built the message console so you wouldn't miss the important details that happened.
I did tack on a couple very quick features that I thought were cool. I made every European power slightly asymmetrical. Once the game was over, I set up a "one more turn" option. I added in a hard mode, which gives the AI additional money and cards each turn. I also added in an observer mode, mostly because I enjoyed watching the AI just duke it out on it's own. If I had time to actually balance the game, that probably would have been useful.
That was exhausting. I barely got everything in place in time, and what I did get there was fairly rough.
Having a real world connection to the places in the game is very effective, and it's easy to add your own real-world knowledge of the states. It really helps generate stories, even without player intervention. Before I added any real player interaction and the states could just attack each other, I let the game run for a bit with just the states. I thought Manhattan would be well positioned to take over New England and sweep into the midwest, but instead Pennsylvania, New York, and Manhattan Island all smashed into each other, and then New Jersey swept in and cleaned up the pieces. From there the New Jersey Empire snowballed through New England and started into Ohio. Meanwhile in the west, San Francisco slowly conquered the rest of California and was slowly taking over the west coast. Ultimately San Francisco floundered without enough food to sustain a western advance. By the time New Jersey arrived, San Francisco could barely maintain it's troops around the Rockies. Using states in a game like this is almost a cheat code for storytelling to an American audience.
Beyond that, the pitch for the game is fairly strong. I probably need to refine it, but this is the sort of pitch that a wide audience could latch onto.
The game was definitely over-scoped. I didn't really account for the complexity of the AI systems. Everything else in this section can be traced back to that.
The art style of the game is a mess. It isn't really an art style as much as a lack of an art style. I would have liked to see boardgame visuals like I created for LD38. It really would have taken a lot more time than I actually had, so it's probably for the best, but it isn't great.
Beyond the art style, the graphic design has some problems. It is quite difficult to parse through the information in the various lenses. Often the lenses don't have all the information you need to make a decision, so you have to swap back and forth. For example if you want to use the card that lets you form an alliance, you have to cross reference the relationship between kings, as well as see your player relationships to the various kings and check where your diplomats are.
The game system isn't intuitive enough, and also isn't explained well enough. I think the player relationships might be okay because there's a nice graphical display that responds to your actions, but several players understandably couldn't figure out the economy. A really good table or visualization or two might help to explain it for the curious, but could also be very tricky to implement.
There are a few smaller systems that don't quite come together. I ended up implementing as many of the card ideas as I could, but some don't really work. Forging an alliance is a bit tricky, and a sneak attack is quite difficult to actually pull off. There is a system of treaties which ends up permeating a lot of things, but the impact to the LD version of the game is quite minimal.
In combination with those previous issues, the turn structure is not smooth. I think I expected that you would play out your diplomats/spies for the turn without too much regard for the cards in your hand, but really the cards in your hand dictate where you should place your tokens. Trying to figure out where to place a token optimally involves multiple rounds of cross referencing and planning. It's complicated, but there are a lot of combinations and unknowns in planning, and not a huge payoff if you get it right.
This game seems to have enough legs to continue development on. I'm not sure how far I will take it, but there is enough here to warrant some additional exploration.
I wanted to make the European nations more unique, and would probably give each at least a unique card, or possibly some more asymmetry.
I'd definitely redo all the art and make it look more like a board game.
I'm tempted to add multiplayer, primarily as a learning opportunity for future projects. I think the game is structured in a way that would make multiplayer "easy", but I could definitely be wrong.
I expect a lot of time will need to go into improving the player experience. I'm still not sure the best way to visualize all the different things the player needs to know, and maybe there are improvements that could be made to the core game loop.
Three days left before results of Ludum Dare 49! Today I'll play danger zone games and your games! If your game lacks ratings, you definitely should post link to it in comments! I'll stream it here: https://www.twitch.tv/runuchok at 18:00 (GMT +3)
Осталось три дня до результатов Лудум Дэра 49! Сегодня буду спасать игры из зоны опасности, а заодно все игры, которые вы мне накидаете в комменты. (В приоритете если вашей игре не достает рейтинга) Все это дело как обычно застримлю тут: https://www.twitch.tv/runuchok в 18:00 по Москве!
Come to try CandleLight here : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/candle-light
http://twitch.tv/alexrosegames
I noticed quite a few people went in the same direction I did in making a game about brewing dangerous potions. I think we have an opportunity to help offer advice on each others games based on mistakes/choices we've made on our own!
If you made a potion brewing game, or have one to recommend, drop them here and we can rate each others!
Soon we will publish the game as nft in H = N https://www.hicetnunc.xyz/swimmablebee912
We are now working on a leaderboard.
Play and rate our game on https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/depresspnker
leave a link and I will play 100% it
I will start playing danger zone games in about 30 min! https://www.twitch.tv/runuchok at 18:15 (GMT+3) Come, drop your game link in chat!
Начину играть в игры из зоны опасности примерно через 30 минут. https://www.twitch.tv/runuchok в 18:15 (Москва) Приходите, скидывайте свои ссылки в чате!
Pinging people that messaged me in previous post (Playing your games if you will be on stream! Except danger zone games. They will be played regardless!) Thanks for links! @odrez @john-llyod-apolo @aaln @geckoo1337 @coolestdoggie @maxkyckling @barrier
I try to record as much as possible during the game jams and this time is no exception (no stream though). This is my way to share what really gamedev looks like ;)
Here is a timelapse video of the 3 days we spent creating Alteration! https://youtube.com/watch?v=nmDaXxfF3aw
Edit: looks like links are broken on the site right now, so : youtube.com/watch?v=nmDaXxfF3aw
Check out our game, Angry Girl Wants Buns, if you haven't already.
Any feedback would be really appreciated, I always love seeing what people like and what people find confusing.
I really missed out on rating games this month, and I am regretting it now. Come help me out with getting 20 rates and if you drop a comment under my game, I will rate your game in return.
Hey Jammers! Unfortunately, I didn't have much time to rate in the first week. And it appears it's much harder to get ratings when you start later. I have already played and rated 30 games but I still have only 17 ratings and there are only 3 days left.
So if you'd like to play a simple game with procedurally generated terrain that can be played in browser, I'll be glad if you give it a try! Thank you!
* Play Here *
Come and play PolitiGod a game where your in charge of an unstable city. As the local ruler and god you are also in charge answering prayers of your citizens.
Play in Browser here
If yes, then come and play my game and post your fuel record!
If you haven't played yet to my game, you can find it here : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/spacify
Our little strategical puzzle-action game Atomic Rock Paper Scissors just got a major update post-jam!
Plenty of new features and tweaks, and major gameplay changes that make it much more exciting and interesting. A ton of extra polish went into it! We even got a fancy intro now! :D
The update includes:
Better controls: More intuitive controls! Thanks everyone for the feedback! (Note: We tried the "flick" many suggested, but it felt a bit odd and clunky. We'll try it again in a future release!)
Better gameplay: Many additions to the gameplay make it more challenging and interesting, like a move-based level system, larger explosions, accumulating nukes and a better difficulty ramp system.
Improved graphics: new more satisfying explosions, smoother animations, a fancy title screen/intro!
Shiny new interface: featuring some pretty looking chrome numbers!
Music & sound effects: a proper soundtrack (within my unskilled abilities!) and many more sounds!
The game was coded from scratch for the Jam, the custom engine and all, which was pretty reckless for a Ludum Dare game! It doesn't help that we only narrowed down our idea nearly a day into the Jam and that I've been behind the times with JavaScript!
Working with a custom engine and rushed-in spaghetti code with outdated coding norms makes everything much more difficult, however. Even little features like a title screen or basic user interface become a huge hassle! So I did my best to fill in these gaps these past few days.
It's probably super inefficient and buggy, but it should be playable just fine. If there are any major bugs, please let me know!
One thing we're still hoping to add is a leaderboard, but we are unsure if there is even demand for it for such a one-shot Ludum Dare game. It would require a significant amount of extra work due to our custom engine, especially with a proper backend that's not trivial to post fake results. So we're still on the fence about it!
If you would really like a leaderboard, please let us know!
Over the next few days me and @m1nus will be covering a few of the design decisions we've made, and document our struggles as novice game makers in approaching this game! Stay tuned!
Over the past weeks we've come to be quite fond and proud of our little game. Me and @m1nus decided to save our best ideas for a future remake of it, using a proper full-featured game engine and higher quality graphics. So expect a mobile & desktop version of Atomic Rock Paper Scissors soon! :)
So if you have some time to spare: PLAY ATOMIC ROCK PAPER SCISSORS (POST-JAM UPDATE)!
Have fun! ☢ ᗝ ☐ X
Hello. Today I bought a bundle with games. Inside this one there is a key for a game which I have - The Flame In The Flood. I give this key for free, but you have to find the last letter according a clue. The first one wins a game :)
VDVV5-66JMV-EXP0*
If you are in the Danger Zone feel free to leave the link to your game in the comments :)
There is so little time left. Help others get to 20 rantings. If you don't know where the Danger Zone is, here's the link:
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/games/danger/all
Turns out it's quite easy to get lost in work and miss rating part of LDjam. Project turned out to be a bit fun, so it would be a shame not to get 20 votes.
KickGum is a topdown game where you control reactor's temperature while getting annoyed by AIs
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/kick-gum
We finally fixed all known bugs, especially tricky sound bug in chrome
And now we need your help to get at least 20 ratings
We would greatly appreciate your ratings and comments and for sure will play, rate and comment your game in return
Visit our burning goblings and stunned imps =)
I just wanted to say thank You.
Ludum Dare has been a blast.
And I have had so much fun reading the comments and feedback(good or bad) You guys give.
So thank You and I hope You have a good time as well.
Hallo fellows,
we would need three more ratings for our game.
The game can be played in the web player or can be downloaded for windows.
It was a bunch of work, and quite an ambitious project, so we hope we can get our placings :-)
The game has also some nice voice acting in it :-)
Best and thank you for your help!
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/a-turtles-tale
Life took over and here we are, almost at the end of ratings! Please help me get to 20 by playing my seemingly simple but surprisingly challenging puzzle game!
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/my-first-chemistry-set
![44c89[1].png](http:///raw/d04/z/483b3.png)
It's the last 72 hours of voting and we've acquired almost 100 votes in each category, which we can't appreciate enough. The responses we got exceeded our expectations, with so many of you giving us really valuable feedback. If you want to help us get the 100 votes milestone, here's the link to our game :tada:
We are very pleased with the feedback on our game. We really enjoyed making it and playing it ourselves.
Fresh art by our artist.
Try it if you haven't seen it yet. It's going to be tough! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/handle-with-care
Many players found the end of SplashX challenging, so I have released a balancing update that reduces the difficulty of the final section.
If you haven't already given the game a try, I would appreciate your feedback on the update! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/splashx
(Virtual modem included)
I just got back from some traveling that started half way through the compo, have now rated 26 games, but need some ratings to get mine over the 20 ratings mark!
Play in your browser here. Touch-friendly (weird, for a old-school, text-based, BBS-style game, I know ^_^).
I actually recommend using keyboard, not mouse, but the recording reads better with the mouse ;).
Any other old-school, text-based games people have stumbled upon that I need to play?
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/how-high-how-many
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/nekonovas-not-home
I'm now live on Twitch for the next few hours to play your Ludum Dare games! I'm happy to give constructive feedback or just have fun with it. I’ll also be rating every game I play (but not while I'm live). If you want me to play your game, type !submit url/of/your/game in the Twitch chat. I can't promise I'll be able to get to every game submitted to me, but I'll do as many as I can in the time I have. I hope to see you there!
If you submitted to me during a previous stream and I didn't have time to get to yours (I know there's a lot of you), just let me know you're there in the chat, and I can give your game priority.
If I don't get to your game today, I'll still be trying to play through and rate as much of my backlog as I can for the next two nights... just off-stream.
P.S.: My entry is a game called Reactor. Feel free to check it out!
Please consider playing my compo entry, "Theory", while there's still time!
Escape from the alien robots by shifting between being alive and dead!
My game "A wild sheep chase" only needs a few more ratings to see the results. https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/a-wild-sheep-chase
Thank you very much!
