I'm in for the first time !

Looking forward to my 3rd Ludum Dare! I've always used Unity as my jam engine, but I'm interested in jumping ship for Godot so maybe I'll try that this time??

I'll start with the bad news: I do not expect to take part in Ludum Dare 49. I have prior commitments, and want to avoid spreading myself too thinly.

Now for the good news: one of those "prior commitments" is a bullet hell shooter I'm developing in TIC-80, that draws on everything I've learned from my eight previous Ludum Dare entries. I'm aiming to get a demo out by the end of the month, and if all goes well, the finished game will become my first fully-fledged release. So I believe it's worth breaking my streak just to keep up my momentum on that project.

I may still take part in LD49, depending on my energy levels and whether the theme interests me, but I most likely will not. I will, however, return for Ludum Dare 50, come what may.

Here's a (slightly outdated) teaser of what I'm working on:

@pov If you could please change my username from:

orig: RonanRorry

new: RonanRory

Thanks very much in advance.

ALSO! Any of you other people who are seeing this post... shhhhhh

Nearly 4 years ago, I last participated in Ludum Dare #40. I had big plans for the next iteration, but then we found out how much of a stinker that ended up being; not long after that, I completely lost interest and decided to leave to do other things, like improve my drawing ability.

Back then, I couldn’t draw to save my life. I would scribble some abomination with Flipnote Studio, then take a photo of it to clean up; and I was terrible at that, too. My profile picture used to look like this:

But in recent years, I’ve grown fond of GIMP, and drawn a bunch of ~~generic~~ different character designs. More recently, I've tried drawing myself; this picture in particular I made specifically for this post:

You can decide for yourself if/how much I’ve improved.

But being good at drawing can only get you so far in a game jam, so what’s changed since?

For my Ludum Dare #40 submission: Shape Invasion, I used Clickteam Fusion 2.5 as the game development tool. I’m not exactly too proud of that decision, even IF it was all I knew back then. I wasn’t very experienced with GameMaker: Studio at the time, and Unity was.... well.. it's still a pipe dream.

Even while typing this, I'm kinda worried about how much experience I DO have with it, as that's what I wanna use for this jam. And I'm specifically referring to GameMaker Studio 1.4, as I've never fully completed a game with it, though I got super close once.

Bosca Ceoil is the popular music creation choice for many a participant, and for good reason: because it's incredibly intuitive! And I certainly used it for Shape Invasion. But I cannot STAND any music I've made! I've reached acceptance with drawing; that my work will easily be outclassed by the other guy, and I don't care. But music has taken the backest of seats. Funny enough, my game scored highest in the Audio category. Despite that, I'm not exactly looking forward to making music for my entry.

But who cares about any of the above? I know you all are just teetering at the edge of your seats to know what themes I've suggested; I know I'd be doing the same, of course!

Well, I've spent a few days with a LibreOffice text document of the themes I've come up with. I came up with two REALLY good themes (in my opinion), but a third one wouldn't come, so I said "screw it!" and typed up the bottom theme in this picture:

Here's the full list of themes that I came up with:

Feel free to use one of these for a personal project, even if I do state why the red ones probably wouldn't be a good Ludum Dare theme.

Apologies on behalf of this post's length; I can get a little carried away. So yeah, have a good one, everyone.

Pretty excited form Lundum Dare 49.

Coming back with the same teamup as in April. As the 3d modeling part of the team I can show off my progress over the last few months in a very visual way. Here is what I made last time for ldjam

and then here is my most recent character model and some outfits that I made

I have a youtube channel now where I show timelapses of my work and I expect that I'll record and post some videos of my work during LDjam 49 there too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcQu0M6YtBE

See below for a list of deals and promotions for the upcoming event (check the comments too).

If you'd like to offer a deal/promotion, you can leave a comment below or contact me directly. Be aware that I can be slow to respond via email. I will update this periodically.

GameMaker Studio

Ludum Dare 49 is sponsored by GameMaker Studio 2. You can find more details here.

• GameMaker Studio 2 licenses - Good Until October 6th: https://accounts.yoyogames.com/promo/ld49

Assets and add-ons

• GMLive - 20% off - Live-coding for GMS! Details: https://itch.io/s/56580/a-little-sale-for-ludum-dare

More Deals

• Construct 3 - Free to use during Ludum Dare: https://www.construct.net/.../ludum-dare-once-again-free-1572

See below for more

Some random thoughts about LD jam. This is my 12th Ludum Dare! Yay!

• Don't stress yourself. It is meant to be fun, not competition
• The project you are doing is mainly to challenge yourself, so don't be discouradged when you will not have too many players.
• Be friendly, don't take LD seriously. (Don't flame others, don't hate on games you don't particularly like, etc.)
• Start small, add extra stuff later
• Share your stuff with others on this page! It is always cool to check the LD wall for inspiration and motivation.
• Don't be afraid to make your own art/music. Even if it's not an artistic masterpiece, we Ludum Dare fans always appreciate it!
• Try something new (did you make an RPG before, try to make a strategy game now!)
• Plan your project and timeline in advance so you don't get busted 2 hours before deadline.
• You don't need to use the theme literally. E.g. If the theme is "darkness", the game doesn't need to be literally in darkness. It can be taken more poetically like "darkness in my heart", a romantic story game about love.
• Just do what you want, and make the game HOWEVER YOU WANT.

(art by abueloretrowave)

This is my first LD. Seeing as some of you, folks, put your suggestions here, I thought I might do the same. Mine are:

• controlled chaos
• player indirectly controls his avatar
• words

I wanted to submit suggestions that would give devs some creativity and freedom in how they would approach given theme.

Hi everyone! I’m Danae and I create whimsical fantasy music for games, and conjure up the implementation of that audio into your game as well.

For LD49 I'm looking again for an individual or team to join to create an awesome game together! I love to create music for narrative games with a fantasy theme, or any other game that would benefit from music in my style (a mix between ambient, orchestral and electronic music). People often describe my music as fantastical and whimsical, some even think it would fit nicely in games as Hollow Knight. I specialize in music that adapts to gameplay or for example the environment in the world, so apart from a simple audio file I can also provide you with an adaptive music system or technical audio design. I’ve mostly worked with Unity, FMOD and JS (Web Audio) on this part, but I’m always eager to learn new implementation techniques.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox1CHWTb3Vk

Please have a look and listen at my game music showreel or my composition work to see what I have to offer! I also recently worked on the music and audio for Ignis Universia: Awakening of the Erudite Empress.

Don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any question or like to have me on your team! You can find me at Discord as Fae#8918, or on Twitter as da_nae. It’s however good to know that I live in Europe (CEST time zone), so a team located in that region is preferred :).

Good luck to everyone and stay safe!

Hopefully this won't go too poorly, but I'll be between apartments during this event. Game dev on a laptop is gonna be a fun new limitation!

We are looking for one more programmer and 2 or 1 artist. I am a Game Designer along with my other colleagues. I help with 2d art assets(especially pixel art) and I can also help as a sonidist, although if there is an interested musician, welcome.

I’m in this time with the same tools as before.

• Haxe/Heaps
• Base Library (https://gitlab.com/ZwodahS/haxe-zf)
• Roguelike Engine (https://gitlab.com/ZwodahS/ren)
• Aseprite for graphics
• ChipTone for sound effects.

I did not put in a lot of effort in the last LD as I was working on my game. Looking back I kind of regretted not doing more but I guess that's the past. This time I will reserve the 2 ~ 3 days to do a proper LD again.

In the meantime, why not check out the game that I am working on over at https://zwodahs.itch.io/explore-the-abyss. It is a traditional roguelike with heavy focus on inventory management. The game is currently in alpha and appreciate any feedback for the game.

Good morning evening or what ever time of day you find your self. Right now I am building team again for this ludum dare right now I am looking for some artists and programmers. Please message me if you are intrested. KingOfNova #9334

Hello devs, this is my second game jam. This time I want to practice certain art style (see screenshot below): hand printing + procreate pencil.

I am going to create a small visual novel with Twine. I will participate in writing too, but would like to devote more time to drawing. If you are

• fine with the chosen art style,
• want to practice narrative design and writing (including little jokes)
• a hard worker but not a perfectionist and don't take jam too seriously

leave a comment, maybe we can make a team :)

Hello! I'm a comedy writer, video producer, and new game writer. Just did a game jam earlier this year, and eager for more! You can see my work at leomargul.com. If your team needs a writer, I'd be happy to jump in, just get in touch with me at leo dot margul at gmail.com! Looking forward to jamming!

The Theme Slaughter has kicked off! We've taken your 3000+ suggestions, removed the more obvious duplicates, and for the next week we need your help to decide what you do and do not like. Click below to help out.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/theme

On Monday we'll be running a script to remove the most inappropriate themes, but we need your help to find them first. Many thanks!

Announcements Incoming

Stay tuned! We have some big announcements coming in the next few days. :wink:

Having lurched through another theme slaughter, I think there are two changes that could be made so that it isn't such an onerous task.

• Only let people submit one theme each. We clearly get enough suggestions. Even if we got one-third as many, that would still be around 1000 theme suggestions.
• Show the themes in batches of 10 rather than 1 at a time. Each theme should automatically be a "NO" and you could just click on the ones you like to make them a "YES". Button or SPACE to go to the next batch.

Good luck with the slaughter!

Here's how I went...