Ludum Dare 55 April 13–16, 2024

There's not much time left

Ludum dare is always a fun experience and an opportunity to learn. This time me and @nuanda79 tried our hand at the point and click genre, focusing and committing ourselves to creating a small story and not just a functioning gameplay. If you want to try something different from many others... https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/55/a-cake-from-beyond

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Final stream playing your games before the rating phase ends!

Alrighty, here we are! One more day where I'll stream me playing some more entries. I wanna try and prioritize playing games that are still in the danger zone, but feel free to join in and submit your game if you feel like it!

https://www.twitch.tv/gabrimer

Rating time is almost up.

Hello everybody!

I tried to participate in this ludum dare and managed to publish my game, but I've been extremely busy these last few weeks and that's why I've played very few games.

Because of this, my game has very few reviews, if you could help me by playing and evaluating I would greatly appreciate it.

In this game you will control a wizard who was accidentally trapped after a great epidemic where magic turned against sorcerers.

Your objective will be to use your wand to control the infected and escape from prison.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/55/shadow-wizard capa1.jpg Captura de Tela (1012).png

If you want my review, leave the link to your game here and I'll be happy to play it.

Apprentice Binder Retrospective

Since my participation in the Ludum Dare 54 Extra in October, @dindotdout and I had been talking about participating in a game jam together. I finished my year-long self-study of music theory in February and finished reading the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) in March, and thought that this would be a great opportunity to put all the acquired knowledge into practice. I got bored of making 2D pixel art for my games, and so in order to spice it up, I knew I wanted to do a 3D game this time around.

Preparation

Last time I participated with barely any knowledge of Godot (although I had used Unity and also implemented some of my own game engines before), so in order to be better prepared this time I did both the 2D and 3D tutorials, as well as reading the best practices page from the Godot documentation. @dindotdout had work experience with Godot, so that was really helpful. I also watched some videos on how to use Blender. The fact that Godot could easily import .glb files exported from Blender was really handy.

I set up a shared Google Drive folder and created three documents: Project Development Approach and Life Cycle, Project Team and Work Distribution, and Tools.

In the Project Development Approach and Life Cycle document I detailed the project development approach, the stages of the project, how the event works and how the stages fit in with the way the event works, and what will be done in each stage of the project. I decided on a hybrid project development approach, with up front planning to be completed before development so that everything is more or less clear and everyone is on the same page as to what game we are making, and then the development itself being agile. I decided on this approach because in my experience, planning on the go leads to team members being confused and not knowing what to do and wasting time idling and waiting on other team members to clarify things. This does not mean that changes or new ideas cannot be proposed later, but that having a clear game essence prototype as a basis early on is more efficient.

In the Project Team and Work Distribution document I listed the team members and what role is assigned to each team member. We tried to get another developer and composer on board but they decided to go their own way and make a game separately. We also tried to get a game designer on board but they had too busy a schedule to participate. So in the end it was only the two of us.

In the Tools document I listed the tools that would be used to make the game.

I also set up a Trello Kanban board and GitHub repository with a blank Godot project, and created a Links document in Google Drive so that team members can find the link to the Trello Kanban board at any time.

The Jam begins

The planning

On Saturday, April 13th at 3 AM CEST, the Summoning theme was revealed and we had an on-site meeting. We first knew that we were going to make a puzzle game with multiple levels, where in each level the player had to go from point A to point B, overcoming obstacles and hazards by using cards to summon creatures and objects. I had the Idea of making a hand of cards 3D UI to summon creatures and objects. @dindotdout proposed the idea of making a 2D platformer with a card effect that is something like a slingshot, where you can adjust the trajectory. We then had a debate between making the game in a first-person 3D view and a platformer game-like 2.5D view. We eventually settled for a 2.5D platformer game-like 2.5D view. The next topic of discussion was whether to make the game turn-based or real-time. Initially, we were working under the assumption that we would be making a turn-based game where each card use counted as a turn. Under this assumption, we had to split the cards into two categories: basic actions such as walking and jumping, and summons. We worked out some card ideas: a fire-breathing dragon that burns enemies and obstacles (and the player too, if they were not careful setting the position and orientation of the dragon), an air-breathing dragon that could be set and oriented either to blow upwards or forward, a catapult to propel either the player or a dragon, a block to be spawned mid-air, and a teleport, which I had the idea to make into a UFO.

So far we had the following clear: we were going to make a turn-based 2.5D physics-based puzzle platformer card game.

We planned for some hazards to appear in the game: death by friendly fire if the player made the fire dragon breathe in the player’s direction, enemies that shoot at you and spikes. Here we detected a problem with the turn-based aspect of the game: if one shot is all it takes for the player to die and the enemies have perfect aim, then how is it possible for the player to dodge and not die in one turn? Hence, to make things simpler, we dropped the turn-based aspect of the game and decided on having free player movement instead. This also simplified the card system, since we no longer had to split the cards into actions and summons, only summons remained.

Cutting corners

In the end, out of the planned cards, the fire-breathing dragon was dropped, the wind-breathing dragon made it but without the ability to set its orientation, the catapult was dropped and so was the block that spawned in mid-air, although a similar unplanned card did make it: the Sticky Slime, which is a static object that can also be spawned mid-air. The teleporting UFO also made it into the final game. No hazard and no dynamic obstacle made it into the game, so in the end we made a purely map-based puzzle game with no way for the player to die. There was one more thing that was planned but we forgot to put it in the game: a counter of the remaining cards in the deck, besides the visible 3 cards in the hand. Also the hand of cards UI was implemented in 2D and not in 3D as originally envisioned.

In the middle of development I came up with an idea of cards passively affecting gameplay: pulling out a cursed card from the deck that kills the player if they move right while the card is in the hand and the only way of getting rid of it is to pull a scissors card that cuts another card in the hand. There are unused unedited illustrations left over that were intended to be used for these cards. unused_cards.png

Something which we wanted to do but didn’t due to time constraints is adding decorations to the barren map. There is an unused grass texture and an unused rock model and texture. unused_assets.png

The development

Due to personal commitments, we started development on Sunday, so we only had two days to develop the game. It is worth mentioning that we used Trello as a Kanban board to remember and distribute the tasks. What follows is a log of the order in which things were implemented.

Development log Sunday, April 14th

@andriybyelikov: implement the 3D world scene using a GridMap and a player character scene with basic character movement and jumping physics using a CharacterBody3D.

@dindotdout with @andriybyelikov: implement the hand of cards UI and the UFO’s teleport card effect, using Camera3D’s project_position. Add “Contra musas privo boni” as placeholder BGM. We now have a working prototype with a level map, player movement and jumping, a hand of cards UI and the teleport card effect of the UFO.

Monday, April 15th

@dindotdout: implement summoning range mechanic and click terrain collisions.

@andriybyelikov: create the player model, textures and animations.

@dindotdout with @andriybyelikov: attempt to implement the Wind Dragon effect using an attenuation with distance function. Does not work. Look up @andriybyelikov’s uplift force generator demo implementation and fix it by constraining a maximum distance around the dragon inside which the force is active. Add player character “levitate” animation. @dindotdout later removes the maximum distance constraint and re-adds attenuation with distance as a factor.

@andriybyelikov: create the Wind Dragon, UFO, Sticky Slime and the rock models and textures.

@dindotdout: implement Sticky Slime behavior. The player can’t jump when stuck in it, while the Wind Dragon is frozen in place.

@andriybyelikov: replace placeholders with actual models.

@dindotdout: add a stuck speed parameter to the player and increase player normal speed.

@dindotdout: fix the player character spawning on top of the next level goal.

@dindotdout: implement the ability to restart a level and design levels 1 and 2.

@dindotdout: add particles to the Wind Dragon card effect.

@andriybyelikov: draw and edit the card illustrations.

@dindotdout: design levels 3 and 4.

@dindotdout with @andriybyelikov: replace placeholder UI with edited card illustrations and use the UglyQua font.

@dindotdout: implement the ability to cancel summoning with right click.

@dindotdout: adjust level camera.

@andriybyelikov: fill card descriptions.

@dindotdout: update the reset level button font.

@dindotdout: update summoning range texture.

@dindotdout: add Sticky Slime idle animation.

@dindotdout: change level lighting from a directional light to an omni light.

@dindotdout: add the R key as a shortcut to restart a level.

@dindotdout: fix the player sticking to the ceiling.

@dindotdout: replace placeholder level background with a noise texture.

@andriybyelikov: record and edit sound effects. Add sound effects in the game except for the UFO.

@dindotdout: add UFO animation and sound effect.

@dindotdout: create post-processing shaders.

@dindotdout: create title screen scene.

@dindotdout: create credits AcceptDialog in title screen.

@andriybyelikov: compose original music for the game.

@dindotdout: removed random card order and set it to fixed by level.

@andriybyelikov: replace placeholder BGM with original composition and create tutorial billboard textures in GIMP.

@dindotdout: add tutorial billboards in level 1.

@andriybyelikov: create level 6 (5) as reference to the “Time it right!” map.

@dindotdout: fix player sticking to the ceiling (again).

@dindotdout: discard level 5 and add level 6 as the fifth level.

@dindotdout with @andriybyelikov: fix texture gaps in the GridMap by making the blocks in the mesh library slightly larger and adjust chromatic aberration intensity.

@dindotdout: fill credits AcceptDialog.

@andriybyelikov: build and submit the game.

Implementation details

I will now explain how the physics are implemented for the player and the Wind Dragon, as well as the implementation of the Sticky Slime and UFO card effects.

Player

The player character is a CharacterBody3D, which means that it is not affected by built-in physics, but is instead moved based on its velocity. Each physics frame we set a target velocity for this physics body. For moving left and right this is trivial, we just set the target X-axis aligned velocity to be a predefined constant with the sign of the direction pressed by the player. For jumping, we check if the player is on the floor using Godot’s helper is_on_floor function and if the player pressed the jump action, an upwards impulse is applied to the player. Applying an impulse usually involves dividing the value of the impulse by the object’s mass, but for this game we considered that the player character has a mass of 1, therefore it is simplified to simply adding the value of the impulse as-is directly to the target Y-axis aligned velocity accumulator.

Something I learned from reading books on game physics is that one must never apply a force for jumping, since jumping is instantaneous. Due to how game physics are implemented, if one were to apply a force for jumping, it would be like applying a certain amount of force for a certain amount of time delta: the time between physics frames. If this value delta is too large, then too large a force would be applied to the physics body, resulting in a huge leap instead of a jump. An impulse, on the other hand, is independent of this delta, therefore we are applying the same impulse only once in one physics frame, no matter the delta.

The fall acceleration also has to be implemented manually for the CharacterBody3D, and we also have a small fix that stops the player from gaining Y-axis aligned speed when on the ceiling to prevent the player character from sticking to the ceiling.

The player also has a force accumulator that is evaluated to a velocity component and cleared every physics frame. This was necessary for implementing the interaction with the Wind Dragon, which is a force generator.

Wind Dragon

The Wind Dragon is a force generator that has a cylindrical shaped collider. Each physics frame, if the player character is detected colliding with it, a force is applied or added to the player character’s force accumulator. The exact force to be applied is

normalized_dragon_up * force_strength * attenuation,

where force_strength is a constant parameter and where attenuation is

1.0 - clamp(dist(player_pos, dragon_pos) / max_distance, 0.0, 1.0).

The fact that the effect of the Wind Dragon is a force that is added to the player character’s force accumulator means that having multiple Wind Dragons affecting the player stacks their effects. Thus, a player could stack three Wind Dragons on top of each other and the player character would go higher than if there was only one Wind Dragon.

Sticky Slime

The Sticky Slime is simply an Area3D that interacts differently with the player character and a Wind Dragon. If it detects that the player character has entered it, then it sets a flag in the player character that changes the player character movement mechanics preventing jumping and adding the ability to move up and down the Sticky Slime volume. If it detects that a Wind Dragon has entered it, then it sets that Wind Dragon’s RigidBody3D’s freeze flag, so that gravity and forces are not applied to it anymore.

UFO

The UFO does not exist as an independent entity but is instead a model that is used in the player character animation and the teleportation effect is implemented as a special case of confirming a summon by left clicking.

Music

A single original piece was written for the game. I chose the E Double Harmonic Major scale for the main motif in order to achieve an exotic and magical feel. The instruments used are: viola with spiccato for the main melody, seven string electric guitar with amp for the accompaniment consisting of the main melody's structural tones, a string section (viola, cello, first contrabass, second contrabass) for the I-iv-V7b5-I chord progression (with the second contrabass doubling the voice of the first an octave lower), and a drum machine for the percussion (kick, hi-hat closed, mounted crash cymbal). As a fun fact, the funny whistling sound of the chords was not intentional, but added a nice gimmick to the overall sound. I managed to isolate the instruments that cause it: it is the consonance between the vibrations of the viola and the cello. Those who have Bitwig Studio and want to toy with it have the project in the music/ld55_1 folder of the source code. I will also embed the YouTube video with the music below. The video description also has a list of the learning sources that I used for studying music theory. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTPTDhJzwgg

Sound effects

The sound effects were created in the following manner. I recorded the sounds using my phone. The wind breath sound effect is me blowing into the mic. The UFO sound effect is a sped up recording of a friend of mine who is good at whistling (I am not). The slime sound effect is a fragment of me slushing some wax with my fingers as loudly as I could, although in retrospect it doesn’t really fit. The card shuffle sound effect is a fragment of me dealing poker cards.

Feedback analysis

I created a Google Sheets spreadsheet compiling, classifying, analyzing and summarizing the feedback received in order to identify areas where the game should be enhanced as is and areas where it should be improved.

We managed to get 73 feedback samples from 33 unique users. The users were split into two groups: commenters and streamers. We got 49 samples from 28 commenters, an average of 1.71 samples per commenter, and we got 24 samples from 5 streamers, an average of 5 samples per streamer. From this data we concluded that streamers give 2.92 times more feedback samples than commenters, aside from valuable recorded gameplay in the form of VODs, for which we created a document listing the links to the VODs and the timestamps of when our game is played.

The samples were then grouped by topic. For each topic there is a count of positive feedbacks, negative feedbacks, score balance between positive and negative feedbacks (p-n), a summary of pros, a summary of cons and conclusions. What follows is the summary of the results of the feedback in the 13 extracted topics.

Map predictability

Amount of feedback samples: 9

Amount of positive samples: 1

Amount of negative samples: 8

Balance: -7

Summary of pros: One player reported that they liked the last level, the one with less predictability.

Summary of cons: Most players reported experiencing frustration from not being able to see further in the map, as it made them waste cards and forced them to restart the level. Mostly in level 5 but also sometimes in level 4.

Conclusions: Unpredictability makes for slightly more interesting gameplay, perhaps also slightly more challenging. Maybe we need to single out what causes the players frustration.

Card system

Amount of feedback samples: 4

Amount of positive samples: 0

Amount of negative samples: 4

Balance: -4

Summary of pros: No data

Summary of cons: Most players reported experiencing frustration from not knowing what cards they would be getting beforehand, and didn't understand whether the cards were dealt in a random order. One player didn't know that more cards would be coming.

Conclusions: No randomness is involved in the dealing of the cards, just human short memory span and removing cards from the hand at random positions makes it feel random. Also we need to indicate that there are more cards coming from the deck.

Chromatic aberration

Amount of feedback samples: 3

Amount of positive samples: 1

Amount of negative samples: 2

Balance: -1

Summary of pros: One player reported that they liked the chromatic aberration.

Summary of cons: Most players reported having difficulties with reading text with the chromatic aberration and annoyance at the expansion pulse.

Conclusions: We need to remove the chromatic aberration from the text and decide what to do with the pulse. We think that this is most biased towards the title screen, for which we forgot to tone down the chromatic aberration.

Music

Amount of feedback samples: 9

Amount of positive samples: 9

Amount of negative samples: 0

Balance: 9

Summary of pros: All players reported liking the music.

Summary of cons: No data

Conclusions: 🤩

Game essence

Amount of feedback samples: 13

Amount of positive samples: 12

Amount of negative samples: 1

Balance: 11

Summary of pros: Almost all players reported liking the game essence.

Summary of cons: One player reported they didn't feel like they were doing what we intended, as in solving the level as intended.

Conclusions: Make puzzles more flexible in terms of intended sequence and add card reloading so that players don't have to reset levels. We think that having to reset a level is a game killer.

Graphical style

Amount of feedback samples: 7

Amount of positive samples: 6

Amount of negative samples: 1

Balance: 5

Summary of pros: All players reported liking the old-school, low-poly, noise-textured graphical style, as well as the design of the player character. One player reported liking the aspect of mixing 2D and 3D.

Summary of cons: One player reported feeling that the map lacks graphical detail.

Conclusions: There was a rock model and grass texture planned to be used as map detail, which weren't used due to time constraints.

Card effects

Amount of feedback samples: 9

Amount of positive samples: 2

Amount of negative samples: 7

Balance: -5

Summary of pros: Some players reported liking the combination of the Sticky Slime with the Wind Dragon and stacking Wind Dragons.

Summary of cons: Some players reported having trouble understanding the Sticky Slime, stating that the description is insufficient. One player reports disappointment at the fact that the UFO doesn't combine with the other two cards. One player experienced inconsistent momentum when using Wind Dragons. One player thought that the effect of the UFO was not what they expected.

Conclusions: It seems like players like to combine card effects most. Some card effect behaviors must be corrected and adjusted, such as the Sticky Slime stickiness and the Wind Dragon momentum consistency. The Sticky Slime needs to be properly described in all its aspects: that it sticks in mid-air and that you can't jump from it.

Technical

Amount of feedback samples: 5

Amount of positive samples: 1

Amount of negative samples: 4

Balance: -3

Summary of pros: One player reported that the bug of the Wind Dragon falling off screen was funny.

Summary of cons: Players playing on high resolution displays reported that the UI was too small.

Conclusions: We need a UI scale solution for large displays. We can keep the dragon falling out of the screen as an easter egg but not as a bug.

Content

Amount of feedback samples: 7

Amount of positive samples: 1

Amount of negative samples: 6

Balance: -5

Summary of pros: One player reported liking that it's a concise game and not a long game with repetitive little content.

Summary of cons: Players want more cards and more levels.

Conclusions: As expected. The concise game idea is opposed to the boring procedurally generated levels idea that so many players dislike. So we need to make hand-crafted levels.

Level design

Amount of feedback samples: 3

Amount of positive samples: 3

Amount of negative samples: 0

Balance: 3

Summary of pros: Players report liking the level design. One player reports liking the tutorial billboards and soft level tutorials.

Summary of cons: No data

Conclusions: Invest heavily in soft tutorial levels.

UI

Amount of feedback samples: 2

Amount of positive samples: 0

Amount of negative samples: 2

Balance: -2

Summary of pros: No data

Summary of cons: One player reported that the credits dialog is too cluttered and that the range indicator should display green when you can spawn the effect and red when you can't, as most games do, instead of red/black, which is not intuitive.

Conclusions: We agree with the observation.

Presentation

Amount of feedback samples: 1

Amount of positive samples: 1

Amount of negative samples: 0

Balance: 1

Summary of pros: One player reports liking the polished presentation of the game.

Summary of cons: No data

Conclusions: Invest heavily in good presentation.

Sound design

Amount of feedback samples: 1

Amount of positive samples: 0

Amount of negative samples: 1

Balance: -1

Summary of pros: No data

Summary of cons: One player reports not noticing the sound effects.

Conclusions: Change and balance volume levels for sound effects.

Mistakes

There was no plan to make a dedicated game cover. I believe we would have benefited from a more eye-catching game cover for our game to receive more ratings. I believe that we should have opted out of the humor category, as the game does not have any humor elements aside from a funny bug. Some players did not rate our game in the category and I believe that it will impact our overall score.

Thanks

We want to thank the Ludum Dare organizers and community for making this event possible, and to the users who rated and left feedback on our game. Special thanks to @saryah, @ategon, @digitaliliad, @justcamh and @stanov for playing our game live on Twitch.

Hey folks! Help Needed: Play and Rate "Apprentice Quest"!

Lead Dev of my team here, I hope you're all doing well!

I'd like to kindly ask for your help with something. Our game, "Apprentice Quest," could really use a few more ratings, especially in the Humour and Mood categories. Humour is something that I have been working on personally in my writing having sufficient ratings in this category will give me an idea of where I am at!

Your feedback means a lot to the squad, and it will helps us make future games even better. So if you've got a few minutes to spare, we'd really appreciate it if you could give our game a play and drop a rating or two.

I'll be back home from work in about 2-3 hours, and I'll be diving into playing and rating more games myself. So it's a win-win situation for all of us!

Thanks a bunch for your support, and happy gaming!

(Anyone got the trash can familiar yet?)

HOW TO GATHER A PERFECT TEAM!

i thought i could write something useful here for beginners, and decided to talk about the right balance in the team. here are the tips!

manage possibilities

it’s been 3 years since we started participating in LD Jam, and since then we've gathered a lot of people around us. it was always a different experience: for some, everything went smoothly, others seemed quite anxious and annoyed, especially at the end of the jam.

it was never a team’s problem but a management's. lack of skills could also be a problem, we won't lie. that's why when you invite people to work with you, you need to evaluate the result and what you can do about it!

after all, it’s about work you do in a short amount of time with a lot of stress.

2 artist = 2 programmers

it might be obvious for some of you, but hear me out! we’ve tried different combinations of people and there were always problems for one or another part of the team. thus, the ideal 50/50 balancing system of your team should work just right!

but there may be exceptions! for example, we made a game in a company of 2 artists and 1 programmer, and it turned out to be a really solid and polished experience!

in general, just be confident in people and your ideas, and you will achieve your goals!

"shall we decide who’s gonna be a team lead?"

even in small projects, people tend to look for a responsible person to lead the project. sometimes i think the role of a leader on jams is kinda overrated, but with practice, i understand that you better have a person who will summarise all the ideas and see what can work best.

after all, you need someone who can tell you what you should do next when you finish another task, imma right?

try to collaborate!

if you have a person whom you have known for many years, but have never tried to work with, then you are the lucky one!

it’s always useful to communicate and work with new ones in a professional environment, especially if you know what they are good at. a fresh look at the project and innovations are always useful.

at the same time, you will find out if you will be able to work in the future and assemble a dream team with them!

and my personal tip: encourage and cheer everyone for their work!

maybe that's why you should have a team leader, but i'm a genial person myself, so despite everything i do, i try to cheer everyone up for their work and offer my help.

the team should be built on trust and support, so the main thing in stressful situations is not to lose your mind!


i'm not sure if this was useful enough, after all, each of us has our own way, but i hope that you guys will find a team that you will enjoy working with!

i’d like to express my special gratitude to the friends with whom i’ve been able to work over all these years! i hope that our future together will be bright <3

@kndratova @nomersol @rekkorize @oleg-bone @DurkaGames

thank your teammates as well! spread positivity and good vibes :3

love is love.png

TO THE DANGER ZONE!!!

danger-zone-red-rubber-stamp-over-a-white-background-E4T4JK.jpg

https://ldjam.com/games/danger/all

Alright people - 24 hours left. Let's save some games!!

I know, I know, maybe if they'd rated more etc they could cross the line, and so on - but who knows, maybe they were too busy (it happens), maybe they're new and missed the boat, whatever. But they made a game, and that's awesome.

Looks like twitch.tv/frankiepixelshow is streaming some endangered stuff too.

Let's get around them and encourage people to keep making games.

Game that needs help

Hi! if there is still anyone out there, I found a game that only needs 8 kind souls to test it out: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/55/spellbound-battlegrounds

It's a multiplayer game so at this point you won't find anybody playing but it's still an interesting project to check it out.

Thank you for playing Untitled Witch Game!

With 24 hours left of the jam we'd like to thank everyone who played and rated our game!

We are very thankful for all the feedback you've given us and we look forward to participating in the next jam!

If you haven't already played Untitled Witch Game, you can visit the jam page here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/55/untitled-witch-game

promo.png

I will play & rate your games on my first stream :)

I have a wheel to pick between submissions - Games below 20 ratings get 10 weight on start (have to prioritize with so little time left!) - Each teammate (present in chat) adds 0.2 to weight - Losing in a spin adds 0.2 to weight

https://www.twitch.tv/xpmonsterx

Post Jam Update for my Game

A bit later than I would've liked, but based on feedback I've received, I managed to make a revised version of my game, The Acolyte's Errand.

acolytesemerrand/emcover.png

All of the changes are listed on the game page, but among them are more sound effects and some quality of life changes that make the game easier to beat or less of a slog.

Click Here to Reach the Game Page

aco_screenshot 3.png

It's still pretty rough around the edges (looking at you, zombies), but I'm still really proud how it all came out. I've already got 20 ratings, but I'd still really appreciate it if you gave it an old, college try, whatever that means.

Last Opportunity to Corrupt your Neighborhoods!

Well after some fixes in the game and some new additions to the base version of the Jam, this is the last call to try the summoning of what could be your favorite god/demon!

mdld_Prototype5.gif

It's intriguing to see how so far no one has been able to pass level 5, but more than 200 demons have been summoned!

mdld_Prototype4.gif

Thank you very much to everyone who has tried and dedicated their valuable time to this game made with love and satanism. For those who have not yet tried it, I cordially invite you to try it and leave me your comments in passing, I will surely go through your game too!

Play the Game Here!

mdld-1.png <3 Hail Cthulhin!

Last chance to try our game !

🚀 Don't miss out on your last chance to try our game! Become the master of the pack of a devoted army 🐑🌟

Game over.png

➡️ Let’s Kick a** ! https://shenoit.itch.io/sheep ⬅️

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/55/s-h-e-e-p-sheep-hell-emissaries-eradicate-purity

crédits.png

@z0rg @andy-link @nougato @shenoit @katanajellyfish

Some updated Data

After my last post regarding game data from Turret Queen (from players that didn't opt-out), things changed a bit. The game had at least 10 more plays, and 4 of them beat the game!
Clearly mentioning only for out of 40 had completed it triggered some people! I deeply appreciate you all for that!! :heart:

The updated statistics now are Average deaths per session: 3.016 Average victories per session: 0.116 Screenshot 2024-05-03 at 11.24.35.png And who made this turret? :joy: :joy: gife-ezgif.com-speed.gif

Thanks everyone, I had a blast this time around (as usual), lots of awesome games (and players).
I will finish with 2 more gifs, all the deaths and death screens this LD!

animation.gif.

animation_all.gif.
See you all again in October, and good luck!

Thank you for voting!

As the voting period is almost over, we'd like to thank everyone who voted and played our game TAO! :trophy: :hugging: Your feedback really means a lot to us!

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Retrospective

Took longer to get around to this than I thought!

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The Theme

As part of rating themes during the final rounds I usually jot down ideas for each theme if I can so that I have some idea of what I can do right from the start. I was actually pretty excited when Summoning won since I had a pretty clear idea in my head of what I wanted to do. Plenty of other people went with other meanings of "summoning" which was great to see.

What Went Right

  • I blitzed through most of the static art in one morning and in general I think the art turned out pretty well. The enemy popping effect and the cars are my favorites!
  • Basic game-feel. It's was important to me that any challenge would come from decisions the player makes and the actions they take, not fighting against unresponsive controls or wonky collision. I might make a post with some tips since I do see some submissions neglect to do things like normalizing player input which are quick, easy fixes.
  • Barebones risk-reward combo meter. It's enough that once there's some cop cars you need to start taking opportunities to smack carrots to refresh your meter. Nothing amazing but without it I think the baseline scoring would be pretty boring.
  • Extra features. Was pretty easy to rework previous settings and controls rebinding stuff I had, which I think helps add a layer of polish.
  • I already have a kinda-engine on top of SDL2 with a lot of convenience and features built in. (I even recently made a dialog system but not had chance to use it yet!) I'm extremely comfortable in it and feel very productive. It's a big help in being able to get something out in the timeframe. And the code is GPL3, although I've not bothered to make a public repository for it or anything - maybe I should at some point.

What Went Wrong

  • I had been working on a different physics system using verlet integration before the jam and completely forgot I hadn't done frame-independent friction for it. So half way through I had to yank all that out and just go with simple euler and AABB collision, after I wasted time trying to rush and hack together a solution. Was really frustrating.
  • My weekend ended up not being super productive after getting the art and basics in. I probably got 75% of the game done in a marathon session on Monday.
  • The leafy-brain carrots were originally either going to psychically attack the player or levitate around to introduce either more risk or add some complexity to gathering and juggling carrots. I just didn't get time to do them. Without them I do think the game misses a layer of interesting gameplay.
  • Some of the animations are kinda stiff or I had to reuse for time. I didn't get player dashing or hurt animations done for example. Simple trade offs of time versus getting other things done.
  • Post-submission I've been distracted with other things and sickness, so I've been slacking on rating other games and really participating. Next time I think it would be good to dedicate a little bit more time for some interesting 'my game is up!' material, follow up posts for exposure and having time set aside to rate others. In generally I'm very bad at advertising my own things, but also I've been missing out on going through all the amazing submissions people have done.

Next Time

  • The last two jams I've been pretty safe with gameplay. Next time I want to focus a bit more on coming up with something different and interesting as a starting point.
  • I try to do as much as I can myself with art, programming, sound effects but I'm always relying on others for music. I'd love to try learning some music theory and make an attempt next jam to create at least one piece of music.

I don't think my account is trusted so I can't seem to post links in these (or at least they get gobbled up when I preview this), so if you'd like to check out Crimes Against Carrots please click on my name to view my submissions! Thank you for everyone that's commented and rated so far!

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