Another gif of our LD 35 game. Play it now! Just click on the gif!

Send me your Game(or just a game which you thin deserves more votes) and I try to play it.

I am not a YouTuber or something like that, I just want to play LD games.

Here is the submission form: http://goo.gl/forms/zh4qqqqhxF

And If you haven’t already, here is my Compo Game to play: Click

It’s there, it’s there!

Tags: game, jam, LD35

Here is my personal all time highscore in our LDJAM Entry DR. LEPUS – The last rabbit on earth.

Personal Highscore in DR.LEPUS

SCORE: 116255
Playtime: 3 min 18 sec

Can you beat it?

Play the Game here

Our personal goal for this jam was to focus on polish more than anything else because that is something we had the most trouble with in earlier jams. By the way, this was our third Ludum Dare of the past four, which also made it our first Ludum Dareversary. This post mortem is mostly focused on the design and production aspects of development, we might talk about programming, visuals and music in another one.

How it looked on Day 1…

… and the result!

The idea for the game came rather quickly, and due to the amount of resources about the genre it did not take longer than a few hours to come up with a playable prototype. Creating a match-three-game was something we discussed before, as part of some “make all the genres but start with the casual stuff”-masterplan. After we had come up with our initial idea and set up a first gameplay prototype we ran into some motivational problems. It might have been the different way we approached the jam this time but after the basics were done work pretty much stopped for the rest of day one. Luckily George came over to help us out with sounds and music on the second day, which forced us to continue working and ultimately lead to us becoming motivated enough to keep working through the rest of Day 2 and 3.

We did not see the full potential of our shapeshifting idea until Day 2, which might have also played a role in us losing motivation at first but then regaining it. The shapeshifting had to be incorporated into the game in a understandable way. That is why we came up with the idea to let people play a match-three-game as usual and then shift a creature with the data we get out of that. It took us a full day to see that what was initially planned as nothing but a visual gimmick would have an effect on the gameplay as well. When we put the monster in and added the mechanic to change shapes when crushing potions the playtesting opened our eyes and we saw that our gimmick was actually a mechanic. We unintentionally ended up with a meta-game to be played while playing the core game If you have not played the game: Certain amounts of certain potions will change the shape of a body part of the monster, and to achieve a full shapeshift it is neccessary to crush a lot of one color while avoiding all the others as much as possible. That is one of the two tactics we found so far, the other being very good at creating large chain reactions and having a bunch of luck that enough of the right potions are destroyed. It was nice to see that we don’t have to try and build up a complex idea beforehand and can just go for it and come up with something interesting.

The Collection

Because we wanted to get as much as possible out of the mechanic we had, we added the collection to the main menu. I usually like collectibles in games, if they don’t feel arbitrary and fit the gameplay as well as the theme and/or story. The collection also seemed like a good way to communicate the target of the game to players without having to write a long text most people won’t read. It was particularly hard to refrain from trying to add more content and/or features, as it usually is when the basic idea works well. But we managed to focus on our initial goal of making a more polished game instead of an overly ambitious one. Even though we spent way more time than before on making everything seem finished the game still has some issues. Most of them came up in the comments we received so far (thank you to everybody who commented!) and we want to tackle those next before either building around the jam version or try to port it for mobile devices.

Play and rate our game here

Tags: casual, ld35 post mortem, match three, shapeshifting

We finally solved some issues in Algebro that were causing the html5 version of the game to crash, so you can now play it in your browser!

PLAY NOW

Remember how much your imagination would run wild when you were just a bored kid at school?

Let our team, Chummy Winds, take you back to a time of daydreaming and doodling in our first Ludum Dare jam game, Algebro.
Take control of the little dude and fight your way through 3 beautifully designed stages, dashing between 2D and 3D to fend off the blood thirsty shapes who are trying to suck you into their world.

I’m pleased to announce that the Mac and Linux builds of Robot Escape are now available.

I admit these are only somewhat cursorily tested, so please reach out to me if there’s any problems with them.

Play Robot Escape Here

Tags: crossplatform, linux, mac, port, unity

I just found my game in the mosaic!

If you haven’t yet, go play ShapeGrid and post your highscore! Mine is 223 😀

Thanks everyone for your SO possitive feedback. I did not expect those great reviews!

Cheers!

Now that I’ve grabbed your attention, why not give my entry SHAPE.SHIFT() a try?

Played a good few games so far, and there are a handful that stick out in terms of innovation and polish. If you are looking for good games to play or to learn a few new innovative design tricks, these are definitely for you. Hopefully some of them get developed further:

PERMUTATE by TravisChen

PERMUTATE is an interesting look into movement design and how it can shape a game. I would really like to see a game like this developed further. There are a lot of directions and combinations you can take puzzle creation with such a unique movement system!

Play

55 Days by V4lesti

55 Days is a neat little tycoon-like puzzle game. The game feels like it is built for mobile, and it runs on ActionScript I believe, but it is by no means a cheap game. This game is a very polished and soothing experience. If you are looking for a way to kill some time, this is your answer. I could definitely see a game like this selling well on the mobile/HTML5 market.

Play

Soothsayer Simulator 2016 by iceburg7

I know the name and look of the screenshot would suggest that it isn’t an amazing design test, but it is. A very creative venture on the part of iceburg7. I won’t say more about this in fear of spoiling it!

Play

think about it?

Why is everyone focusing so much on graphics. Its not the core of a game.

Its just the cream…..

Now you can play ShiftyBalls in your browser via WebGL! Click here for the new web version, and then please go here to rate it. If the web version gives you trouble, then please try the Windows one.

So, I finished a game for LD for the fourth time. I have to say that this just becomes more and more fun each time!

Click on the gif to play the game

When I woke up and saw the theme, I was pretty terrified (we get the theme here at 3am on Saturday) 😀 All that came to mind was werewolves, damn you Shadows of Innistrad! But then I started thinking, what if you didn’t control the characters directly, but instead guided them with/in shapeshifting. Once I had the idea, everything started to become very clear. The game mechanics and all.

I programmed in JavaScript (Phaser) and used a template I had created for Ludum Dare. Feel free to use it, if you like, and make suggestions if you think something could be improved. You can find it on github 

I started out with placeholder graphics (just colored boxes) to see if the idea would be any fun. I added P2 physics for “funnier” physics (than just non-rotating box collisions). I had lots of trouble getting the physics to work with the tiling engine (phaser tiled plugin). Afterwards I noticed that it was a matter of a simple typo in my map data. I had already changed to a simpler, less efficient tiling engine (phaser’s own), so it was too late to change back. I had to live with my choices, but luckily the maps were not scrollable anyway, so there wouldn’t be performance problems (which I had plenty in “Oddest Jobs”, my LD32 game). That’s the problem you have when you’re working alone, you can’t tap on someone elses brain power to find a silly bug.

After the game started to take form, day 1 was already in the evening side. I decided to stop working on the code and started to draw graphics. Since I basically already knew what the sprites needed to be and what size, I could work pretty fast. I got most of the graphics into a raw state at the end of day one. I did most of the graphics on the iPad in an app called Pixaki, and the sprite animations in an iPad application as well called Sprite Something. At the end of the day I made a checklist on the features that still need to be done.

At the start of day 2, I knew what was still to be done and felt I had plenty of time. Well, naturally things don’t really work like that 😀 I’m not a musician, so making a song that was tolerable took me some time. I used a music creation plaything called NodeBeat on the iPad. The sounds took quite a while too, since this time I tried to make them extra-not-annoying. I used ChipTone for the sounds. I did finish the game at an early time, but I noticed the game could use a coat of polish, so in come the particles. I was starting to get really tired, so I didn’t get the particles quite as well done as I had hoped, but they look alright! They add enough distraction to the transformations so you don’t notice that they’re an immediate frame change.

The end result is Posthistoric Ooze that takes a page from the lemmings book. I hope you’ll give it a go and maybe rate it too (if you can)! Any improvement-commentary is welcome! I’m working on a post-compo build, so improving on it still

My tips (might apply to you or not):

– Use placeholder graphics until the rudimentary game mechanics are done. Basically when a game level can be completed.
– Make an “empty” template that compiles and runs before the compo starts. This will allow you to start coding right away, instead of fighting with webpack or a similar tool.
– Don’t drink too much energy drinks, they kill your focus (and they’re a diuretic, too much time away from the computer :D)
– Make checklists on things that still need to be done, so you’ll remember and can prioritize, and this can actually increase your focus.
– Immediately write down things you think might be good for the game. They can be ignored if they turn out to be too much work.
– Get into a peaceful space to work on the project. For me, it’s the office, there’s nobody else there

Hello guys!

We are proud to inform that the Windows version of WolfBit has just reduced from 51Mb to 19Mb.

BUT… HOW?

Well, according to Microsoft Developer Network:

“A program database (PDB) file holds debugging and project state information that allows incremental linking of a Debug configuration of your program. A PDB file is created when you compile a C/C++ program with /ZI or /Zi or a Visual Basic/C#/JScript .NET program with /debug.”

That means they are not necessary AT ALL for release builds (AKA running perfectly your game).

And I find that a pretty good advise, as I have seen more than one game at LD35 that has been given the suggestion to remove these huge useless Megabytes of it.

(Including us!)

So thanks Ludum Dare community for pointing this out! It’s really good to be a part of it.

By the way, if you haven’t played our game, WolfBit, go on and check it here.

We are really proud of it, I mean, look at our title screen

Edit: Next step is learn how to post GIFs here (we’ll work on that!).

Another gif of our LD 35 game. Play it now! Just click on the gif!

If you have played The Wewelsburg Experiment, maybe you didn’t know that there is an EXIT you have to find and that the castle is brand new, generated every time you play.

We didn’t have time to watch people outside the team play to get feedback, and we’ve been getting feedback now that make us think that.  And so, we wanted you to know :).  Open the map and try to get out of the castle!

Tags: castle, experiment, feedback, map, wewelsburg

If so, please check out Conjurer’s Quest! I spent a bit of time on the music and the graphics and managed to include multiple endings.

I also made the whole thing in under 24 hours, so I guess that’s always good.

Please play it here!

I am , my dear friend , who they call The Yellow Wizard [1].

[2]

You see, I were one day in my cave watching NetPhoenix and enjoying my favorite show Game of The Staffs when …

BAAMM !

POOF  !

RAAGH!

TAASH !

That really bothered me [3]!

So I went out of my cave only to see two armies fighting in my backyard !!

I decided to show them who is The Yellow Wizard 

As I set afoot to use my shape-shifting spell to finish this battle quickly .

Well you might ask how would I do that ?

I tell you I will kill one of the commanders of the two armies and then

well, they will probably fight somewhere else.

brilliant eeh ?

Will what are you waiting for then , move you “curser” and curse this link bellow.

                                                  Play The game here 

                                                             Curse Me

Notes:

[1]

Not because I always wear yellow but because I am actually a wizard who happens to love wearing yellowish robes since no one would call someone “The Yellow” alone unless they have a trait that precedes that and therefore I justified my naming.

[2]

The Developer usually draws well but The Yellow Wizard happens to be less than good looking 😛

[3]

As I don’t have headphones you see.

[4]

This footnote will soon be garbage-collected!

Tags: LD 35

Shape Shifter – Play Here

Here is a small gif about this shifter. I used only circle shapes in graphics. I honestly did not have time for anything else.

Do people still do these?

Here’s mine anyway, I like seeing these because progress is fascinating.

Go play & vote on Spinstar HERE!

Tags: chronolapse, LD35, Spinstar, timelapse