Looking forward to this weekend, and I hope the Theme will allow for a Christmas type of game. As always, I will wait to see if I will do the Jam or Compo. I am very excited that my son is going to join this time and build his own game. Wish @gamingvoidplayz. Good Luck to everyone!
Cheers!
The Tools:
I never expected that theme to make it into the final round!
Mine are Prelude of the Chambered (nostalgic to a certain year and emotionally significant) and Angry Tracks (spooky game, cheeky).
I'm in for Ludum Dare 43. I will be doing my usual: web-based game (JavaScript, HTML, CSS), probably with pixel graphics (using Pickle or Photoshop), probably with no sound, and probably using some libraries like RocketBoots, Pixi, AStar, etc.
I am hoping to make some kind of a "top-down" 2d type game with building elements, but if it looks like I won't have much time I'll resort to making an incremental/click game.
I would be very happy with any theme that comes out of this... In the end, I was just voting for my favorites out of a bunch of great ideas
I would like to start by saying how proud I am of y'all for voting in the best selection of finalists I've seen in quite some time.
Tools!
GameMaker Studio 2 Photoshop CS5 sfxr Audacity Alcohol
First jam I've attempted in a while. Maybe this can help reignite my muse - we'll have to see.
Looking forward to comparing what I can do in the time allotted vs what others can do..
Tools: Game Maker Studio 1.4, Asesprite, LMMS, and maybe SFXR and or BFXR.
All resources will be produced during jam to practice rapid development techniques.
I really promise I'm going to finish making a simple game.
Hey everyone! I'm looking forward to jamming with you all!!
This isn't my first rodeo, and I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone makes!
May the best game win!
You can check out my social media and past entries below!
2D Arcade Pixel Art focused
Jamming for now, if things go well might push for the 48.
Eat, Sleep, Ludum Dare, Repeat ...
This will not only be my first game jam but the first time I will try to actually finish a game! I am going to stream my experience on twitch if any of you will want to come and give me an advice. I am going to use Unity Engine, Bosca Ceoil and Photoshop.
Looking forward to making something for this LD. It will be my 6th entry. I'll use Unity, Photoshop, Visual Studio Code, Bfxr, and Audacity. Good luck everyone!
I get it. I'm supposed to come up with a game idea in 48 hours. Wait, what's that? I'm supposed to make a complete game in 48 hours...from scratch? My coding skills are in mothballs gathering dust and rust. I haven't made a game or coded anything significant in years. I am terrible at anything graphical. My music and sound creation skills are not much better. Make a game in 48 hours and present it to the world? I'm in.
Really excited to join again! I've been having a great time voting on the themes, and even took a stab at suggesting a few back when submissions were being taken. (Surprisingly, one of them -- "Transform your surroundings" -- showed up in round 3!)
Ludum Dare #42 this past August was my first game jam ever, and shortly afterward I wrote up a detailed postmortem dev blog post about how it went, and some lessons learned. One of the biggest items in the "things to do differently next time" section was to use an actual game engine. I had used ReactJS for my last Ludum Dare submission -- which worked reasonably well for UI stuff, but not so much for animations / sounds / general polish. And I've been using SpriteKit pretty heavily for an iPhone game I'm making, but it's not very well-suited for a game jam where ideally you'd want something that could be played directly in the browser.
So after some research and recommendations, I decided to give Godot Engine a try this time around. I've started reading the docs and playing around with it a little these last few days, and so far, I'm really loving it. But I'm also completely new to it, so part of the challenge for this Ludum Dare will be to see if I can learn an entirely new engine, and make a game with it, in the span of less than a week. It'll be interesting to see how this goes or if I'm completely biting off more than I can chew.
Normally I gravitate toward RPG mechanics and progression systems in my projects, but since I'll be going solo on a single-weekend jam using an unfamiliar engine, it'll be all the more important to keep it as simple as possible. Currently I'm thinking of aiming for something my daughters (ages 4 and 7) would be able to play and enjoy... Their latest obsessions include unicorns and slime, so I might see if I can work some of those in too depending on the final chosen theme!
This is my 3rd game jam, and I'm excited as heck. I don't really like the themes this time though. I will be using unity, paint.net, and (if it's going to be 3d) blender. I usually use obs to record clips of the game's progress and show it to my friends. Would anyone be interested in seeing them?
DDRKirby(ISQ) here, reporting that team Cocoa Moss is in for LD43! I'll be teaming with @xellaya again this time, using the usual suite of tools (Unity3D, FL Studio, etc.), along with our usual janky starter code. I've just recently updated to Unity 2018, which hopefully won't cause any issues! (knocks on wood)
This'll be my 20th time entering Ludum Dare, which is pretty exciting! By this time I've go nothing specific I'm really aiming to get out of LD, just hoping to keep on making things and experimenting.
TODOs left before the event starts: - Create the new project from my template and commit to Bitbucket - Go shopping for groceries and snacks! - Take care of one or two other unrelated things that I need to get done so I don't have to worry about them over the weekend
See you all at the starting line!
Since everybody's been giving their thoughts on the themes, I thought I'd weigh in for the final round. I'm pretty confident in my ability to come up with something I like no matter what the theme is, so the two main questions I ask myself when voting on themes are:
Here's how I think the themes stack up.
0 - Automation
This theme has some versatility, but it does encourage games that are reliant on AI, which is a bit challenging for beginners (and one of my personal weak spots as a developer). It also encourages genres with more passive gameplay styles, such as tower defense and clickers, which aren't my favorite.
+1 - Break the cycle
This is a good theme because it could apply to either the gameplay or the story. There are lots of different types of cycles, both physical and social, so I think this would result in a good amount of variety.
-1 - Control the environment, not the player
I suspect that this one would also be a challenge for beginners, but that problem alone would only bring it to a 0. The main reason I really don't want this one to win is because I just spent the last two years working on a game that (mostly) fits this theme. I want to do something different!
0 - Each playthrough builds on the last
I have a feeling this one is going to lead to a lot of scope creep, especially for more narrative-driven games, but it has some interesting possibilities.
-1 - Everything grows
Part of me is voting against this because I already did LD34, where one of the two themes was "Growing" (the theme vote was tied, and I incorporated both themes into my entry). The other part of me is voting against this because the addition of "everything" makes design and implementation a lot trickier under the constraints of a game jam.
-1 - It only changes when you aren't looking
This is too mechanically specific; I'm skeptical that there would be enough variety in the entries. I'd expect to see a lot of games with Weeping-Angel-like enemies from this theme.
+1 - Sacrifices must be made
I almost gave this a 0 because the "...must be made" part strikes me as a bit unnecessary, kind of like how a lot of theme suggestions in the slaughter were "It's all about [X]" or "[X] is the key". I wish they just suggested "[X]"! But nonetheless, this is a pretty versatile theme.
-1 - Absorb your enemies
Also too mechanically specific (not all kinds of games have enemies). I'm struggling to come up with an idea that isn't a knockoff of Kirby, Katamari Damacy, or agar.io.
-1 - Darkness is your friend
There are other things that you can do with this theme, but I'd wager that at least half the entries would be stealth games. Not enough variety.
-1 - Don't trust the game
Of all the finalists, this is the one that I am most strongly against. A good designer can make a great game that deceives the player, but most of the games would be nearly guaranteed to be frustrating, unintuitive experiences.
0 - Magic, but at what cost?
Interesting, but it's a bit restrictive with regards to setting- if there's magic, it pretty much has to be a fantasy setting. I'd vote -1 if it was even more specific about setting, but I suppose there is some versatility even within the fantasy genre. If this one wins, I'd encourage participants to think beyond medievalesque settings with elves and orcs and whatnot.
+1 - Making connections
I believe this is the best theme in the finals. There are so many possible interpretations of "connections"! Are you making connections between romantic partners? Electrical components? Clues in a murder mystery? Airline flights? This theme can easily fit into any genre but still gives enough information to provide inspiration.
0 - One item, many uses
I really liked this theme at first, but I have since realized that "many uses" implies "many mechanics"- not the best theme for beginners, and (per my "I'm in" post) the exact opposite of what I want to be doing this Ludum Dare. I still think it would encourage a good amount of variety, so I won't -1 it.
0 - Take one, leave one
I've been going back and forth between 0 and +1 on this one. Is it versatile enough? Maybe... the "one" is vague enough, but it does imply a pretty specific mechanic. That mechanic could be applied to a lot of genres, though... It's certainly not a bad theme.
-1 - Two connected worlds
Like many others have mentioned, this is strikingly close to the LD30 theme (which was simply "Connected Worlds"). I didn't participate in that one, but I'd like to give its 2,538 participants and teams a chance to do something different.
-1 - Evolve
The theme for LD24 was "Evolution". Maybe the statute of limitations has passed for this theme; it was six years ago and had less than half the participants of modern Ludum Dare. However, I participated in LD24, and not only do I not want to repeat a theme I've personally done, but I also remember it being a particularly difficult theme to brainstorm for and to execute. If this one wins, maybe I can at least take solace in the fact that I get a second chance to do this theme after my first attempt turned out so poorly.
...so, what do you all think? If you can make a strong case for any of the ones I've downvoted, or against any of the ones I've upvoted, I'm open to changing my mind.
LD 43. It's about time right? After my first Ludum Dare (42) I got addicted and I'm in once again. This time I want to focus especially on music and sounds since it fell flat in my first submission YTTRE
Which tools I'm gonna use? * Engine: Unity * IDE: Rider * Graphics: Aseprite/Photoshop/Illustrator. It really depends on the artstyle * Music/Sounds: LMMS * Coffee, coffee, coffee and some beer
One of my sidegoals this year is also to release my submission as a mobile app if it suits the game within the submission phase but my biggest goal is it to finish something once again.
See you around then!
https://github.com/HybridEidolon/love2d-vore-template
it's called vore. it requires node 8+ and npm at minimum.
sorry, I can't get linux appimage fusing working before the jam. all you should need to do is use squashfs-tools to extract the love2d appimage and then append your .love file to the love, then mksquashfs the directory again. but squashfs-tools is not available on all platforms, so I have opted to avoid it for now. 7-zip on windows supports modifying squashfs archives, so you might consider that as an alternative.
I'm trying to get some other base code done (asset and module hot reloading systems for tiny-ecs in particular). that will be stored in a separate repo with just moonscript sources you can copy into your project. no guarantees though. you'll have to go pure data-driven entities to make full use of it; think storing asset paths as strings in your entities instead of image/sounddata references, system modules pure w/o side effects on require, etc.
Hey folks! I'm happy to say I'm joining this jam, making it my second Ludum Dare attempt and first time doing so working with Unity.
I figured I'd pass along some tips that even I forget sometimes:
Take breaks. Even if it's just walking back and forth from the kitchen to get a beverage (see next tip), giving your eyes a rest and stretching will do dramatically improve your productivity!
Keep hydrated and nourished! Whatever your beverage or snack of choice may be, make sure you have enough to enjoy during the event. :)
Sleep is a friend that you might hate in the moment, but you'll thank yourself for getting some of it later.
KISS. It's better to be able to add features later than to start with loads of "key components" and have them all be only half-functional or buggy.
This kinda goes with number 1,but get some fresh air! It does wonders for the brain.
Cliché though this may be, I'm still gonna say it: Have fun! You're doing what many others wouldn't even attempt, which makes you pretty awesome.
Good luck out there and happy jamming!