Hey! My compo entry on this last LD was a blast to make. If you have time, please take a look at it!
Link is here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/nights-end
Also, I'm thinking about streaming my next LD, but I'm not sure if people are interested in that kind of thing. What do you think?
Cheers!
How well can you manipulate evolution? https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/cheela
Hello everyone! Our game still needs a few ratings in order to take part in the ranking. If the game seems interesting, we would love it if you check it out and give us an honest rating and of course your feedback. Make sure to also comment the link to your game so that we can also check your work out. Thank you for reading!
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/escape-from-arex
Hello! A while ago I posted part one and part two of a series about technical aspects of my LD43 entry. Today we move on to the third and final part! 👀
For my last few jams I've been focussing a bit more heavily on graphical fidelity than I did this time, as you can see below, but that doesn't mean there aren't things to be said about the kind of approach I went for this time either! c:
Would love it if you did, since I need some 7 more ratings. 😨
I ended the last part by showing you a GIF of the face closeups of characters that the game displays when talking to someone. Today we will be looking closer at those!
As you can see, the camera slowly and ever so slightly pans around the little 3D render, and the character blinks occasionally. This is a complete 3D render from a secondary camera that can only see the character that the player is currently talking to, and nothing else. It can also see the character's eyes, which aren't visible when the characters are rendered at a much smaller scale in the actual game world, but it is in fact the very same instance!
I made this game in Unity, so here are the relevant settings for the camera component of the secondary camera I added to the scene:
The clear colour's alpha is set to zero so that the resulting texture has a completely transparent background. At the bottom you can see the render texture that I've assigned to it, to make it render into that texture instead of to screen. This is the setup for that asset:
If we go back to the settings for the camera, we also need to look closer at that "mixed" culling mask…
As you can see, I've created special layers for portrait rendering; things on the Portrait layer will only get rendered to the portrait camera (e.g. the eyes) while things on the PortraitAndWorld layer (the rest of the character) will also get rendered to the main camera viewing the game world.
Normally the eyes are on the layer DefaultPortrait and the rest of the character on Default, but when a conversation is entered with a character, its renderers get moved to the corresponding portrait layers, so that they are the only things the portrait camera see (so that we don't accidentally get another character visible in frame if they're standing too close).
Finally when the player starts talking to a character, the portrait camera is moved to where they are.
Actually showing the character on screen is done through the canvas where the rest of the dialogue UI (the text box and so on) lives
For this, I'm simply using a "raw image" component that is set to display the render texture from earlier that the camera renders into. This is then positioned and sized as desired.
As a detail, to match the rest of the UI where every element has that drop shadow that you can see in the images at the top of this post, I duplicated the raw image, moved it by the same amount as all the other drop shadows, tinted it completely black and decreased the alpha to match the other shadows, and put that behind the regular image!
Thanks for reading! And playing and rating, if you did, or will. This has been another fantastic LD! ❤️
Hi people! I’m Pedro Fuentes, Game designer, and with Sergio Martinez (programmer) and Daniel Gomez (artist) we made the game “NoooooMan”. In the last post I explained the Idea and the Evolution of the game (you can see the previous post here –> https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/noooooman/making-of-noooooman-part-i) and the Visuals (https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/noooooman/making-of-noooooman-part-ii). In this post I will explain the tools that we used in the game.
We used Unity to make the game. It’s a game that mixes 2D and 3D at the same time. All the characters, the environment and the guns are in 2D, but the bullet and the trajectory are in 3D. To manage the time (real time and bullet time) we used the plugin Chronos.
All the elements are in 2D, except the bullet.
Sergio Martinez made different custom tools like the GunManager. With this tool, it was easy to create a lot of levels. The tool can detect the number of guns and it’s possible to configure every gun: the trajectory, the point of the bullet impact and the time when the gun shoots.
GunManager, a great tool to create fast the levels.
The tool can detect the point of the impact.
If you’re interested, check it out here. The game is available for web browser, Windows and MacOSX. Enjoy! (I can play and rate some other games too). https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/noooooman
Thanks for playing! And Happy New Year everyone!
We're still a couple ratings short of a score, soldier, and your country needs YOU to get out there and kill some demons!
(and then say something nice about the game afterwards because your country would really appreciate it thnx)
In the making of AkimBear, we chose to use this talk from Vlambeer‘s Jan Willem Nijman, a true master of arcade action games, as our inspiration. In fact, as soon as we had the rough sketch of our idea (i.e. akimbo-wielding bear with sacrifice used in the gameplay design), we watched the talk in order to get it in our heads when we started building the game. The trailer can give you a good idea of the game we ended up with:
https://youtu.be/avRx-U6SNHk
I highly recommend watching the talk if you have an interest in building games with strong immediate feedback. I also really like Nijman’s perspective on the layers of feedback in creating interactive experiences. In the talk he takes a basic game and adds tweaks to get something that is much more appealing to play. Those points are below and I’ve annotated them to show how we used them. The bold points were taken directly and the italic points were only partially implemented in AkimBear.
A lot of the above are obvious when you see our gameplay. I’d like to talk about one of the less obvious points that we used when designing AkimBear: Player Knockback. During his talk, Nijman says “if you put a button in a game … give someone a reason not to press it.” This was the inspiration for deciding that Grizzle should stop moving while shooting and how this could be the gameplay sacrifice.
I’ve gotten some feedback about the time slowdown being too strong and I think this is quite valid since it feels almost like framerate issues sometimes (particularly when off screen enemies are killed). I limited the permanence by using a ring buffer object pool for the number of bullets at any time for pre-emptive performance reasons. I know “premature optimization is the root of all evil,” but once you start pooling objects there’s really no reason not to pool everything. In this case, I would disagree with Nijman; despite computers being very good now, you should default to defensive and performant coding (if possible, for your experience level) until there is a design reason to expand. Limiting runtime memory is always a good idea to avoid unnecessary garbage collection (this is especially crucial for mobile devices).
If you have any questions at all, don’t hesitate to ask! My email is ecmjohnson at gmail.com
During Jam some "sacrifices must be made" :sunglasses: . Our regrets: we couldn't implemented the explosion mechanics of some enemies and the sprites associated. We missed something but 3 days it's very hard. :sob: :sob:
So I dedicate this message to all those who had to make sacrifices (I think of everyone).
7 score needed
I haven't been on in WEEKS! I can't believe it's almost the deadline :O! I'll go ahead and play some final ludum dare games and think back on the amazing challenge that this was :D.
As for my game its this: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/we-fight-together
I have been working on updating it for the past few weeks! I can say I have made some good progress although it feels like endless work :P. If you follow the project you should expect an updated version (more like brand new game) in the next weeks/month! :D
This was the first Ludum Dare where I wasn't working alone on the audio. We're a student team from Germany and for LD43 two other students(@jeb and someone without a ldjam acc) wanted to join me in the audio production process. The sound effects were a lot of fun. We needed sounds for a lot of cows in our game. For that, each team member (and some friends who stopped by) "voice acted" cow sounds. We also had a total of 4 songs (and a short score for the intro).
I really enjoyed writing and recording the song for the last area of our game. I still dig those "ending vibes". That's why i recorded a little music video for it. If you're interested, you can check it out here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwVkrUT1ojA
I’m one vote short to reach 20. Be a hero and rate my game: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/action-tanks-the-battle-for-althea
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/overslept
Come try your hand at sheep-baking and leave a rating or two!
Our game can be played in-browser and can be played with 1 or 2 players.
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/overslept
Hey everybody, we are on the last stretch. I unfortunately was super busy throughout December so am fighting at the last weekend to get Miserable Morene some votes. If your looking for a game to play and got a few minutes to spare; swing on by and have a look. The game has a web port now so it's even easier to play than ever!
Check out my game and I'll play/rate yours back if I can :confetti_ball:
My game is a tower defense where you sacrifice humans to protect your base from invaders:
Only have a single rating left to reach 50, so rate and comment, i will play your game too! Just post a link in the comment section and i'll play your game, also if you caN leave some feedback!
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/v-girl
I had a ton of fun making the art for AkimBear! :gun: :bear: :gun:
Here are some notes about my thought process while making the art!
I only recently have seen the light of understanding colour pallets and Hue Shifting, so it was a ton of fun implementing those concepts and putting them to use!
Grizzle started out as looking like a relatively cute bear, however my teammate @ecmjohnson said he should look tougher, so as a joke I gave him a cigarette and an eye patch. The team dug it, so we stuck with it. His arms were kept small so we could hide them under the guns and not have to worry about them looking bizarre if rotated 360 degrees.
I tried to add as much bounce to the character while walking to emphasize his weight, and also made the cigaret bounce with his walk to add an extra sense of movement.
The squirrel was inspired by the Junior Senior - Move Your Feet music video who wanted to blow up the world:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPlQpGeTbIE
The Bird was added because we wanted to add a reason to not only be aiming at the ground at all times. So I made this fella:
In the lab, it’s revealed that the animals you’ve been fighting have been robots all along! (Hence the explosions. You didn’t think we were that cruel, did you?) And of course had to have antenna and be chrome to prove it.
Last level: It’s always a laboratory.
Some of my favourite games of all time are the original The House of the Dead games.
(Specifically The House of the Dead 1&2) And I always found it funny that in that type of game, the final twist was always that “it all came from one evil lab” so I thought it would be fun to play off that trope with our main character, Grizzle, being a genetic experiment. And of course, there are ALWAYS test tubes with the enemies you fight in them. Because “science is... evil”?
The Explosions were inspired by a combination of Sonic Mania, Contra 3, and Bomb Chicken.
Elevators Each levels elevator is different! Each signifies which level you’re on by changing it’s roman numeral as well as changing which of the 3 lights flashes. Look closely when you boot it up!
I added the No Smoking sign on the elevator doors very close the end of the jam as a last minute detail to make Grizzle seem even cooler. He don't care about the rules, he's got his machine guns and nothing's going to stop him.
Honey:
The Honey pots were an idea pretty early on in development as a form of heath and we ran with it.
Not only did it work as a pick up, but also as a way to transition between levels smoothly while maintaining a consistent aesthetic. Plus it just looks tasty... Mmmm...
And yeah! That's about all I can think of that's worth showing! I had a blast creating all this stuff and exploring colour pallets!
If you have any questions let me know and i'd be more than happy to discuss.
Hello, My game is halfway to 20 ratings. Can you help? :)
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/eztli
Phew,
first time solo with not that much experience and it is very noticeable in the game. In the end I managed to, I think, convey the message I wanted to AND the game is not broken in any apparent way. I call that a success!
Odie brought mom flowers is still missing a few ratings until 20, if you feel like finding out whether Odie is a good boy, check the game out HERE: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/odie-brought-mom-flowers
I am largely interested in thoughts about the ending. Will also gladly help out people who are still missing a rating or two, so make sure to comment if you need help too!
With the end of the year coming up, television and news sites are flooding with yearly retrospectives and the most marking events of the year, highlighting both the positives and negatives of the past months and what's bound to be remember of this year for history.
With the end of judging for this Ludum Dare coming up, we thought to do something similar, only instead of it being just about the year, we're looking at the history of our past Ludum Dare entries from our latest game Super Sellout all the way back to Colossorama! Sit comfortably on your chair ~~(unless you have a standing desk in which case just stand there)~~ and prepare for the history of our Whales And Games team through Ludum Dare editions, how it shaped us, and what we learned from each edition respectively! Leggo! 📖🐳
If there's a game that we have to thank for and which was the reason why our team exists nowdays, it is Colossorama. Created for Ludum Dare 36 (August 2016), Colossorama was a simple hack-and-slash sidescroller where you were forced to swap weapons every round to defeat as many enemies as you can while attempting to stay alive on your own.
Colossorama broke what was essentially a two-year-long creative-block towards games for me and @Moski, and has since evolved tremendously receiving multiple updates since it's original debut, being showcased in multiple events, and even gaining a following of its own. In fact, a third major expansion to it is planned to come out early next year, and we are already looking at some other plans we have ready in-mind for beyond that!
While we ocassionaly make the joke that it's the game that should not-be-mentioned, Hyper Holomayhem taught us some hard lessons regarding how we should tackle future Ludum Dare editions after Ludum Dare 37 (December 2016). In essence, the game was also a side-scroller free-roaming shooter, where you'd have to tear-away levels by shooting at it's tiles in order to collect gears that would power the room and regenerate again.
The game, while it obtained good judging scores, taught us a few things regarding how we should tackle scope and design decisions. Always make sure you come up with a pre-set idea as you come out of the brainstorming phase and make sure mechanics are well established so they can be quickly ironed out and improved during the jamming time. Unfortunately, there's still some one or two-offs where we fall on the same trappings, but overall, it taught us a lot about how to handle things going forward.
With the hard-swallowed lessons from Hyper Holomayhem, our next entry, Petty Puny Planet for Ludum Dare 38 (April 2017) was a complete turnaround of what had happened during the previous game's development, and, in the opinion of many of our team, might be our best take-away from Ludum Dare so far. Petty Puny Planet was a pick-your-own-adventure type of game where you'd pick different actions to determine a planet's development, and be faced with random-consequence events that could undermine (or be undermined by) your previous choices.
Rather than teaching us harsh-lessons, Petty Puny Planet instead served as a confirmation of many things we had done right this time around. Keep the scope conformable and well-defined, allowing you to focus immediately on what's important and establish mock-ups and mechanics so that the rest of the team is able to immediately know where the game is headed. Samurai Jack was also airing at the time, which probably helped the team mood a lot.
It's also noteworthy that Ludum Dare 38 was the point we officially founded our team under the name Whales And Games which we've been using since! :tada:
JouleThief: Charge Your Phone is an odd-one-out when it comes to this retrospective, being the only game in this list that wasn't originally planned as a Whales And Games title. Rather, the game was originally developed during Ludum Dare 39 (August 2017) as an attempt for @Moski to work with a different team while other members of WAG were busy at the time. Taking the role as Joulethief, you'd go around attempting to charge your phone as much as possible while avoiding guards attempting to arrest you for disturbance.
The game noticeably has it's own noticeable quirks, utilizing 3D physics in a 2D game and even featuring an unfinished level editor. Later on, @kroltan, the game's programmer, would end up joining the Whales And Games team and has since collaborated with us on two other projects featured on this retrospective. After some recent internal talks, we have finally decided to crown JouleThief as being an official part of the Whales And Games collection and hope for one day to be able to put the game on the limelight it deserves!
Following the momentum and good spirits of the original team preserved since Petty Puny Planet, the next game to come out of the team would be Jazzy Beats, an indirect beat-em-up where you brawl against an opposing idol's fans to convert them to your own, created during Ludum Dare 40 (December 2017).
The game extended on the lessons learned through a Petty Puny Planet, continuing on with the trend of defining the games vision right on the first hours, increasing the project's scope to involve more mechanics, and allowing team members to experiment and implement their part directly on top of the project files (while previously, all the project setup on the engine side was made by the programmer).
Jazzy Beats was also noticeably our best performance in a judging phase as of yet, both in terms of how many games we've rated as well as how many ratings we have received. It has since become our staple goal of what we want to achieve with each consequent judging phase and edition.
With a new Whales And Games setup and the core team growing, the torch started being passed around the different team members depending on the occasion and availability of the team. The first project to test having different team members on the lead instead of the usual suspects happened with Wizsnooks during Ludum Dare 41 (April 2018). Mixing two incompatible genres, Wizsnooks was pool meets RPG, creating a pool game where you'd have to defeat enemies either using your gear or pushing them into pits.
Wizsnooks turned out to be a nice revelation, being surprisingly innovative with its mechanics mixing both the genres, making it one of the games we have considered giving a revamp too for the longest time, especially considered the different ways the game could be expanded. Overall, it served as a perfect example of the capability of the team to adapt to different team setups and how they can affect the ideas behind a specific game.
However, it still followed the typical three-people team formula we had been using during the previous jams, and that was something we wanted to break with the next edition.
After skipping Ludum Dare 42 as a team (not so much for @Moski which had a catastrophic experience instead) we finally reach the current live edition with Super Sellout being developed for the current Ludum Dare 43. Super Sellout pitches a runner-game with having to sacrifice mobility and visibility by choosing sponsors as to achieve an higher highscore.
Super Sellout's development was somewhat similar to the development of Hyper Holomayhem, with it's own sets of ups and downs, but at the same time, it was somewhat expected in advance. The jam was the first time we experimented with having most of the team (that's five out of six people) in a single jam, rather than going with usual three-people model. In essence, it was a team exercise, and we have certainly gotten some good pointers about how to manage future editions and projects when they involve more people than usual.
While we could go into more detail regarding the lessons we learned, we still have our usual post-mortem coming up in the following days detailing both what went right and what feedback and experiment taught us.
And that wraps it up! While the judging of Super Sellout is still going on, it's always a nice lesson to go back and retrospect through our history as a team and jammers, realizing the different lessons we learned throughout the different editions. We believe that the next jams will continue evolving us as a team as we tackle different genres and experiment with different ideas and as we keep refining our formula and identity. :smile:
As the year comes to a close, we have a bunch of new ideas and experiments we want to make, but we're yet to see how our team evolves. From adopting a new roadmap, to attempting to build a more complete experience, we're sure the time between this and the next edition of Ludum Dare is going to be surprising. It's quite sad to see the event reduced to only two editions a year, but we've already got our scopes sighted for other events we'd love to join!
If you'd like to keep up and join us in the wild ride the next year is going to be, we totally recommend you to follow us on Twitter and join us on Discord where we've got an active community of developers, artists and even just traditional gaming peps. You're also obviously free to share your Ludum Dare games over there! :whale2:
