Hadecken !

Got a friend ?

Two players mode !

Don't have friends ?

One player mode !

Have no self ?

Zero players mode !

Thank you for all feedback and votes so far!

We hope that our players enjoyed our game Type 'n Run. 🙂

If you haven’t played it yet, give it a try here! 👈

https://youtu.be/AUiJZZTSeg0

Remeber to type HELP if you get stuck somewhere!

my chosen genres for the LD41 theme were “doom clone” and “tamagotchi,” which gave me:

CACOGOTCHI~ https://bijou.itch.io/cacogotchi

a lo-fi tamagotchi demake using og DOOM textures/sprites, ren’py visual novel engine and mspaint!

designing a virtual pet was a hell of a lotta fun! i remember how frustrated i would get playing with my tamagotchi as a kid — not understanding the hidden logic behind its fickle nature and unpredictable responses — and i'm happy to say that thanks to my messy, makeshift coding, you can experience that too.

thanks for playing!

Hey everyone! I'd like to take this moment to share my reflections after participating in 2 game jams over 2 weeks. I submitted a "finished" game both times, and they were not only my first 2 jam games, but my first 2 games ever published. If you want to check them out, here they are:

https://slug-overdose.itch.io/life-is-full-of-inspiration

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/war-maker

First and foremost, above all else, I will say it has been super transformative to just publish a game, even if they are subpar jam games. Love of video games is what got me into programming when I was younger, and although I started out by making little text based games in high school, I never actually published anything. While in university, I kept experimenting with game engines as a side hobby, but my path really diverged away from game development, and I ended up getting my first job in enterprise software development. Still great, but I just didn't have the same passion for it as games. Returning to game development, this time for real, has made me realize just how wrong I was to not follow my passion, and how it will likely be years before I can make any money from games. Game development is super difficult and competitive. But it's also extremely rewarding, even as a side hobby. If you are a younger developer especially, I cannot urge you enough to take the plunge, enter a jam (any jam, doesn't have to be as big as Ludum Dare) and #FINISHIT. Following through with that commitment will get you out of the perfectionist loop of trying to make the ideal game / engine / whatever, and turn you into a finisher. It truly makes a world of difference.

With that out of the way, you might be wondering why I develop games without an engine, in Java, with JavaFX. Yeah, that's not a very common combination. So what's the deal? Well, at the risk of shocking the Java haters out there, imagine someone looking to implement their first simple 2D game from scratch, and they read a bunch of recommendations to use C++. They might start by playing around with an external library dependency, like SDL or SFML. Then they might have to refactor their code because a bunch of stuff that should be object-oriented isn't. They might eventually decide to add some kind of networking functionality, and either have to dig into platform-specific APIs, or add another external dependency. Then they might want to port their game to another platform, have trouble compiling dependencies, fix a ton of platform-specific bugs, and get it working on a single other platform, at which point they might decide to port to another. Now what if I told you there was a language and platform that had all that built in, but wasn't a game engine? That's right, Java with JavaFX provides a ton of graphics, sound, UI, networking, security, and other useful stuff, and in a completely cross-platform way on desktop. As an added bonus, it's relatively easy to port to Android. All without adding a single external dependency. And if your game is not particularly load-sensitive, you get the wonderful benefits of things like garbage collection and a more strictly OOP paradigm. Seriously, Java is super under-appreciated when it comes to game development. It may not make sense for cutting-edge AAA 3D graphics engines, but how many of us actually get that far? Many people are struggling to make their first game, and if they're a stronger programmer than artist, I honestly think JavaFX provides a good foundation so that you don't need to reinvent the low level wheel.

Now that I've made 2 games with JavaFX, I can confidently say I don't regret it. Yes, in many ways, it's harder than using a game engine. Commercial game engines today are free/cheap, and super capable. But I'm a programmer. This is what works for me. What I do regret is not reusing code from the 1st game in the 2nd. Much of the menu code ended up being nearly identical, yet I rewrote every single line from scratch, which cost me valuable time that could have been spent fixing bugs that ended up forcing me to cut core gameplay features. Seriously, if there's one thing the 2nd game taught me, it's that I need to make a point of extracting value out of each game for the next. There's just no excuse. I think that's true even when using a commercial game engine, but it's especially true when writing games from scratch.

When it comes to making games feel good, I've noticed that really nailing a single super microscopic mechanic and focusing on polish is better than trying to do everything. I have rated a ton of jam games, and it's impossible to overstate the importance of audio. This means music, voice, AND sound effects (NOT OR). All 3. No compromises. You don't have to be the industry's top audio engineer. Just record something simple with your webcam, and your players will love it. A single voiced line can make a crappy game feel thousands of times more polished. The right background music can literally make an unplayable game feel intense. I actually spent a lot of time polishing my 1st game, and it also worked quite well. It got decent reviews. For my 2nd game, I focused more on polish, but ended up cutting a ton of planned features, and the single mechanic that was left is extremely buggy. And yet it's getting better reviews overall, with people saying they had a ton of fun. Part of the reason is that I made fancier menus, did some voice over work, and used great sound assets. Players will overlook glaring flaws if they're having a blast.

Lastly, if anyone's thinking about just doing a long string of consecutive jams, I don't recommend it. Doing 2 jams in 2 weeks has really rekindled my passion for game development. But it's also been extremely hard to recover. I went into the 2nd jam really tired, lazy, and unmotivated, and only shifted into high gear because I was truly passionate about the game idea. Jams are intense experiences. If you don't pass out immediately after submission, you're doing it wrong. So give yourself adequate recovery time between jams. If you think about it, doing 1 per month would result in 12 under-developed jam games per year, which would realistically need to be developed quite a bit further to have any chance of making money. Where's the value in that? One per month might actually be fun and let you test ideas, but that's really pushing the limits of what you can get out of them, and I think you're better off spending more time developing fewer games further. I think quarterly might be the ideal frequency. Go figure.

Hey everyone, I'm looking for games to play after work! Comment on this post or play my game and comment there and I'll check yours out when I get home.

My game is a tower defense-rhythm game.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/music-make-me-shoot-my-gun

I’ve been working on post-jam improvements to my game, Typistry, and now they’re ready for action.

Version 1.1 has:

• scoring!
• a difficulty curve!
• a way to heal yourself!
• better performance!

There’s also now a Mac version—both of the original entry (for scoring) and of the new one. Want to play? Go for it.

Greetings, travellers. I hope your giving of games went well. Ours turned out very nicely, and I'm very happy with it. I used to be so good at keeping a good journal, but I was a little too busy to do so this time.

Still, you can check out our Lovecraftian Kart Racer here!

Anyways, unsubtle shameless plug aside, I will be streaming entries over at my scarcely used Polyrogue_ Twitch Account, tomorrow and possibly next week Wednesday and Thursday (and maybe even a little today!) I am in BST (UTC+1).

Now, I may not get around to everyone, for which I apologise, so I'll do it on a First Come, First Served basis, but also prioritise those who are attending the stream, because I know waiting to see your game can be a little tedious.

Anyways, that's the preamble. If you want me to stream your game, go ahead and sign up here!

Hey there! I have some free time this afternoon and I'd like to spend it testing some games. Of course I'd prefer browser games because I'm lazy, but drop your link anyways!

Here is ours so you can check it out: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/shady-cards

thank you all for your rating for those who already saw the game thank you for your support and your rating and feedback we really appreciate it. for those who still didn't see game yet feel free to check out and we hope you will like it

Watch the Trailer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2coMUolMWmo

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/incompatible-rally

Hey guys!

My team updated our game yesterday! The mechanical is a little bit difficult in the start, but after you learn is very cool. Come to play! And send for us your feedback!

LD41 Game Post - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/card-tps-game-alice

A screenshot to arouse you curiosity hehehehe

Thanks ^~^

We invite you guys to test our game here! In the game, you just need to control pinky to collect hearts. You can shoot everything in the scene, characters, terrain and strip objects to move on. And yes, you might spend some time adapting the control...we really appreciate everyone testing the game. And we will make it better next time:)

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/oldiswin

Game:

The game is called Felocity. It's made for compo and can be played here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/felocity

What went bad?

Design

First of all, I wasn't super exited for this theme. I got really hung up on the incompatible part, which made me discard most of my favorite ideas since they were (in my opinion) too compatible. In the end I decided to go for an idea that I wanted to work on rather than an idea that followed the theme perfectly. This was to keep my motivation up, which I guess worked in the end. However, I spent very little time on the specifics, so my game ended up a bit confusing. I think if I only spent half an hour extra on figuring out a concrete design, the entire jam would have gone a lot smoother.

Wasting time

With risk of sounding narcissistic: I honestly think I could have had a game with double as much content (levels, enemies, weapons, tutorial, etc.) if I hadn't wasted so much time. I felt really slow the entire jam, always being slightly tired, so I ended up spending more time playing my game than working on it. I didn't really want to take a nap either, since that was a waste of time, which just made it worse. Note for the next time: nap if you are tired. Kindergarten had it right!

What went well?

Planning

I planned properly for this jam, starting to write down a schedule for each part (design, programming, audio, graphics, etc.) so that I could have an overview of how I was doing. Earlier jams I have been guessing, which can lead to laziness or stress depending on if I feel like I have a lot of time, or if I feel like I have too little time. This time it kept me motivated when laziness was taking over.

Music

I really went outside of my comfort zone with this one. I usually write metal or orchestral music, but this time I went for something more... Jazzy?? I'm not so sure about the genre. And while I only made a short loop for the in-game music, I'm really happy with how that turned out. I also spent some time making some small jingles for the main menu, and the game over screen, which could be considered bad prioritizing, but it really made the game feel more complete and polished.

Art

I really pushed myself to make the art quick, and not get hung up on details. It's very easy to get stuck tweaking individual pixels in these projects, especially with pixel art, but in the end very few look at individual pixels. I also decided to use my cat, and pictures of it, as reference material for the drawing. It really helped with coloring since I'm colorblind, but doesn't really help with anatomy, since pixel art is rarely correct in that way.

Feedback

By feedback I mean input- and output feedback (I guess you could call is responsiveness). I'm really happy with how the game feels to play. While it doesn't have many features, or good design for that matter, it really feels good to shoot the gun, and it really feels powerful when you take damage. I give the credit for this to the sound effects, which also helps with making the game feel more "alive".

Ending note

I don't want to make this post too long, so I'm ending here. It was really fun coming back to Ludum Dare, and I'm definitely gonna do it more often than before. I'm really impressed by some of the games I've seen so far! Good job everyone! ^^

PLAY ONLINE HERE https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/survaby

I'll be streaming Ludum Dare entries at 10PM CEST today. If you want me to play and rate your game, leave a link under this post. I'm gonna be live at https://twitch.tv/syrapt0r

Tour de France Legstrong is a mix between a sports simulator and an apocalyptic survival game. Will you help France Legstrong fight his way through hordes of zombies to reach the finish line?

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/tour-de-france-legstrong

If you can beat the game, take a quick note of your highscore, comment the game and we will publish in the game-page!

Thank you to everyone that has played and rated our game so far!

We have updated the page with a web build, so please give that a try if you haven't been able to check it out yet.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/fightin-words-real-typing-strategy

If you have any issues with it, please let us know. The windows build is still there as well.

Hope you enjoy!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/super-ice-cream-roller-ultra

2d graphics with 3d rendered into sprites, ~~cute~~ angry crystall noises and library full of books on athletics. Explore the Crystal Library and see how much books you will collect.

Play Game

Taking in feedback from people who commented, we are planning to release Grid Gunner in the Google Play store in the near future. If you want to, play and rate our game here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/grid-gunner

I made a damm hard game when you play it with a controller. What about using a keyboard you ask? Well thats literally cup head's or dark soul's difficulty level! You think your up to the challenge?

Do you dare try messing with El Cactus? Aka. El Humoungoso????

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/my-enemy-el-cactus