Just a couple of days left in the LD41 judging. Need more ratings for your game? Rate mine, and I'll return the favor. I will not let your review bias mine one way or another. Just rate and leave a comment, so I know who you are, and I'll rate your game in the next two days.
Hey, I wrote down some words about our game, you can find it here: https://demo.land/blog/2018/05/13/ludum-dare-41/
If you haven't played or vote you still can do it here, we hope you'll have fun!
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/untitled-title
Thanks! :)
Hi everyone! I've been busy with moving across the country, so I'm not able to keep up with play/rate as much... But if anybody's interested, please rate our Card Game/Visual Novel. Thank you!
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/solitairey-in-school-the-card-game-dating-simvisual-novel
Try the game here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/soccer-fight
A little preview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cFwgwQkl8Q
This is your last chance to play my game! Though I have enough ratings, go ahead: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/nintendating Some other great games: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/last-stand https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/officer-pain-the-smash-cop https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/dancing-club-bloodlust
Wow, 75 Votes! We definitely did not expect such a strong response to Haiti Kitty! Thank you everyone for your kind words and your feedback! We really appreciate it!
As a special thank you, we present some content from the upcoming 1.0 version - This is what happens, when incompetent second player cats confuse a shoe with a fish:
We are working hard on it and and there will be looooads of new content. Of course, if you haven't already and have 2 minutes to spare, you can still check out our original entry. Even though the baseball controls in that version are really unintuitive. Just a word of caution.
If you play it or not, thank you for reading this text! Have a fish, it's on the house! 🐟
Ludum Dares are an incredible experience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s02n5hXDCok
This was kind of weird game jam for me. For starters, I made most of this game on tablet while travelling from place to place, so that's a first (for me, anyway). Secondly, I feel oddly fulfilled. Usually after LD my mind races to find new ways to expand the entry into a more complete game, but this time I really don't have anything to add. It's done. Maybe some bug fixes and difficulty tweaking if players feel that way but that's about it.
Well... I have a pretty strong idea for a sequel to this game. But that's later. Sleep now.
Couple of commenters were wondering what kind of genre this game represents, and honestly? I have no idea either. I started from "me hating this theme with passion" mashed with "me really wanting to do Ludum Dare for a change" and ended up here. Seriously, I think you all are great and I love you to bits, but clearly we have WAY different ideas on how to do creative work. I never start planning from a genre. Maybe a central mechanic, rest of the game built around it and if it turns out to be of certain ilk, then that is what's happening.
This time I chose gardening, probably mostly because of the hot season we're having around these parts. Caring for a plant from seed to maturity felt like something I could do in a scarce time that I had available. Originally I wanted to do something without any violence, but yeah. When you can proverbially kill two slugs with one burst of white energy (how to get seeds & what is the threat that plants need protecting against) then you really have no choice, given the extra short timeframe.
I really felt pretty hopeless in the last few hours of the jam. Gameplay was as done as it was going to be, but it didn't feel that good. Luckily, I found some great audio from Freesound. It's a wonder what the tiniest things can do - I slapped some appropriate sound effects and ambiance at their place in less than 90 minutes and it really made the difference. What seemed kinda lifeless and clinical on the screen became lively with sounds recorded from the nature.
I always feel little sorry for those Ludum Darers (Darists?) who don't have time to implement any kind of sound to their entries. It's usually the difference between playing the game for a minute just to give some sort of rating or actually seeing it through.
Well, that's enough of my rambling. Itch is the post-jam version, if you want to toss a couple of ratings my way the entry page is over here. Comments would really be appreciated, I was tuning the length and difficulty of a playthrough for ages and I'm still not sure if I even remotely nailed it.
Oh, right. The patch notes:
- fixes to pretty much everything
- one new plant
- some plants now wither
- water plants are less dumb
- expanded ending sequence
- more mouth sounds
- a surprise
Do you love sports? How about patiently waiting for your opponent to make their moves? Well I've got the perfect game for you. BlipBlapBall is a 1-2 player turn-based sports game playable in browser: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/blipblapball
I've had to work most of the play and rate period, so I haven't had the time to rate many games. I'll try to get a few more in before the rating period ends, and I'd appreciate if you guys would help me get the last few votes my game needs. Thanks!
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/sportsball-adventures
i just make one more game last from week, if you like, enjoy it:
https://rs11s21n.itch.io/baah1
or my ld41 game XD
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/text-adventure-platformer
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/memories-of-a-gacha-tale
Honestly, I have no idea why I keep doing this but PLAY THIS PERSONS GAME!!
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/officer-pain-the-smash-cop ALSO if you have time, my game's pretty snazzy too...
A word of thanks to all of you who've voted and left all the good comments on our bullet-hell/card game mashup - there are some great and insightful feedback in there! Good luck to you all for the results!
It’s time for the final sprint for Ludum Dare! It’s the last week, and people are going full-throttle commenting and rating! There are a lot of games with less than 20 ratings that deserve some more attention, so be sure to keep contributing to the community! Lots of people here have worked hard to make it through the crunch!
As for Wizsnooks, our loot-frenzy pool action game, we got a post-mortem ready for you. It took a bit longer than anticipated, but we’re still glad that we get to share this with you!
Wizsnooks is a roguelike loot pool hybrid where you clear tables with different layouts by defeating all of the enemies present on it. Enemies are defeated by attacking them with your white-ball, Snooks, or by pushing them against one of the lava-filled holes spread across the table. Once all the enemies are defeated on a table, the game will randomly pick the next one, filled with all new enemy balls to defeat.
When an enemy is defeated, the player is awarded a random piece of equipment of varying rarity which alters Snooks defense and attacking stats, making it progressively easier to defeat more and harder enemies. Equipment can also be dischanted as to heal some of Snooks health and inventory prioritization is a must. However, no amount of equipment will save Snooks if they fall into a lava-filled hole!
Although we kept our same team formation (one programmer, one artist and one composer) for this Ludum Dare, this time-around, the team was mostly composed of members which have recently joined our team at Whales And Games , with the exception of @Moski, returning as the game’s artist. @Kroltan, which had previously participated with Moski on the creation of JouleThief: Charge Your Phone joined as the team’s programmer, and @RobinhoodPT, which had participated with us on previous Ludum Dare entries, such as Colossorama and Jazzy Beats returned as the game’s sole audio composer.
Wizsnooks was developed with a mix and match of programs which we normally use during our daily game development workflows, along with our vision and sweat. Some of these tools, as well as some of the plugins for each respective tool, that we used include the following:
Because of timezones and availability, not everyone on the team was present at the announcement of the theme. Shortly after the theme was announced, some members got into brainstorming, then one left and another came to further discuss more ideas.It wasn’t until about 12 hours after the theme’s announcement that the game’s concept of “Snooker but with roguelike elements and loot” finally materialized with everyone agreeing on it.
With pool mechanics in mind, the programmer was able to make snookers, enemies, and even random level progression (which some people have mistaken as procedurally generated levels). The musician delivered some of his best tracks to date, and the art was among the most cartoonish the artist has done. The team played to their best strengths and in the end, we were all satisfied with what Wizsnooks became.
Scope of the Project
The idea of Snooker+Action+Roguelike was accepted almost immediately by the whole team. It was initially created with themes of pool mixed with a medieval setting (which, later in development, was shifted to sorcery). Because of it, we were able to quickly debate about what to add, what to remove, and which direction to take the game to. Many ideas included bosses and enemies taking turns to attack, but we ended up heading on a direction on which skill and inventory management were more important than hoping to survive being thrown into a hole without the player’s input.
The project had it all. A core gameplay loop, attacking and healing mechanics, inventory, enemies, and many levels. Discussing a plan, grounding the possible ideas and dismissing those that would need a lot of tweaking or playtesting.Having a direction made it possible to polish the game, make it as little confusing as we could, and still manage to have a wide arrangement of loot and levels.
Labor Structure, Division and Cooperation
Our core team was composed of 3 people, with a few special mentions of a few others that assisted us with feedback, help with code and moral support. Because of the tools used, the group was able to stay communicated with each other, update the project almost seamlessly and discuss changes and directions. Overall, we all had something to do almost all the time.
Because some of us had the knowledge to work with Unity at the same time, towards the end of the jam, we were making many levels at the same time. While the artist kept preparing stuff for UI and the title screen, the musician was able to import weapon and helmet assets, which allowed to double the loot. Finally, the programmer was able to improve the overall gameplay of the game.
The Physics Could Be Improved
Wizsnooks was made with Unity’s recently added tiling system, which allowed us to create a multitude of maps in little time. However, one of its core problems was that the game’s physics ended up not working as intended. Balls would lose a lot of momentum when touching each other, bounce in weird directions or bounce back when hitting a wall, displaying a weird feeling of friction at times, making it hard to tell where something will end before you hit the cue ball.
Likewise, we should also have given the players the ability to preview how their shot would behave, allowing them to navigate around much easier.
The Camera Shouldn’t Be an Obstacle
With so many levels, there should be a way to be able to look around before hitting the ball. Otherwise, when starting a new level, the player would need to do small hits to avoid hitting a dragon orb accidentally or falling into a lava pit by shooting somewhere without having knowledge of the level’s layout. A common suggestion we got through feedback was to allow the player to look around the map before taking a shot.
It’s been a fantastic experience to work as a team again this Ludum Dare. With Wizsnooks, we adhered to a simple idea and increased it with concepts that were within our grasp, which allowed us to deliver a polished and fun experience (sans a few rough edges) which is what Whales And Games always strives for when creating new projects.
Like many projects in the Ludum Dare, we’d love to see some post-jam enhanced edition of sorts. Pending availability of the team, we’ve discussed things that we’d like to add to Wizsnooks, a lot of which is based on the feedback we’ve gotten from the comments. Some of the changes that we’d make include:
Going forward, The Whales And Games team is planning on touching up some of our projects that we have previously shown around (such as on our Twitter wall ). Since it’s a growing team, some of the members want to work on updating Wizsnooks, while others want to throw a few surprises in the coming months. There would be some extra touches here and there, and hopefully a few releases. We also want to start interacting more with players and better incorporate fan-feedback into our workflow. If you’d like to join us in this process, feel free to say ‘Hi!’ through our Discord server!
Making the post-mortem was an eye opener for us, and we hope that you can find this insightful as well. Doing an hybrid of snooker and roguelike was something that we couldn't have even dreamed before the gamejam, and seeing it exist is just amazing. The team is proud of the project we made this time around and about the effort of not only us, but those that supported us from start to finish.
If you're interested in checking it out, Wizsnooks, could welcome some last minute ratings. It’s been fantastic to once again participate with incredibly talented people at the Ludum Dare, and we’re hoping to stick around for some more in the future. We’ll be crossing fingers and hoping to see you all around! Cheers! :whale:
did you make updates after LD or have alternate updated builds? Want them streamed on twitch and exported to youtube with links for others to play your games in the video descriptions?
Come hangout on my wednesday show GetPlayed and discuss what you changed, why and what your plans are for your project. Fill out this form and be available to discuss your work using twitch's text chat in my channel during the stream. form: https://goo.gl/forms/mAjyq8qBcFiyZs6h1
The stream will be live at 7:00 pm Eastern North America time (19:00 gmt -4) https://www.twitch.tv/tiger_j
Follow my twitch for notifications and updates.
TL;DR; streaming updated LD games.
use this form: https://goo.gl/forms/mAjyq8qBcFiyZs6h1
watch here: https://www.twitch.tv/tiger_j
We've received a lot of helpful feedback here, and it's inspired us to keep improving and developing Textris! Follow us on Twitter at Textris2 for further updates.
What we're focusing on for the final version:
-Balance and playability
-Bug fixes
-Additional features to make the game easier
-Expanding and polishing the soundtrack
-Improving game feel with additional SFX and VFX
Guys, if you have some time, pls rate our game. Sorry, last 3 weeks we were pretty busy so we had no enough time to play games :(
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/m-obile-a-uto-d-efense
Thanks!
All right, last chance to play these games!
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/bomb-in-rhythm
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/proelium
Come try Proelium!
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/proelium
A game that will allow you to feel the weight of time upon our Heroine's shoulders!
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/proelium
https://youtu.be/auOBCcTVk7w
This is Texas pachinko simulator with cows, btw:
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/hypertexaspachinkopongsurvarium-with-cowstm