I saw someone else do this to their comments so I did it to mine.

Totally my original idea please do not steal.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/super-slime-slasher-ultra

I want people to play my game and I want games to play. Why Not Both. Post your link in the comments and then try out my game: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/vrnt

Go hard on me please ! I need to know why you hate/quit the game.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/dancing-club-bloodlust

You get a steam key if you actually hurt my feelings. (I'm kidding the steam key is a lie, see I'm a bad guy I deserve it!)

PS: Don't rate the WebGl version, it's post jam. I only ask for comments.

PS2 : If you really want to rate please download the game and disregard what I said above.

With only one week of delay, we managed to launch our astroids-puzzle game :). Although we ripped the deadline, maybe you still like our game. Would be great to get some feedback!

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

I made a multiplayer fishing/fighting game and would love to hear what you think about it. Leave a link to your game as well I would love to check it out.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/deadliest-catch

Thank you guys so much for your feedback! We would have never expected our first submission on Ludum Dare to be received so well :) You can always try our game here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/survive-the-date

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCB-2QkS0hA

I honestly haven't seen anybody do that before around here, so I thought making a word cloud would be a cool and unique idea. You guys rock!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/super-punchtime

A turn-based fighting game build for Ludum Dare 41. Only FIVE more reviews are needed for my game to be scored! Anything helps!

Hey devs!

We're looking for more reviews on our entry Shady Cards. We'd like to get as much feedback as possible so that we can really have a deep understanding of what was a success and what was a failure.

Also, if you leave feedback on our game, I'd like you to post yours so that we could check it out! Here is a link to Shady Cards: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/shady-cards

Cheers!

Seeking some more reviews on your game? So am I! Let's trade game reviews.

Mine is below; post yours in the comments and I'll give it a try. (Caveat: I can only play Web or Linux games)

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/dungeon-typist

We would like to address a mistake on our part.

As can be read on the comments section on our two previous posts (Main Character Sprites and Post Mortem), our main character's sprite shows an uncanny resemblance to the design of the main character of Nykra. While it is not "ripped" in a technical sense from the game/website, all visual characteristics are the same.

It turns out that our artist indeed used Nykra's design as a sort of reference, with the goal of making further changes from there. He didn't get to it, though, and the rest of the team was oblivious to him basing his designs on Nykra, so we uploaded some of the art assets on our blog. If not for the comments under our blog, we would still be unaware of it, and would like to thank everyone who contacted both us and Nykra's creator.

* We would like to publicly apologize for this situation, both to endesga, Nykra's creator, and to all other LD participants. Stealing art is wrong, regardless if it's done on purpose or "by accident". * Stealing from a small, indie developer, feels even more shameful for us.

The responsibility lies with the whole team: Obviously our artist is at fault for copying other people's designs, without any mention to the original creator or the team. But the rest of the team should've also acted more vigilant, and check with the artist whether the designs were original. It's easy to not spend much thought on these things during the rapid prototyping/development in a 72-hour game jam. However, these jams aren't just a competition, but for many of us also a first taste of game developing. Respecting developers' creations is equally important to the technical parts, and is better learned right from the start. We're all, professional devs, amateur devs and gamers, part of this environment, and its culture is in our hand.

We have taken the following measures: - We've talked internally with our artist. It was his first game jam experience (and also his first attempt at pixel art, which is why he looked for examples in the first place), and while that obviously doesn't excuse stealing others' designs, we think it's safe to say that he (but also the whole team) learned this lesson. - Our game wasn't published, and we won't continue working on it before we have created new, original assets. - We have closed the repo we used internally to create the game. - We have also removed any media containing our main character from the Ludum Dare blog.

Again, a huge apology from the whole team. We wish endesga all the best with Nykra (check it out if you haven't, it looks lovely), and hope that this post might be read by other people in a similar situation and keep them from making the same mistakes that we did.

... to play my game!

And if he call you, it's better to attend... of face the consequences!

Play CONFESSIONAL

List cancelled since @monika is doing a similar thing:
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/fellow-campers/list-of-multiplayer-games-ive-found-so-far

Hello all, I have recently been asked to do a freelance gig for a guy who wants to make a simple kid's game. I am confident in my ability to actually make the game, but the problem is I have never done a job like this before. So, I am once again reaching out to my LD fam to ask for advice on what to charge the guy? Do y'all think I should charge by the hour or one lump sum up front? If by hour, what's a fair price? And for those pros out there who have done freelance work before, do you have any extra advice for me? Like maybe things to put in the contract to maintain rights to my code or something?

Anyway thank you all! -kippllo

This is a post-mortem for "Claude Van Clam Presents: Roberto Fishermun's Horrific Fishing Adventure 2019", a fishing/ tower defence game

Click here to try our game.

Our Previous Game

Feature creep is a big problem with our previous game jam entries, they usually end up being much larger in scope than we can make and so they end up unpolished. At the end of the previous Ludum Dare, where we made a game about removing feature creep from game development, I wrote a post-mortem which suggested how to remedy this problem.

“Next time we will concentrate on a single aspect of the game, polish that and build a game around that instead of focusing on too much at once.”

So, our intention was to make a small game based on a single mechanic. And then the theme was announced…

The Team

We Are Not Spies have entered Ludum Dare four times, but the team members have swapped in and out. We had quite a big team working on this jam:

Myself, @soldierbear and @david-mason have worked on all previous WANS games. Soldier does the music and David does most of the art. @ttocs167 and @stuple joined for Silicon Boulevard last year, and papasee and @carvster were new for this game.

We are all programmers, and while some of us did have experience with source control, we had never had good experiences with Github and Unity. This would prove to be a continuing source of pain.

Theme Announcement

We were not a fan of the theme that was chosen, it basically forced us to ditch focusing on a single mechanic, which was not a promising start. No-one had expected to get it because it was basically a less inclusive version of “Two things that don’t mix”, so for a while we were clueless. Then we just started naming things. Things like ”Horror sports” and “FPS Retirement home simulation”. Eventually we decided on the idea of a stealth tower defence, where you sneak into places drop turrets and activate them, so they kill all the enemies in an area. Then Carvster said ‘Tamagotchi’ and the idea was forgotten for a while. Then it was settled again, it was definitely a stealth tower defence, so the team started going to bed. Then the idea changed to what would eventually become “Claude Van Clam Presents: Roberto Fishermuns Horrific Fishing Adventure 2019”.

Final Idea

The idea was a tower defence mixed with fishing game, where you build turrets that defend the player character from zombies, which allows him to fish to get money for more turrets. This would require working on two separate mechanics, which worked out well despite wanting to only work on one because it was segmented so allows our team to focus on different things, so people are waiting for work other people are doing.

Development

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35AZBtgm6D0

(Timelapse created expertly in movie maker by @david-mason)

Once the final final idea was decided I went to bed, in the morning I woke up to (once it had been uploaded to GIT) to a game that allowed the player to move around, and turrets that aimed and fired at targets. This was the work of ttocs and since the game was his idea he became the unofficial leader – it later transpired that the stealth game was his idea and the fishing idea was carvsters. Ttocs said shaders might be nice to show the range of the turrets, so despite having very little experience with shaders I decided to give it a go.

Since I had not done much work with shaders before I loaded up a tutorial and managed to get enough knowledge to work out how to increase the size of an image, blur it and give it a hue, which was the effect we wanted for the turret. To begin with we were unhappy with it, but once we used a higher resolution image for the turret base it turned out to work quite well. Another problem with this shader was linking it up with the in-game range, this was solved by multiplying the bounds of the image by 2.5 for whatever reason.

The shader turned out to be quite inefficient because we weren’t sure when we wanted it to appear if it appeared only on hover over the turret or if it was a toggle on-off button so it was applied to the object instead of the camera to allow for this flexibility and was not optimised once we decided to leave it at toggle on-off. Additionally, since the original intention was for the player to see the base of the turret and the outline of this base on hover over (although this was never added because turrets have no colliders and you never have to interact with a single turret), so the shader does three passes over the drawing to draw an outline, an original and a large version.

There are also shaders on the temporary towers that make them opaque, and as a hacky method for a day-night cycle on a sprite in front of that turns on with a dark hue at night to make it seem darker. Although this worked well it caused problems with certain builds of the game.

Problems with the Development

Our main trouble was with having little experience using Git and Unity. These problems started when, although we decided to check we were on the latest version of Unity, the repo was created in an old version. This did not cause anything major. The biggest problem was that in our first repo we put the git ignore in the wrong folder, which meant it would not properly ignore the files, which meant levels changed and prefabs broke etc. Eventually we had to ditch this Git and move to a new one (hence the name).

Even after this we had trouble when people would forget to pull before committing or people would not save their prefabs before committing. This primarily meant that the fishing game Carvster was working on which was playable when he left at night was routinely broken by the morning.

As alluded to before shaders were also a problem in building the game, this is because for whatever reason WebGL 2.0 does not support all the shader tools in unity, so in loading up a web version it would just show a pink screen because of the day-night sprite. This was fixed without the need for removing all the shaders on the web version by building using WebGL 1.0.

The Good

While it is not universally popular I am happy with the mood, music and graphics. I am particularly happy with the day night cycle that I worked on and the text that pops up next to characters.

While the design of the fishing game and the tower defence section of the game are both quite simple, they work together well. The game is probably the funnest, most polished game jam I’ve worked on. Although I think the fishing game would work better if you could fish from any position on the beach, making the player choose a specific point was a hacky solution to the problem of people being able to leave if and catch any fish that they missed by quickly running downstream.

The Bad

The main issue with the game from what I understand in the comments so far is that we have done a poor job sign posting the game (a problem that was also noted in Crunchtime). For example, people thinking the game is bugged because you can only place turrets near the player character, that you can’t build in fight phase and at its most extreme one person not realising there was a fishing component to the game at all.

Another big issue was game balance. For many of the players the game was too hard because the early waves can be very brutal if you don’t buy the right things in the right way. However, once you get past this by buying the right upgrades the game no-longer really represents any challenge. This should be able to be fixed by tweaking the prices of upgrades and towers.

While it’s not a design problem it’s also worth noting that the control scheme and particularly the buggy inputs for leaving the fishing minigame are also a cause of frustration.

How to Improve for Next Time

Again, I think we need to focus on a single gameplay element. If we choose to have an economy, it should be polished. Everything we work on should have more polish. This should be done by not building and putting together everything everyone has minutes before the deadline.

Hi! For this LD, I made a creative writing game / tool. It was supposed to be a meta-parody of the Ludum Dare that was quick to make. However, as it turned out, some people thought it was funny, entertaining and, to my surprise, legitimately useful. So I've decided to make this a legit tool for creativity, writing and idea-generation. Don't know how long it's going to take, but hell, I got time.

Thank you to everyone who played the "game"! You've been awesome and left some useful feedback (I'll make the time longer). If you haven't played it yet, here's a link: 10 Second Script

Now I should go play other Ludum Dare games. I've been travelling and finishing assignments so I haven't done that as much as I should!

as with the last post, if your game has less than 20 ratings, feel free to post it in the comments.

My game finally has enough votes, but a lot of games still don’t. Among those are:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/super-punchtime

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/mecha-dress-up

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/super-soup-slicer

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

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/b-e-a-s-t-s-break-everything-and-stack-towering-structures

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

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/tetrishooter-finished

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/unwinged-platzzle

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/transcribable-survival

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

Best of all, these can all be played in browser.

as always, they can all be found at https://ldjam.com/games/danger/all and https://ldjam.com/games/zero/all

Please show your support to all the games you can by helping them reach enough votes for a score.

Drop by for a chat, or submit your game!

Our game is quite phat with ratings at this point, but many games aren't! Let's fix this!

Queue up here: https://goo.gl/forms/aod0n2RI9GNc6bcq2

I'll only play games of whoever is in the stream however.

Click here or click Skeletorb to hop onto the stream on Twitch!

We fixed a few bugs. Check out our game

When you play Topdee, the enemies (pigs??) simply follow you, but when you're Toodee, they are affected by gravity. This is useful, and a tiny bit evil?

Feel free to check out the game here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/toodee-and-topdee

Today i made some little update for my post compo version of my compo game... Many of time i try remove this lags in html5 version because had some ideas... buuut changes make better only my code and nothing more( after this i add one more path how player can end game and some object what can help player in this) + i make my sole item more seeable + i repair some dialogs and problems in text drawing + i change dialogs load system

I think that's all... if you want you can enjoy this here(and leave your comments please):grimacing::

link: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/text-adventure-platformer

Check out my play through of this awesome game, and make sure to hit that subscribe button to see more playthroughs of LD41 entries! : D https://youtu.be/FHB3_vyGztU

I have a full day off, so if you have any games you want me to play and rate, chuck 'em my way! Maybe I'll spend the day writing up a post-mortem or something while I wait...

Sometimes Life gives you lemons and other times Ludum gives us an Overly ambitious Project to do in just 48h. This game was by far the biggest in term of scope that i’ve ever attempted to make in Ludum. In fact there were a lot of first for me, First time trying my hand a procedural generation, first time making a bullet hell , first time working with water color aesthetic, first time not eating for 37h. I made alot of mistakes along the way but I think I grew as game designer, programmer.

This is What I achieved https://youtu.be/lvEbJduNS9s

I would consider this project a half success in many ways, sure I have a game but its not complete. No Music, No Sounds, Not camera shake when taking damage, No Enemy Sprites, No button FeedBack, No more complex generation, no to a lot of things I know I am capable of executing if I had the time.

What I did achieve is beautiful and chaotic only a game made in 48h could be. I am poise to say this project was all about pushing myself to my limit and not holding back any punches. I would have loved to fully realized my vision for this game and push further then that but I only got 50% there.

I cant wait for the LD 42, where I hope to achieve greater things. Consider playing my game and giving me Feedback https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/number-one-take-out

I haven't played nearly enough games from this jam. Please post your game below so I can give them a try!

And if you have time I would love if you checked out our game Beat Street, a rhythm city building game, and tell me what you think!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/beat-street

Thanks!

Hey guys I'm playing more of your games tonight! Streaming here on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/flightyfelon

To submit your game head over here: https://goo.gl/forms/pDMWDyV3bMB6g7yx2 And to skip the queue there is information below the Twitch stream ;)

The title says it, doesn't it? I'm getting kinda tired with this "maybe runs in wine or maybe it doesn't depending on God knows what" stuff. If you (or someone else) have a native Linux game, drop it in comments and I'll play it. Mint17 64-bit, nvidia optimus.

Meanwhile, my gravity-controlled tetris could use a rating or two. 64 bit Linux/Win, desktop.

I finally learned how to build web player games with Unity. Surprise, surprise! It's easy. Modern Art Critic Hero is now playable from your favorite web browser!*

Play over on itch.io!

Check out my LD page!

Follow me on Twitter!

*DISCLAIMER: I have not tested the web version completely. It's literally a straight port of the windows version. It may be buggy. Sorry!

I need 4 votes in my entry discorc, you can try it here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/discorc

I almost have 20 ratings. While I don't care whether or not you like grapes, I do care whether or not you like my game. So play it and leave a rating! Thanks! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/racing-tower-defense

Come Play My Game!!!!!!!

Hello world!

I've just updated the versions available for my game (web, windows, macos and linux) to fix little possible issues. I had a feedback reporting an issue with the math box losing focus, this should be fixed. I also changed the way scenes are handled so hopefully there is no more music glitches going from a screen to an other.

Original submission is still available to download, of course!

I hope you will like the game if you have not tested it yet!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/education-to-survive

So, as people always insist on telling me every time I make one, multiplayer games have a hard time getting ratings in LD. Part of the issue is finding a second player for a game that is going to be probably only a few minutes long before you go back to poking at one player games. So I'm making a list! This way, when you have some people over, you can consult the list and knock a few of them out at the same time!

My original list was here, but it's been a few days, so I'm creating a new post so people can find it. (~~I'll try to keep both lists updated.~~ This is now the only copy of the list)

Also, if you want me add any games I missed or make any corrections to the list, let me know in the comments.

Couch / local multiplayer video games: - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/fellow-campers (5 - 8 players, jackbox-style, 100% browser-based, has a sandbox mode for fewer players) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/battleship-crusher (2 players, unity (has download and web versions)) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/strategia-soccer (2 players, web-based) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/life-and-death (2 players, unity / web-based) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/battle-bots (2 players, unity / web-based, has an AI opponent option) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/optishot (2 - 4 players, unity (has download and web versions)) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/fire-duck-football (2 players, unity (has download and web versions)) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/sumbot-fighting-1 (2 players, unity (web and windows build)) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/date-fighter (2 players, windows / mac / linux) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/cant-get-along (2 players, windows) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/match3connect4 (2 players, web) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/doodle-destroy (2 players, unity (web and windows build)) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/super-chess-card-wars (2 players, windows) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/monoplatform (2 - 4 players, windows) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/super-bass-racing (2 players, web and windows) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/interdenominational-brows (2 players, windows and mac) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/super-dashball (2 players, web and windows, has 1p mode) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/memory (2 players, web) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/fishx-brawl (2-4 players, windows, controllers required) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/deadliest-catch (2 players, windows, requires game pads) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/on-the-fly (2 players, windows) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/shoot-n-hockey (2 players, web and windows) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/super-punchtime (2 players, web, 1P mode) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/hot-meals (2 players, web, windows, mac) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/b-e-a-s-t-s-break-everything-and-stack-towering-structures (2 players, web) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/1on1-world-cup-2018 (2 players, windows, 1P mode) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/i-bet-that-your-cats-look-good-in-the-dance-floor (2 players, unity web) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/astronope (2 players, web) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/me-da-miedito-la-oscuridad-i-get-goosebumps-in-the-dark (2 player, web, keyboard or xbox 360 controllers) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/oldiswin (2 players, web, possible with one player) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/love-squared (2 players, windows) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/beach-please-splash-1 (2 players, web and windows) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/fish-fights (2 player, web) - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/golf-on-africa (2-4 player, web)

Online multiplayer video games: - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/a-title-for-a-game (up to 4 players, windows, lobby system)

Board games / card games / physical games: - (coming soon)

Asynchronous multiplayer / games with user created content - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/hanoi-city-of-scooters ("massive singleplayer" - uses previous runs from other players to populate the game)

You can play it here (and rate it, please 😁): https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/think-before-escape

I just realized I've yet to post a final update to our LDJam game, so here it is~

Do try out our game here! Made by a group of members from Gamkedo club!

Here is a really cool puzzle game that I played yesterday and that I have to come back to now because it is cool!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/rogue-crush

Thanks @mrerdalural @idikit @team-catwheel

He and his twin brothers want to beat the shit out Serious Bob and prevent him from earning coins via gambling! You need to restore the justice and save the universe!

HyperTexasPachinkoPongSurvarium with Cows™

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/hypertexaspachinkopongsurvarium-with-cowstm

Try our five minutes game and hug our world! Put html5 in full screen for better experience

Thanks to everyone who will test and comment our game

We still need votes to get to the scoreboard, but most importantly we need feedback to improve our game! So don't forget to leave a comment after rating, because we

1) can play your game as well

2) can improve our post-LD version

so please give it a try!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/hit-em-harder

Hey hey hey! If you like kids and candies, this game is made for you! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/candy-catch

I thank everyone who took the time to play my game very very much! Really appreciate this!

Your critique is very constructive and I learned a lot for the next jam.

If you still want to play my game, here's the link:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/ballermann-iii-the-expendabuilds

Unfortunately, you can't rotate the blocks :( I have thought about it during development, but you know...scope :D

Hi all, as per usual, my

• instantly searchable
• instantly filterable

games browser has been updated with the latest round of games. Looking for something specific like an author or just for some keywords, find it immediately. In addition, it has a full archive of LD games going back to LD 15.

Find More LD Games to Play!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/rogue-crush

Will you try it and give me some feedback?

Click here : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/rackety-rekt

Or here : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/rackety-rekt

Hey follow darers, is there already a fixed date for the LD jam in August?

For now, I'm making a mockup of what I want the look for, and I'm testing some colors.

The original game :

Hot version :

* Cold version :*

I'll try to make more :).

Which one is your favorite? If you have any advice for choosing color right, don't hesitate!

Please Help My Game

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

play and rate ak47 and ducks) 🔫🔫🔫 https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/fire-duck-football

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! 👈

We released a time-lapse of the game, from start to finish!

https://youtu.be/AUiJZZTSeg0

Also, people seem to like to share their performance on our game Type 'n Jump but that's just unbelievable:

😲 Someone finished our game in 83 commands and 02:08! 😲

To put that in perspective, the average number of commands used to beat the game is 200, in 10:00.

My personal best as the designer of the game is 96 commands!

Do you think you can beat it?

Remeber to type HELP if you get stuck somewhere!

I've put together a gif of some typical gameplay for those who have still not experienced the Honest Dan's Trout in all it's glory!

I've been totally overwhelmed by the amount of feedback I've had, and seeing so many people enjoy the game has really made me feel like every sleep deprived hour of the jam was worthwhile.

For those interested in giving a go, my game page can be found here.

*do not attempt to eat the trout.

Hey everyone !

Thanks a lot again for those who did take the time to rate and leave feedbacks about my game, it's a real pleasure to read any of your feedbacks !

And because we're talking about feedbacks here is on "slightly" big update : - I've improved controls !!! - I've added some new cool polish feedbacks - I've added a save system in order to keep track of your progress in the different levels

But more important, i finally managed to make a WEBGL BUILD :D

Thanks again and for those who didn't play the game feel free to try it out :)

PS : The first versions of the game are still available if you want to rate only the first submitted version of the game :)

Play The Fat Man and the Sea here

Thanks for the feedback guys -> Please keep them coming!

Link

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

Is it ok if ill update my game? I want to add high score system to my game in order to track the highest score in my game and display it. I dont know if this update is against the rule of Ludum Dare. Thank you!!

My First Ludum Dare Game Entry 🤫: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/gender-circle

There are candies. Everything is perfect when there are candies! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/candy-catch

Hi , Wana try out our game ?

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/midnight-demon

We will rate you back :)

The soundtrack from our game (including one unused track) has been released on Bandcamp!

https://adolescentstone.bandcamp.com/album/cqbeats-ost

You can check out the game here:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/rhythm-shooter-cqbeats

Personally i love to watch timelapses of my favourite LD games. it gives me a glance on how development went.

So i figured, some of you might be interested to see a timelaps of our game: It's not lupus !

Here's my timelaps (Roidz) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niQagU4EdRQ

and here's Durgan's: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGDAAR29Jok

and last but not least, Deozaan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZhIhzRd07o

If you are interested in trying it out, we have a weblink and desktop builds for all platforms on our page.

Guys! Check out my entry in a game jam at my country where we made a game based on a theme of "illusion". We used camera perspective to give illusion to the player. Check out and give feedback in comments of what you think.

https://youtu.be/Dg_7LDDzxYg

Hi there. Wanted to share one of the most fun game I found so far: Line-em up from https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/lineem-up from arche-san (@arche-san) and Traperac (@traperac)

Ok, I'm a bit disappointed that they didn't make the music during the Jam, cause it's my favorite part :-P But nonetheless, the game is fun, and I covered it in my French Let's Play video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cze6Dpc6JQ

This game is beautiful, I still can't believe the art is so well done on a Jam game. Not only was this a relaxing, aesthetically pleasing play, but the writing was cute and personable without being contrived or shallow feeling. The colors and structure of the environment plus the simple, straightforward mechanics of eating bugs and keeping both birds full made for a highly enjoyable experience. I give this game 5 out 5 aesthetically pleasing borbs. 🐦

Check out @rebecca-kremer and @qkjosh 's entry here --> https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/on-the-fly

1.5 2018/05/01

• Tetris stats
• Testing mode improvements
• Code clean-up

Play and Rate InvadTris

as with the last post, if your game has less than 20 ratings, feel free to post it in the comments.

Before I get to the list, I would like to elaborate on why I put a list out each day. I have gotten several comments now about how rating __ many games will get you enough ratings yourself. First, the way the system is designed, rating games only makes your game more visible; it is not a definite thing that you will get enough ratings. Second, I do not make these lists to give these games an unfair advantage. If anything, many of the games I have listed from the "zero" page show that this isn't the case in that that they are still on that page by not having rated any games themselves. It is a two-fold process. I post these lists because humans are hardwired to go after what they think is best, and unfortunately, this usually creates a feedback loop by means of the "appeal to majority" fallacy. It is my hope that these lists might counteract that by showing less popular games off. If you think that this gives an unfair advantage, then by all means create your own list. No one is stopping you. Now, on to the list.

My game finally has enough votes, but a lot of games still don’t. Among those are:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/beach-please-splash-1

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/my-first-day-in-the-agency

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/minigulf-gods

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/type-hero-adventures

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

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/my-theory-about-the-universe

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/tower-racer

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/office-tactics

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/cooking-mecha

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/zorkman-aka-pacman-the-text-adventure

as always, they can all be found at https://ldjam.com/games/danger/all and https://ldjam.com/games/zero/all

Please show your support to all the games you can by helping them reach enough votes for a score.

Every time I watch this time-lapse, I always smile because all of my efforts by creating this game are worth it because of the positive comments and high ratings that I received. Thank you so much guys!!!!! See you again on Ludum Dare 42.

Time-lapse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgGsaK1oxtU

Visit my first ludum dare entry: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/gender-circle

I've made a list of all the excellent pico-8 games created for ld41, enjoy!

Compo

Jam

Hello everyone! After a bit more than a week I've finally had the chance to update the game and give it some more of the polish it desperately needs. I'll probably be revisiting it more in the future to add cards and improve on the gameplay too.

I've polished the game a bit by adding some more animations, tuning in the difficulty, modifying the enemies and their behaviour and improving the score count at the top.

If you do play it remember to please rate it! This is my first game and even though it's a bit rough every bit of feedback is very much appreciated!

Also, remember to post your top score! You need to wait for the death animation to finish and then you'll see your final score (remember you get +100 points per score card you pick up in addition to enemies killed)

Try the game here.

• Added an animation for when players reshuffle the deck

• Modified the ways cards are drawn on the screen to look a bit more dynamic

• Changed size of enemies according to indicate more/less health

• Changed counter at the top to show score

• Added more spawnpoints to make for more dynamic gameplay

• Fixes bug with player being able to move out of the camera's view

We hit 30 ratings today in every category! To celebrate, here is a little teaser trailer for our detective game.

The reviews we received were incredibly helpful and very interesting. We would love to know what you think of our detective game too!

You can play The Murder in the Refuge of the Retired Monsters here!

https://youtu.be/urZVUiOcp0Y

What?! Puzzle invasion? 😖

Introduction

YEAHHHH, that’s right! 😱 “Zombie” puzzle pieces are trying to set something up by completing that old cardboard puzzle you left in the attic for .. hummmm … 25 years! That is so from the 90’s! Go back to your paper contry!

Let’s put them back in the respective boxes, otherwise they’ll steal our precious time!

Glue them as fast as you can before they reach their destination and step right on the respective colored floor tile to make them DIEEEEEEEE 🔪 …. sorry … but no … caa humm .. this is for educational purposes only, so lets just say they disappear ok?! 💨

THE "Puzzllerrs" are coming and ...

All the fun is happening here:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/puzzle-invasion

Credits

• André Silva - Programmer/Artist
• Márcia Carvalho - Music/Sound Effects
• Pedro Fortes - UI/Game Logic

#5 - DevLog - Bug fixes!

Hello hello, just a quick update on some bug fixes, UI adjustments and some new sound effects!

• [UPGRADE] Upgraded Unity to version 2017.4.2f2
• [ADDED] New price ballons over player tools
• [ADDED] New out of ammo sound effect
• [ADDED] New buy glue sound effect
• [FIXED] Time and coin counters had an issue when resetting
• [FIXED] Changed wave management, code was implemented but commented XD
• [FIXED] If user is playing and goes back to menu, now shows statistics before going back
• [FIXED] Bullet rate changed from 12 to 10 per second on CLICK
• [FIXED] Bullet rate changed from 7 to 5 per second on HOLD
• [FIXED] Glue price changed from 50 to 100
• [FIXED] Bullet count changed from 30 to 35
• [FIXED] Killing an enemy now adds 25 coins instead of just 15

A game about love and blood ♥️

It's our second Ludum Dare and we are proud to present you "Last Girl On Earth" !

For the theme, we mixed a "Tamagotchi like" with a top down shooter !

Give it a try for saving your girlfriend !

Available for Windows and Android.

:joystick: > Download and rate on our page !

:heart:

So... I added builds for Linux and Mac, I'm pretty confident the Linux one'll work. As for the Mac one, I guess you'll have to find out! There's also a web build that was a nightmare to set up on Gamejolt. It works fine now, though. The game's kind of inspired by roguelikes, but I don't think it's replayable enough to care if it saves or not. That's why I made a web build. Anyway, check it out if it looks interesting! There're also a time-lapse and a post mortem coming soon!

On my previous post, I talked a bit about why the art of our game, Wizsnooks, looks like that, mostly showcasing some assets. Today, however, I want to bring up something a bit more meaty instead. Say, how about a step-by-step deployment of an asset?

And what better than doing that by showcasing bad guys? I mean, @kroltan already showed you the guts of the game, while also proving once more than old-timey cartoon villains are the best. So, let's go from there.

Remember, the tool I'm using is Krita, which is completely free and downloadable from here. To make the best use of it, you need a digital painting tablet. This can still be done with a mouse, but it may take way more time. Getting a 50 to 100USD tablet is a wise investment.

Wizsnooks is snooker or pool, mixed with roguelike fantasy elements. So, clearly, our enemies will also need to be pool balls. So, the assets begin with a simple circle over a backgroundless layer.

Below it, I filled the layer with color, which can easily be later shaded and recolored for different enemies. The less layers you use, the quicker you can do the process, but with a color and a shade on different layers, you can have more customization in the future.

When I had the ball done (which was layer copied, pasted and edited multiple times to make a sheet), I proceeded to sketch enemies. Each sheet consisted of an Idle pose and a Rolling set of poses. The plan was to make the idle look menacing, like an enemy should, while the rolling was meant to look funny.

So, I turned down the opacity of the ball, and sketched on a new layer above them. Then, when I was done sketching, I would make yet another layer with the lineart, and delete the sketch.

I later colored on a layer below it. There's techniques such as coloring over alpha and the like, but I'm mostly just going with the basic instructions. This is how the colored layer looks under the lineart.

And here's how it looks with the opacity of the ball at 100%.

Needless to say, the process is repeated for every pose. Because these are circles, it would have been simple to just draw over the circle, like the protagonist, and be done with it.

However, that was by design to allow the player to look good with helmets and swords. The enemies, to outstand, would need a bit of volume, so there were parts that needed to stick out.

And there it is. Now, @JorgeGameDev made an animated version of the Dragon Orb (which we affectionately call Dragorb). Here's the cute little fellah.

That's pretty much all there is on the subject. Feel free to ask any questions or the like about the development of these assets or the use of Krita. I'll try to answer to the best of my ability.

Here's hoping you get a chance to see the whole thing come alive by playing Wizsnooks, available on your browser and downloadable for Windows, Mac and Linux. If you want to chat, this discord server is where it's at. And last but not least, here's the Whales and Games Twitter, so you can keep in contact with us.

In behalf of my team, we hope that you have a fantastic judging phase. We'll continue to check more games, so be sure to put your best face. Cheers! :whale:

More Whales and Games posts of interest

• Snooker your way into the Music of Wizsnooks!, by @RobinHoodPT
• Getting the Ball Rolling in Wizsnooks: Hopefully a Success Story, by @Kroltan
• My role as the artist of Wizsnooks, by @Moski
• A wordcloud, brought to you by ~~the collective histeria of the Ludum Dare community~~ @RobinHoodPT

An Ice-Cream ~~Man~~ Ball game.

Serve all the ice-cream you can.

Controls:

• Keyboard: Arrows + X
• XboxController: Left Analog Joystick + Button A

PLAY AND RATE HERE

PlatSCII!

You can play it and rate it here!

I have time to play more games today! If you want to link yours here do it!

It doesn't matter if they are played in the browser or not. Just share them.

Here's mine if you're interested: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/rthm

Make me play some games ! I'm on a Windows PC, have no controller, and i'm fully open-minded ! I'll leave you guys a comment if I play your game :)

(Oh, et if you wanna check mine, it's there https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/test-3 . It was made in a 48-hoirs neverending rush so it is rough, be careful )

Okay, i'm ready ! :D

Ludum Dare 41 woop woop!

Come play this magic piece of wizardry! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/tinyworlds

Haven't you played it yet?

I won't say which genres we mixed, since we've been told we spoil too much... But, if you dare, find out for yourself what our game is about!

Download it -> here

I'll leave some screenshots too...

What's new

The game window now adapts to the user's viewport, and we fixed the bug of the measurement bars' colors. Also, the new versions are now compatible with 32 bit systems!

Hey guys!

Many players has tried Line'em up and give us positive and very constructive feedbacks. A big THANK YOU to everyone for that.

Some users get confused about the push bullet and pull bullet. There was some little graphics difference between them but clearly it wasn't enough!

So... we decided to change the color of the default bullet to match with the color of the ship. It will help you to make the difference between the two bullets.

For those who didn't already play: Line'em up is a mix between a shoot'em and a puzzle match. The game is available here => https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/lineem-up

Thanks everyone and see you in the vote comments! :D

Hello everyone, I present you my first participation in the ludum dare.

I would like to know what you think in the comments to be able to do better next time.

For me the comments are more valuable than the note.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/snail-and-salt

If anyone is still interested on playing game you can do it here!!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/alien-sports

My last high score was officially beaten! Here's what they got:

Have you tried our RTS + Puzzle game?

No? So Go Green!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/go-green

We just need a few more scores to reach the minimum!

Thanks!

Being gone for two days just to see that I've already reached the 20 ratings. Yay!

Thanks to everyone that played my game and commented on it, I'll certainly take everything into account once I can get back to working on it.

Still gonna play more games though, so if anybody else needs a rating or something just say it.

Cheers!

Hi guys, my name is Rodrigo Denúbila and I'm the developer of CONFESSIONAL.

First of all, let me talk a bit of me. I'm 30 years old, live in Brazil, and work as web designer and programmer. Since I was a teenager, I like to create games but I never did this for living.

Well, when the theme was revealed, it was a shock, I hated it at first. I tried to think in something but nothing came to mind. One of the ideas I had was a turn based soccer match, but after some research I found this idea is not so innovative.

After while I went to a folder where I write all ideas I have and found this idea of a "second person game", and I realized that fits on the theme. The original idea has a longer story, and also has another character on the game, but I had to cut a lot of things to finish the game in time. Maybe I'll work more in this game in the future, when I finish my current project.

Well, when I started to work in this game was already 1:00 am in my country (it's 2 hour minus from the LD official hour). The first thing I did is to work on the environment. For this I used Blender, and make a lot of rectangles and cylinders.

I tried to make a modular environment so, then I had to set up the objects in the scene in Unity 3D.

For some models, like walls, ground, columns and wood, I used tiled textures to make it's materials. I got these materials in this website: https://share.allegorithmic.com/

For the models that needs more detail, I created the material in Substance Painter.

And after setting up the scene, I configure the pos effect, to reach the visuals I wanted to.

After that, I started to work on the main character of the game, the Bag Man. For that, I created the base mesh with the silhouette I desired in MakeHuman, and then I went to zBrush to make clothes and add details. I put the bag in the head because I think is was faster to model an unique character with it, and this fits with the horror mood of the game.

Then I went back to Blender to create a low poly version of the model, and open UV. And then I went to Substance Painter, where I baked the high poly model in the low poly, and created the materials for this model.

The victim model is the same as the psycho, but without the apron and the head / bag, and with different colors of the cloth.

And then, I uploaded my models to Mixamo to rigg and get some basic animations to the model.

I put the model and animations in Unity, but at this time it was already 5am and I was so tired that i went to sleep.

Well, i think this post is too big already, I'll continue it later. See you!

If you haven't played Confessional yet, give a chance: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/confessional

If you haven't yet, please consider trying my game out!!!11!!1!1

Witness how truly incompatible these genres are for yourself! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/a-knight-of-music

Thanks for all the ratings! This is the first time I've met the threshold! Thanks again to everyone who gave their feedback! :)

If you want to, you can play my game here!

I've just made a small update to fix the shield blocking mechanic so it should be much more reliable, but don't get too close to the towers!

Play the WebGL version here -> https://razorlance.itch.io/escape-the-future

And rate the game here -> https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/escape-the-future

I'm also thinking about expanding the game, here's what I'm thinking of adding:

More levels that vary in size from about half the current size to around twice the current size

More tower variation with different ranges, shooting speeds and damage amounts.

More runes to pick up and a rune upgrade system. Collect them and use them in different ways to gain upgrades and boosts

Different goals for level completion, e.g. destroy a certain number of turrets then find the exit stairs to the next level etc. The last level might be similar to the current once but the runes needed might be collected over previous levels.

Colour variation to the level to aid navigation, i.e. one colour in the centre which changes to another the further from the centre you go.

Updated visuals so I can add more detail in general to the game.

Let me know what you think in the comments.

My first LD, 3rd gamejam, and first collab - needs some more votes, if you wish, here's the link! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/run-experiment-run/edit

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

So yeah.. Not that my game prioritizes humor category, but it would be nice to figure out my global rating later on :D
Help me get over that 20 please: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/can-i-fg-die

First of all, if you haven't played the game. Here is a link: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/infinite-checkers

Infinite Checkers is a Ludum Dare 41 Submission for the “2 Incompatible Genre” theme. The game combines the fast-paced gameplay of an Infinite runner with a mind-bending twist of checkers. The music track for the game combines French Impressionism with a chill EDM beat.

Instructions: Click LMB/RMB or Alt/Ctrl to move diagonally. Hit the flat red pieces to increase score multiplier and move faster. Avoid getting caught by the hazard chasing you. And drop off the ledge to change starting tile. And collect all the “LUDUM DARE 41” alphabets to win (It is hard).

--TEAM COMPOSITION--

Infinite Checkers was made by myself(Programmer/Designer) and Blake(Sound Designer). It was our first time working on a project together, and we completed infinite checkers in about 48 working hours.

--GAME IDEA--

One of my biggest priority was to make sure the idea was scoped well. It was my first full game in Unity, and as I was the only programmer on the team, I had to make sure that I had ample time to finish the content, work on bugs and polish whatever possible. As neither of us had Art experience, I planned to think of concepts that would require minimal to no art. Another priority was low mechanic complexity, I wanted to make a game that was easy to learn by anyone regardless of gaming experience or skill.

To achieve this kind of scope I looked at some fun mobile arcade games. As mobile game genres are relatively low-scoped, I decided to look further and picked "Infinite Runner" as my game's first half genre. For the second half, I needed something simple that could easily gel with the first half. After thinking for a while and scrapping about a dozen ideas, I thought why not board games, and hence came up with infinite checkers.

--DEVELOPMENT--

Overall the development of Infinite Checkers went pretty smoothly. Here are some screenshots starting from the earlier stages of the game leading up to the final product.

--WHAT WENT WELL--

The idea of scoping low from the start worked out in our favor. By the last few hours of the Jam, I hadn't slept for 23 hours and was still fixing some game crashing bugs.

As I am a programmer by trait, I like to make my code as neat and organized as possible. Doing that in a game jam might sound like a bad idea, but it made my life a lot easier the last day of programming.

Getting the game's music to be the same pace as the gameplay was a bit of a challenge. The last thing we wanted was to have was a fast-paced game with super slow zen tunes. This was something that took the majority of Blake's time. Read more about the audio of Infinite checkers here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/infinite-checkers/the-music-of-infinite-checkers

Making the game in Unity was a breeze, everything that I needed was super easy to do and most answers were readily available on the internet.

The game started being fun early, and hence we decided to add polish as we developed instead of leaving it for the end. This ended up being a smart idea as by the end we were super out of motivation and energy.

--WHAT WENT WRONG--

AI for enemies: This was something I had planned initially that ended up being cut as it got really hard to balance the AI for a fun experience. The enemy pieces either seemed impossible to beat or stupid random. I wish I hadn't spent those 5-6 hours trying to make it work and cut the AI earlier.

Almost No Playtesting: Apart from me, Blake, and another friend who worked around us on his own Ludum Dare game, we had no one else to playtest the game and because of that some things like difficulty settings were not tuned properly.

Bad control schemes: Another one of the things that we should've paid more attention to. Using RMB/LMB tired people out pretty fast. Adding an alternate arrow keys mode on top of mouse buttons would be great.

Not good documentation of rules and controls: Aside from the bad control scheme itself, there was not much documentation that was added in game describing some essential rules and controls.

Static Backgrounds: The initial idea was to make the path go through a 3d valley of sorts but making something like that perfectly tileable was a pain so we decided to go with a static 3d background.

Not tuned well: The game is hard, almost stupid hard.

Need more juice: This kinda ties into the next point but when I thought of the concept in my head. It had a lot more cool shaders, effects and Juice!

HUD and Feedback: Players still do not know what causes them to win the game, it gets clear after a few tries but it is not apparent during the first run. Things like player's speed boost after hitting the flat pieces, or the score multiplier added for repeatedly hitting the flat pieces are some that really need some sort of obvious feedback.

--FINAL THOUGHTS--

Thanks for reading our post-mortem and what we learned from Ludum Dare 41. Quite frankly, we learned a lot and did something we liked. I am sure after a bit of time, and few game projects later we will come back and finish Infinite Checkers by doing all the things mentioned above and more. The idea is to publish the game primarily on mobile where you tap the left and right half of the screen to move. We think it could be a good fit for the platform.

Play Infinite Checkers Here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/infinite-checkers

There are lots of posrmortems about games people made, but what about postmortems about games people DIDN'T make? Well, here is one such posrmortem! I originally wrote it for my blog - I'll put a link at the bottom of the article.

Ludum Dare 41 was my first game jam, and I was determined to produce a complete concept. I’d read some horror stories about developers who overscoped their games and couldn’t really finish them by the deadline, and I wanted to avoid that. Unfortunately, I also had a minor cold, so I knew my productivity was going to be hampered. Oh, and my wife was working night shifts at her job during the week, so our sleep schedules would both be thrown off. Hooray!

One of my design skills that I’m most proud of is the ability to model game systems in my head and find problems quickly. This can be dangerous, of course, because if I use it during brainstorming it can hamper creativity by closing doors too quickly. But when brainstorming ideas for a game jam, it’s actually perfect because I don’t have a lot of time to work out design problems; I need a concept that I can for sure build, and that satisfies the criteria I laid out for myself.

Oh, it’s also worth mentioning that I wanted to make a game for the Compo, which allows for 48 hours and has strict “make everything from scratch” policies.

So, here were my criteria:

• The idea needs to be simple enough to be a “complete thought.”
• It needs to fit the theme – “Combine two incompatible genres”
• I need to be able to execute thoroughly on both genres so that the concept doesn’t feel like a cop-out
• It needs to be something that I can pull off with my very limited art skills
• It needs to be in Unity, because that’s the engine I know best at the moment and I need to be productive
• Preferred: I want to make something 3D.

So, let the brainstorming begin.

Idea 1: Roguelike Walking Simulator

This is the discarded idea that I spent the most time on. One of the things that appealed to me about it was that I could use my voice and build a narrative. I enjoy both voice acting and writing stories, so this would seem to be a good choice. I also enjoy weird narratives, and nothing could be weirder than a randomly generated narrative.

As I pursued this idea, I thought about how silly I could make it. I wanted to create a bunch of rooms, and then fill them randomly with objects. The objects would be silly too – my brainstorming list includes “Disco ball, flan, cactus, suitcase, giant sausage, large orange, and dais.”

Finding an object would trigger narration tied to that object which would contribute to a larger story. But I would also make the game shorter than the length of the story, so that the only way to get the whole story would be to play through the game multiple times and try to figure out how all the elements fit together.

But then I started to have second thoughts. Roguelike implies more than just procedural content generation; It also implies things like permadeath, and an actual challenge. I considered changing the genre definitions to “procedural generated walking simulator,” but procedural generation is a method, not a genre.

I also considered adding some challenging elements or some kind of death mechanic, but nothing made sense with the rest of the concept.

So I moved on.

Idea 2: GUNBALL

It’s a pinball shooter! The idea here is simple: Spacebar controls the flippers, mouse aims, mouse click shoots.

At first, this seemed like a perfect fit. Neither of those mechanics seem especially hard to build. Unity comes with enough built-in physics that I could probably make a pinball game pretty easily.

But… could I? In theory, maybe. But game physics are full of gotchas, and I don’t have enough experience Unity’s physics to confidently make a game based entirely on physics.

There’s also the problem that a good pinball game actually has a lot of moving parts, and I’ve never made one before. I would have to build out curves that would work properly with the physics to move the ball around, bumpers, and those things that hold the ball for a second and then spit it back out again…

On top of that, I would need shooter mechanics.

I also explored how a level would be designed. A single board may not be enough fun or enough gameplay; Multiple boards would require a lot of design work.

At that point, I couldn’t see a way forward that wasn’t altogether Way Too Much Work. And so, onto the next idea.

Ideas 3-X: Brain dump time!

It was after dinner – several hours had elapsed since the theme was announced, and I still didn’t have an idea. At this point I decided to just start trying to metaphorically stick my finger down my brain’s throat and vomit out as many ideas as possible.

I thought, what have other people made with Unity? I remembered all those tiny horror games made with Unity that are basically “don’t let the monster get you,” and I thought – what if when the monster gets you, he asks you questions? Hey, it’s a horror/quiz game!

But then I remember that there’s an entire game in one of the Jackbox Party Packs that is literally a horror quiz game, which made my idea feel less interesting. Also, I felt like if I was going to go to all the trouble of making a game, I should probably find a more interesting concept than “avoid a thing and then take a quiz.”

Next up, a match 3 platformer! I’m a huge fan of games like 10000000 and You Must Build a Boat (okay that’s basically the same game) where there’s a match 3 mechanic and action/RPG mechanics. (I also think Puzzles and Dragons is utterly brilliant.) I considered a more deliberately frustrating, troll version of a match three game, where the match 3 part of the game is in the middle of a platforming level, and the player has to walk around the level picking up colored bubbles and dropping them on top of other ones to match.

I just wasn’t that excited about it though. It seemed more like a “hey look at this goofy concept” than something that could actually be a fun game. I mean hey, a game that’s basically 100 fetch-quests, right?

And finally, a stealth physics game. I thought about taking two concepts that are completely opposed to each other: Games where you have to break as much stuff as possible (like Angry Birds) and games where you have to break as little stuff as possible (stealth). So, I imagined building structures out of physics objects and letting the player fling their stealth agent around, over, and through them while causing as little destruction as possible.

But that would present one of the same challenges that caused me to rule out pinball: I don’t know enough about Unity physics to confidently build that game. And I know that Angry Birds, in order to offer as much destruction as possible at 60fps, has finely tuned physics code. And that’s something I had neither the time nor the expertise to manage.

Final Idea: FPS Cooking Simulator

The pitch I wrote down on paper is simple: “Shoot enemies, push their corpses into stew.”

I wrote down the major tech requirements, and it was only two bullet points:

• FPS controller
• Camera facing sprite script

In truth, that wasn’t actually the full list. I also realized I would need to learn and use something to build level geometry, so I picked ProBuilder (which is now officially a Unity product, and free).

There’s also the fact that I’ve wanted to build my own FPS for years, literally since I was in third grade and played Doom for the first time. My notebooks from then until age 12 are full of sketches of levels, monsters, and weapons for an imaginary FPS. (That wasn’t my only imaginary game – there were many others!)

And my plan as an indie developer is to eventually build a fully featured FPS inspired by Doom 2, Quake, etc.

So this felt like a good start.

Before I close out Part 1, let’s see how the concept fits my requirements.

The idea is definitely simple enough to be a complete thought. The shooter mechanics can be simple, and the cooking just needs to be “include the correct ingredients or you lose.”

• It fits the theme.
• Given the simplicity of both genres (IE the requirements for a game to fit the genre are simple, unlike, say, Roguelike) I can execute on both fully enough
• I can pull it off with my limited art skills by using billboarded sprites in a 3D world.
• It can be done in Unity
• It’s 3D

So, at that point, I had chosen a concept I was 100% sure I wanted to execute on. In part 2, I’ll explain how I did it, and where I made mistakes.

If you enjoyed that and/or want to see the two pictures of my brainstorming pages with my terrible handwriting, it's all on my site: http://www.aaronnemoyten.com/2018/04/30/ld41-postmortem-part-1-the-games-i-didnt-make/

LD Page: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/gender-circle

Hey everyone !

I'm at work, and as usual I'm gonna play and rate browser games during my lunch break. But this time, I'll only rate games with less than 20 ratings. So, if you don't have enough rates, and your game has a browser version, put it in the comments. I'll make sure to play as much as possible during my break, in about 3 hours (and if not, I'll rate it after work).

Oh and while I'm here you can play my game too, even if it has already enough ratings, all comments and critics are welcome : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/dungeon-of-high-school-romance

We would greatly appreciate it if you would take a bit of your time and check out our game! If you will give some feedback for our game, we would look at your game as well. https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/the-forgotten-jacket

latest ROLL and shoot at anything

challenge yourself! Try to destroy all enemies and score 8200 points

You can play it in your browser Or download it to your computer (windows) have fun

play the game here =) https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/crazy-cube

Now with chests!

Check out there: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/firun

Thanks for playing and commenting.

Try it and solve it. :D https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/bright-voice

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/rackety-rekt#/comment-200044

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/black-horizon