Argh, I was looking forward to LD42 but I knew early on that this would become a dilemma since I am away on holiday with my family. This would be my 7th consecutive compo entry and I've had a blast the previous 6 events so it's difficult to not participate. Saying this, I will actually be coming home ON the weekend so maybe, just maybe I could make a small game after all. I would have to limit my compo entry to a 6 hour effort which would be asking a lot =) The benefit would be that I would get a lot of time to just think of the gameplay and design AFK before I begin so I'll see what I'll come up with but don't expect anything extravagant :)

There's a job listing on Gamasutra that's in the area of up my alley (http://jobs.gamasutra.com/job/2d-artist-seattle-washington-33108). It would be silly to apply for it, though... my driver's license is suspended, I'm on the opposite side of the continent, and I'd have to be pretty damn impressive for them to consider working with me around these issues, especially since I am an inexperienced, untrained self-starter.

But I've decided as a personal challenge to treat LD42 as if it's an application for that job. They want a Kawaii Urban Vinyl aesthetic, so I'm going to make one live on Twitch and put it into Unity and make it fit the theme.

I've also got a game coming out in October. I'd like for it to do well. So, in the name of self-pimpage, I'm totally taking the main character from that game and putting her in my jam game. She's a witch, so she'll be able to slot handily into almost any theme.

So, bonus constraints: I need to make a game in the time allotted that fits the theme and stars a kawaii urban vinyl witch. Can I pull it off? We're about to find out!

Hi everyone.

So the last Ludum Dare was great. Personally it was the best out of all three last Ludum Dares that I've participated in. I've enjoyed making my game, I've enjoyed playing other's game and most of all I've enjoyed watching others play my game.

There's just something great about seeing other people have fun playing something that you created and put so much effort in. People seemed to genuinely enjoy it and that reflected on the score. The game took the 16th place overall of which I'm so incredibly happy about. Of course there was A LOT of feedback on things that could be improved. And that is yet another great thing about Ludum Dare and its community!

Since the game was so well received I've felt the push to work on it and make it into something more than a 48 hour prototype. And now, nearing the Ludum Dare 42 I'd like to announce that the game is done and that I've just published it on Itchio. I'm very happy with how it turned out! Here are some visuals to get the idea. :)

Good luck on Ludum Dare 42, everyone!

If you'd like to check out the game, you can get it over here: https://lawrence-laz.itch.io/rpg-shop

Original Ludum Dare page: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/rpg-shop

Hopefully the points I'm trying to make are still obvious. Also, this helps me vote, so even if you don't like it, it works for me.

It's not a bug, it's a feature (-1): I'm not gonna up-vote your buggy games, now way. Maybe if you add a nice ladybug with nice attractive features. But I'm not going to spend days to find and abuse your bugs. I'm not a speedrunner.
You can't save them all (+1): Saving can be done on a wide variety of levels. Saving something from the garbage, to saving a species from extinction. I think we will see a lot of games where you save helpless princes from barely defended fortresses, they keep appearing on other ones. No wonder we can't save them all.
You are the final boss (+1): Me:"Hey you there!", Mirror:"Myes?", Me:"It's your turn to be the final boss!", Mirror:"Oh :(". This can be fun, but I don't see an awful lot of different ideas. Some of which are pretty hard to implement anyways if you want a proper boss fight.
Hello, Death is useful (+1), my old friend. I've come to talk with you again. Once more you came in this round creeping. An idea while I was sleeping, but once again this vision has left my brain. Such a shame.
Find it, protect it (0): Spend a lot of time obtaining object X. A timer starts, object X gets stolen in the last second. We are salty. The end. (Where X is a capturable flag, a defendable ancient or a secret dungeon rich of shiny diamonds your greedy peers are not supposed to know about.
Shadows (+1) Round 2's Safe in the dark, but a bit more abstract, it solves all my negative comments on it. But it might be a tad too abstract. Ah well.
Light is dangerous (-1): Wait, what did I just say. There is already Safe in the dark, this implies that. While Safe in the dark does not imply that light is dangerous, just sure to be safe. Nah-ah, you are too limiting. Goodbye.
The game rules change after each failure (+1): "So the game was too hard for you? Okay, let's make it a bit easier." I hate it when games do that. The other option is kind of like represented in pretty much like all the like Rogue-likes. I like.
Floating islands (-1) Let me quote a friend: "ok im not sure i like this one its just absurd i dont even know how youre supposed to add more players or make your own npcs that have shark heads -1"- Nuff said. (Because I don't want to add him admitting his "scathing mockery".)
the more you use an action the worse it will perform (+1): the more you use capitalisation and punctuation the worse the readability will be
also due to inflation of words i propose the use of the word inflation instead
this is a decent theme anyways when used properly i think
You control the environment, not player (+1): Another recurring theme. It's not a bad one, just requires you to have a player. I do love me some lemming though. So up you go.
Craft your own magic (-1): So we craft spells and potions? And we get the freedom to chose how we do this crafting? That's very generous of you.
I have been here before (0): "Wait did I submit this? I don't remember. Darnit where is my screen cap of that. It's properly clickbaitey, and half decent but not great. Meets all the requirements. I guess I'll claim this one to be mine." - Me trying to be meta, but failing due to seeing the end of this post, and I don't want to give my sarcasm module full control.
You are not the main character (0): Good, because I don't need one anyways. "Wait, I need one now, that is not me, otherwise people don't get the how the theme is implemented?" "Ugh".
"Quickly, find Shelter (-1), Night is coming (-1)." "Where?", "Ask guess Steve, Wilson, or that Badger

It still turned out a tinsey bit hateful at points. Oops. Though I did do my most up-votes yet.

For the last number of Ludum Dares, I've always had something going on, making me have one less day to do stuff for the compo or jam. But not this weekend!

Now traditionally I've gone with using HaxeFlixel to make a game, but I think this time I'm going to go with my own C++ game engine. The main reason is that last time I had really inconsistent and unstable output to web builds, and outputting to Windows didn't work for some inane reason.

At least with my C++ game engine, audio will definitely work, shaders will work and I can output to Windows and Linux without any issues.

The obvious alternative is to use Unity, as it's the major supported game engine that I've had the next most experience with and another would be UE4, however, my issues with those are that I would be working around a GUI and a specific API instead of working on the game itself. MonoGame/FNA would be nice but it's been too long since I last worked on an XNA-like project, so that's likely to be a pass.

As for a theme, I've chosen to be rather specific with what I want, downvoting most themes. So far the only ones I've voted up are: Control two things at once, Safe in the dark and I have been here before. That being said regardless of what gets picked, I'm sure the majority of participants will immediately hate the results.

Maybe it's not that useful if you're doing the compo, but if you're working on the jam and you want to add a spicy soundscape to your game, have a browse through the archive. Just don't forget to opt out of the audio voting category!

Hoping to join this weekend, looking forward to it!

My first time went quite well, let's see how this one will go.

Recently I've been looking for excuses to code some stuff, and just thought of checking out when the next Ludum Dare would be, when I saw it was only a couple days away, I clicked join without thinking (which might've been a bad idea, since my sleep schedule is all kinds of messed up right now.)

Anyway, I'm planning to use this as a reason to learn Godot, so I probably should stop thinking about something to write and go learn Godot instead.

So, good luck to everyone who joined. And let's hope everything goes well.

Pretty much the title. I would prefer seeing 30 themes at once.

If you want more rounds I think having a round of 100 themes then a 30 theme round then the final 10 would be a better system.

I couldn't find a Jam group to join, so I'm just going to enter Compo again.

Tools:

-- Unity (programming)

-- Reaper (music)

-- Adobe Animate (graphics)

-- GoldWave (sound)

I'm going to be starting around 9 hours late though, due to the new start time taking it right to the start of my job.

Not been coding for a while, lots of school work finishes JUST before the jam starts so it must be a sign. Coding: Gamemaker Graphics: Gamemaker: Music + Sounds: Boscaceol

I'm also gonna try and make an arcadey style game with whatever the theme is.

I've been a web developer for about 5 years now, is there a tool to find team members near you? Would people be interested in one? I would think it would be cool/useful to build something like this!

Now I need to publish all this on Gitlab... And get the sound going.

Hi ! It's the first time for me in Ludum Dare. I'm not very prepared because I didn't think I can make this LD (time and visit from family). But finally I can !

So, I'm a programmer junior and I want try this challenge ! :)

I want use Monogame for the code, and try Inkscape for assets. For sounds, I don't know for the moment

Bye, bye !

Hi I am currently new to Ludum Dare and very excited/nervous about entering my first ludum dare! Good luck to everyone who is entering!

Should I stream on YouTube or Twitch? I have OBS installed and YouTube streaming works correctly.

Ludum Dare 42 will be my first time participating in this competition. I will be working alone on a game for the compo category and streaming the entire time here. Anyone have some last minute tips for creating my game or on how to get viewers on my stream to watch me make the game? Thanks and good luck to everyone participating.

I have waited twelve years for this day. This will be my very first participation in an LD. I haven't been making very good games, lately, because real life requires too much attention, but I intend to pour my heart and soul into this while watching the world around me burn to the ground. Haha

Hi! I'm a composer with about 4 years of experience. I will work for free! Just looking for the experience :) message me if interested! Also my work email is laightmusic@gmail.com and my soundcloud portfolio is soundcloud.com/emodular/tracks

Started LD with LD36.

LD36: Ancient Technology Planned to make a 3D, platforming, puzzle, action game. Totally didn't finish.

LD37: One Room LD38: Small World -was not able to participate due to work. But how come these still come up in theme suggestions? Small room, Tiny world? What's next? Microscopic world? Quantum world (Hey, that seems interesting!)

LD39: Running Out of Power Didn't like it but was able to make a fun game (ranked 44th in HUMOR, WOW!)

LD40: The more you have, the worse it is This was pretty hard cause I find it so limiting. Also, first time I collaborated with someone. Unfortunately, the guy just... disappeared... in the middle of the jam. So another unfinished game.

LD41: Combine two incompatible genres Not my first pick but had several ideas about this one. This is the first time I held a local jam in our school and there were 13 participants in 3 groups. We were able to make 3 games. They were not really great but we really had a fun time! Planning to do another one!

LD42:??? Please, please, please, don't let it be "It's not a bug, it's a feature."

You can view the Trello project here:

Trello Board

I'm going to try using Trello to organize myself during LD42, and the preliminary schedule is starting to look interesting. Here's how it breaks down:

Last LD I had a total of 29 hours to work on my game, working around my regular schedule. This time around I'll have 23 hours keeping the same hours.

I'm going for three scheduling goals during this LD:

• Spend at least 6 hours sleeping every night. This will give me about 12 hours of sleep total for the full 48 period.

  • Day 1 looks like it will have about 9 hours of off-time for sleeping because I'll have house guests and they will of course want to sleep too. Unfortunately my work space also doubles as the extra sleeping space, so I'll have to work Remote Desktop from my laptop for a couple hours in the morning.
  • This will not affect the 6 hours for Day 2.

• Get to church Sunday morning. The way it works out I'll have about two hours in the morning on Day 3 and then three in the afternoon before Submission Hour starts.

• Spend no longer than 40% of my time on graphics and polish. I want this entry to be feature/story rich, not just a game with nice graphics.

I'll also be spending a couple of hours with the guests (they are just passing through, so they'll be leaving the morning of Day 2), and of course, hydrating and trying very hard not to starve.

How will you break down your time (if it all)?