Thank you! Received a lot of feedback, more than I expected.

For you that didn’t played it, check out my compo game. You can download to play on Windows, Linux and iOS, but you can play it also in browser.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/constellation-exploration

Universal Powers is my first LD entry, for LD39.

If you'd be interested in checking it out, you can find it here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/universal-powers

Even though I'm proud of what I made (and I probably should be), there's some problems with it... Both minor and major.

The Great

• The amount of content: In the time-span of 48h, I managed to get 66 situations working, drew about 35 unique sprites, thought of 80 somewhat witty buffer-screen texts, and even found time to get some neat little things going on the background.
• The "repeating"-buffer: Because the game in completely based on randomness, there'd be a chance you get the same situation three times in a row, so I added a "repeating"-buffer, which makes sure you get at least 33 unique situations before they can be used a second time. This also holds for the planets displayed.
• The fact I finished the game.

The Good

• The art: Even though the pixel-art is probably sub-par, it was my first real attempt at trying to pixel-art, and I thought it turned out really good. You can see four of the "planet"s I'm particularly proud ofdown below.
• The humor: I'll come back to this later.
• The sounds: Even though they weren't the highest quality, I quite liked how the sounds turned out and how it gave the game a bit of character.
• The polish: Though not perfect, I believe to think the game was quite polished.

The Bad

• The humor: The main problem with the humor is that it's focused on very niche groups of people. It's all over the place with the references (Isaac, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, League of Legends, memes, ...), and every situation basically has a reference in there that at least one group will understand. Though this isn't per se bad, it's not great either.
• The flow of the game: Even though it's meant to be a slow experience and the enjoyment should be from reading the absurd texts

The Terrible

• The balancing: Even though technically all the outcomes were fairly balanced, the game was made in such a way that it was impossible to balance properly. The problem lies with the arbitrariness of the choices made. They result mostly in absurd outcomes (they are both a blessing and a curse, really), which technically line up with the stats gained, but it's off-throwing more often than not.
• Artificial difficulty: Don't hate me for this, but because I feared people would go on playing this game forever and would think it's "too easy", I added a secret bit of artificial difficulty in there. All stats are automatically being drained constantly, with the formula taking care of it being:

(currentSituation^1.5f - 2 * currentSituation) / (65 + currentSituation * 1.75)

This isn't that big of a deal, but the fact this sets a rush behind the normally relaxed feeling of the game after situation 10, and the fact it's not clearly communicated to the player, this decision was the worst one in there. This also makes it virtually impossible to get past situation 20 consistently.

The Conclusion

Overall, I think the game turned out fairly well. I feel like I did good on all aspects I'd never think to do good on (art, music, humor), and failed on the only thing I really got going for me (game design)... which is interesting, to say the least. In the end it did turn out way better than anything I've made in the past, which feels kinda great, but is kinda sad at the same time.

Hi guys!

Björn, from GameDevCompany, made a review of The P.U.R.G.E. Protocol earlier today in his Twitch channel. You can see it here:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/167175816?t=02h14m33s

Here's the game if you want to play and rate it: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/the-p-u-r-g-e-protocol

Thanks Björn!

In my garage I've built a sound recording room which is a super silent padded room where I record sound effects. I have three kids and for LD36,37,38 I sat in my normal room making my games and I also spent much of those Ludum Dares away from the computer with my family and other activities.

For LD39 I wanted to dedicate the full 48 hours to making a game to see what I could come up with. As my wife and kids were home I thought I'd virtually lock myself into the sound room so the night before I moved my computer and essential gear into the room. I got up before 3am (which is when LD starts in Sweden), made a cup of coffee and went out into the room. Initially it worked great - I had a solid 6 hour stretch with 100% focus on making my LD entry.

I went in to the house to have breakfast and the kids were awake. That was the end of my privacy :) They thought it was super exciting to run in and out of the sound room and I couldn't bring myself to actually lock the door so for the remaining 48 hours I got interrupted pretty much the same as for my previous three Ludum Dares.

Lesson learned: Not worth going into the sound room, better send wife and kids on a weekend trip or just be in the house like I did before.

There was one benefit though... I had a good spot to record my sound effects for the game even though I only spent about 30 minutes on those for recording, editing, and implementation. Here I am recording one of the sound effects during LD39, about 2 hours before the deadline.

If you want to give Robot Power a go (not Rocket Power like I write over and over again for some reason) there are HTML5 and Win download versions here:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/robot-power

I just uploaded a timelapse of GLOW. Check it out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EdILENQbA8

This time I decided to go with something different and do a top-down dungeon crawler/shooter (instead of the usual platformer :P )

I got a lot of helpful feedback, and I'm very happy that most people liked the core mechanic of the plug!

I might even try to make a post LD version (even though I always say that...)

Dunno why GIFS turn out huge so here's a vid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-7fRbPGpO0

Play it here: (HTML5 / Windows)

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/shekateka

Play (and rate!) RagooP!

I'm a huge puzzle game fan and just wanted to give a shoutout to two really good puzzle games I've played so far.

Robo-Power

Program robots using a loop of at most 4 instructions and direct them to drop a power box at the exit. The levels are really well designed and can be quite tricky. I also really liked the funny narrative that went along with the game.

Don't Be (The) Patient

An arcade style puzzle game where the goal is to find the sequence displayed on the bottom in the given grid. As you progress, the sequences get longer and longer. The game has some really nice audio; the jingle with each sequence you solve is really satisfying and the pulse gradually gets faster to warn you that you're running out of time.

My second Ludum Dare game. I feel I did much better this time around and the theme was one that had a bit of wiggle room I felt. Not really sure how Post Mortems go so I guess I'll just start from the top.

Pre-Jam Brain Storming

I gave myself the goal of coming up with 3 ideas for each theme once the final vote was on, more to do with being incredibly bored at work than actually being something useful. This was actually incredibly useful though! As soon as the theme was announced I had three items to pick from and the one I picked was the one I got most excited about before hand, so I already had a bit of structure to work around. I decided to do political power as a theme, where you control an empire but have to do 'something' to keep them under control. That something turned out to be lightning fast minigames. Most of my programming resume are little javascript toys that I write during the down times at work, so I figured that it suited my strengths pretty well.

1st Night

The first hour or so I brainstormed 10 or so of the minigames I would try to implement. As the final game only has 5 minigames this was a bit ambitious but because I could complete one then move to the next I figured it gave me a really flexible core for managing my time. The rest of the first night I worked on the frame-work game (which is the part where you are actually running out of power) and the first minigame which turned out to be the 'take a bribe' minigame. No art was done at this point so the main screen looked something like this:

1st Day

The first part of the next day was wasted as I slept in much too long. It was a long week at work, what can I say =P. I coded up 2 more minigames which I finished around 4pm. It was at this point that I realized I should probably start adding some art assets and sounds. I hadn't really though about how I was going to do sound so I ended up working on the art first. Art takes FOREVER for me so that took up most of the rest of the day. I started making bleep and bloop noises in bfxr but I didn't really like how any of it sounded. I decided to put in some placeholder sounds by just making mouth noises in audacity I could create later. I also had a few friends try out the game at this point to see what they thought of the concept. Their feedback helped me fine tune the speed of the framework at this point and convinced me to leave in my placeholder sounds which they thought were funny.

Last Day

I finished up the art for the 3 minigames I had finished and rushed out the last two which simply used the same mechanics and functions from the first 3. I had about 3 hours left when I decided no more games I have to make music, start menu, end menu, and tighten up the balance of the game. Again art assets took the longest to create which is why the start and end menus have identical backgrounds. Finished up everything with 15 minutes to go, so managed to push it through submission hell just before the server fires of '08

What I did right

• Scope: My scope was small but expandable. This was much easier to implement and have wiggle room than if I had started with a larger scope and had to make concessions later. It also helped in the speed of playtesting and getting the balance right.
• Time Management: With such a flexible scope I was able to see early on where I would end up getting snagged (the art) so I was able to compensate much more quickly.
• Playtesters: Testing the game myself was fine, but some of the biggest changes I made were from suggestions of my friends who tried it out as I went a long. They convinced me to leave in the placeholder sounds which seems to be what people like most about my game and greatly helped with the balancing. If for whatever reason your friends are jerks and won't play your game I highly recommend finding some sort of place where people can play and give you feedback on your game not just once it is done, but while you are actively working on it.
• Balance: While I'm not 100% happy with how the balancing worked out in my game (I think it is a tad slow in the beginning) I am confident that the game has a good arc the first time you play. The game has very little in terms of tutorial (only my voice shouting what you are supposed to do) but the beginning is slow enough that you can make mistakes and be fine. By the time it ramps up you will have seen all the minigames a couple times and know what they require while they do get more difficult so you will find small changes to trip you up.

What I did not so right

• Art: I am no artist and a lot of the assets in the game are very rushed. Even being rushed as they were they were still the largest time sink. Mainly I just need more practice with creating art in a short amount of time. In the coming months I will try to practice this. Specifically consistency in style is lacking here. I'm proud of the 'launch the missle' minigame art which I put too much time into making look good, but it's pixel graphics style doesn't mesh well with the other hastily cobbled together color blobs.
• Clarity: The biggest complaint I've had is with the 'Get outta here' minigame where people are unsure what to do. The game is short enough and the options limited enough that most people should figure out the solution, but that is a lame excuse. Some simple arrows or even making the borders of the screen glow the first time it is encountered would have smoothed things along at a low enough time cost. Seeing where these sorts of faults in a game are is difficult, but the player should know the options available to them at all time, and especially during a particularly frenetic game such as mine.
• Usability: Making a javascript game, it should have been simple enough to implement a full screen mode, or a scaling size for the game to make it viewable on smaller screens or even mobile. This is more of a lack of knowledge on my part I think, and I will be looking into quick ways to implement these features in the future.
• Time Management (Sleep): I slept too much and wasted a lot of time doing it. Wasted a good 4 or 5 hours I could have used to make better art or another minigame.
• Naming: The Political Juggle is a really lame name and doesn't really convey any information. I should probably take longer than 3 minutes to come up with a name in the future =P.

Overall I'm pretty proud of what I made though no game is perfect, especially not a game jam game. I stumbled into a lot of the things I did right but will definitely keep them in mind as things I should keep doing in the future. Where I faltered comes down to things that need to be practiced and I think will come with more experience. I hope you enjoy my game if you decide to play it, as I know I've enjoyed many of the games that the community has made. See you next time!

If you'd like to give my game a shot, you can find it here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/the-political-juggle

While going through the list of games to hand out reviews I encountered some games that were just too awesome to pass up. If you haven't played any of these yet be sure to give them a spin, you won't regret it.

Running Voltgun

Blast through three stages defeating enemies and bosses as you go. Be careful though as your battery meter continually keeps losing power. You can toggle through two power modes, (low and high) to help crush the enemy. Collect pick ups, avoid traps and blast your way through victory!

Be Queen Bee

It’s bad to bee queen! Can you survive?

A local multiplayer game with 2 game modes. In MOB mode, mobs will chase the player with the crown. In TAG mode, the players can chase each other as well. In both modes, the winner is the last player standing.

Heal The Dark Lord!

Oh no, it’s true! Our Dark Lord got interdimensional flu! Сure Him before his physical form dies! We’ll help you with our rhymes! We can’t summon His Highness twice! Treat him nice!

Run around as a cultist collecting ingredients to brew a cure for the sickness that ails your dark lord. Beware that cures can also be toxic and induce a heart attack which can kill your master. Will you make it in time?

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

If you are still on a voting and review spree and you haven't checked out my game yet then please give that a try too.

Good day everyone!, just wanna share again my game on Android that I developed prior to the LD#39,give it a try if possible share it rate it if you like it thanks! :D Preview Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7upTRhAmyU

The Unhuman reached 20 ratings! But is it enough.. Yes, probably :D But I'm still hungry. Feed me more votes!

My alternative title for this post was:

Feed the hungry developer before he devour all the known universe!

Yea this one is better:D

Click here for game page

Hey everyone!

This was my first time doing a Ludem Dare Jam, and I had a blast doing so! Me and my team (consisting of Rose "Super Shark" Hammer, and Evan "evbo" Andrews) created the Rhythm Shmup, 'Cosmo Beat' and you can find it here:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/cosmo-beat

There have been some great constructive feedback for the game, as well as some people requesting to hear the soundtrack. It's really nice to hear nice things being said about the work I put in, and as a result, i've recently released the album on Bandcamp.

https://zorsy.bandcamp.com/

This has been an amazing experience for me! In the 72 hours, I had forced myself to create music in genres i adored but never really attempted such as future bass and Drum n Bass, and combined it with a few jazzy elements. And i'm really happy with the result! Feel free to give any feedback to the soundtrack/game as you see fit and i'm excited to do more of these in the future!

~Zorsy

Hello there wonderful developer person!

I heard a rumour that you Ludum Dari (plural?) like making games. We run a partnered server over on Discord called GameDevNetwork for all things gamedev, whether that be in the form of code support, bouncing back story ideas or just sharing your lovely work.

GDN is a friendly, supportive development community that aims to help you become the best developer you can be!

We host monthly(ish) jams with fabulous prizes (by which I mean stickers and PR mentorship, we strictly avoid monetary prizes, we're here for creativity after all!) and love spreading community flair.

We also have a #gamejam channel reserved to contain the intense action of fantastic jams such as Ludum Dare.

Drop by and talk about anything from your Ludum Dare project to what your favourite pizza topping is over here: https://discord.gg/gdn :tada:

I'm also an avid game jammer/hackathoner, feel free to poke me about AR/VR, code things or just some of the cool projects you've worked on :heart:!

Oh hey! we've also got an awesome game jam coming up next month! Check that out here: https://itch.io/jam/game-dev-network-dragon-jam

Hey everyone! We are the Button Masher Bros!

We are back and ready to showcase more of your favorite Ludum Dare games!

It's the season premiere of Ludum Dare to Believe! It's S:10 Ep. 1!

(May contain strong language)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scjBTw9HsCY

With so many submissions, there was absolutely no way we could play them all.

Special thanks to our friends at Reddit, twitter, and Youtube who all stepped up to give us suggestions - you guys are the BEST!

If you like the games you see, be sure to check them out on Ludumdare.com and let the developers know what you think!

Today we will be highlighting:

Title: Manual Overload

Category: Jam Entry

Creator: Shawn Beck (@shawn-beck)

Title: Remote

Category: Compo Entry

Creator: oab (@oab)

Title: Visioff

Category: Jam Entry

Creator: torcado (@torcado)

Finally, we'd love to hear what you think! You can comment on the episode linked above, comment in this thread, or tweet us at:

@ButtonMasherBro - Show account

@MathBlasterRitz - Chris

@SuddenlyZach - Zach

or @jwowBMB - Josh

Thanks Everyone and HAPPY LUDUM DARE!

Hunt for the glory of Ull, the god of winter, in this nordic-themed action game !

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/berzerk-hunt

Your Fury is the only thing that keeps you alive in this harsh environment. How long will you maintain it to survive ? Squash rabbits and fight wild animals using your powerful abilities !

We dearly hope you enjoy our creation. Have fun !

Hello all I'm gonna do another playing and judging your game(s) stream and review them critically and talk about them in depth! jump by and say Hallo :D https://www.twitch.tv/jacksendary

Just a few more days to cast your votes, use DTBB to find some games you may have missed otherwise, have fun!

Hi all, that time again, my

• instantly searchable
• instantly filterable

games browser has been updated with the latest games. The new LD site is shaping up but you still can't beat the speed and ease of use of DTBB in my opinion. In addition, it has a full archive of LD games going back to LD 15.

Find More LD Games to Play!

The SecondDimension team have really enjoyed playing and rating games for LD39. We’ve been amazed by the art, imagination, interesting ideas and gameplay that we have seen. So we thought we would share some of our favourite games we have played during the rating process, if you haven't already we think you should give them a go. Here are our picks:

Air Mail by @rubna

A relaxing game about delivering letters by plane. Lovely graphics and a calming atmosphere

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/AIR-MAIL

Ministry Of Synthesis by @impbox

A game about manipulating waveforms. Interesting mechanic and very professional presentation

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/Ministry-Of-Synthesis

Oh no! Democracy! by @tim-eriksen)

A digital card game about developing a space program in a dictatorship. Short, fun and very solid for a game jam

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/oh-no-democracy-1

The Music Box by @ddrkirbyisq, @xellaya, and @acexl03

Lovely graphics and style with an intriguing story. I recommend listening to the fantastic soundtrack as well.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/the-music-box

Despotism 3к by @nikolaykuznetsov, @rune-drawer and @cardinal90

A fun game with a dark sense of humour. Breed tiny people and use them in your machines to make power.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/despotism-3

TITAN, Defend Earth before it's too late by @michaeltwg

Climb around a giant mech to manage it's power and fire it's weapons. The most metal game I've played this LD.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/titan-defend-earth-before-its-too-late

Our Entry- Modular Destruction Labs

If you have a moment, give our game a go. Create and pilot a robot and then try to complete the level before you run out of power.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/modular-destruction-labs

Wow we just reached 50 ratings on almost all categories! I did not expect that for my first real LD! Thank you guys all for this! I'll keep playing your games and hope we can reach an even higher score! I don't want to set a goal because if we don't reach it I will be a little disapointed, so I'll just leave it at the good acomplishing one!

Remember, if you leave feedback I will be sure to check out your game in return! I have been doing so for all comments recived, so there won't be an exeption unless my internet goes out!