I wrote up a postmortem on my compo submission, Venture-Out!, describing some of the bugs and issues I ran into.

Give it a read if you're interested! And feel free to ask any questions! :smile:

Venture-Out Postmortem - Creating a DOS Game in 48 Hours

GOLD DIGGER 2084

* Grab your golden shovels, it's time to DIG SOME GRAVES! *

The world is overrun by rich men, defeat them and claim your riches. Tough-as-nails level design and a variety of enemy behavior keeps the gameplay fresh and rewarding. Earn the highest score by dodging and destroying enemies, collecting bonuses, and progressing through all 20 waves!

Play now here:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/gold-digger

Hey all, check out our LD44 jam entry! This game is a turn based strategy in space! Rate and Leave a comment and I will be happy to play and rate yours.

HTML5 https://zerkywerky.itch.io/lifeforms-in-space

A big thank you to all for your good comments and sharing

And if you have not tried yet, come and test it !

Style Low Poly and Pixel Arts

STORY Dying is a thing. Escaping from hell is another.

Underbreak is an Action/Shooter game with rogue-like mechanics, where you have to deal with demons on each level to improve your character (but at a cost : - )). More than 28 different runs !

As a newcomer in hell, you’ll try your way out of the underworld. Shoot the imps and get the keys to go higher and closer to the surface. But freedom has a price, and some pacts with demons will need to be signed…

Will you spend your life wisely enough to get through the circles of doom? Or die trying?

Play 10 unique levels of a challenging yet fun platformer, and see if you can escape the castle you were trapped in! 🏃🏰

Play and rate here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/ballsy-escape

Hi there, if you haven't had a chance yet, come try our game! I added a WebGL build (although I still suggest downloading it and using a gamepad (unfortunately the gamepad is having issue on WebGL so there you can only use Keyboard + mouse)).

Anyway, our game is a single boss fight and you have to combine items and imbue them with some of your life force (you are an alchemist) to transmutate them into an attack a shield or a cure.

Your goal? Bring down this big guy ↓

here's the link: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/the-alchemist

(please leave a comment, we love getting feedback)

...measured in coin. PLAY: (HTML) https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/tensilver

After getting a lot of feedback from this amazing community about the animations in our game being too slow, we decided to fix the problem. We have done this by adding a "Fast-Forward" button to the topleft of the screen. Clicking it will make the game fastforward until the next animation. And if you want to fast forward alot, you can lock the button by pressing the lock button next to it!

We have also added the names of the gods and have given them a short description as to what they stand for, so people actually know what they are doing.

Make sure to give our little game a go if you haven't played it yet, especially now that you can speed up the process if needed!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/kaumaha

I have just finished clearing out annoying bugs, that many of you had troubles with. Here is a detailed list of the changes:

-> The respawn now works. You can play the game multiple times until you find the ending that suits you best!

-> The dialogs are now way faster and less annoying to deal with. No more waiting for the text to slowly appear one by one.

-> The flying was a huge problem for most of you, and we, me and @marius-boenisch werent satisfied with that either. It wasnt supposed to be that way. But the stress at the end took its toll. However, now with V 1.1 flying feels way more intuitive and easier. You also dont fly with space anymore, but W for upwards and S for downwards. Check it out, there are some awesome boss fight at the end ;)

-> You can finally skip the annoying cutscene at the beginning if you want to play over and over again!

-> More good news considering combat and controls: The player now attacks in the direction the mouse cursor is facing. That also was something many people disliked and we agree, it was not optimal.

We appreciate every feedback for the new release and hope, that even some of you who already played the game, download the new version and tell us again your thoughts. Have a nice day!

Wandering around aimlessly in an infinite 3D world is actually pretty fun!

You can try my Go + Vulkan game here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/worked-to-death

There's also a writeup of the technical implementation here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/worked-to-death/doing-ludum-dare-with-vulkan

Thank you to everyone that already played "The strange Life of Bill the postman" ! I'm very happy to receive so much feedback for this game! If you didn't play it yet, you can play and rate it here : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/the-strange-life-of-bill-the-postman !

Thanks for playing my game, got some great feedback. Played some amazing games too and got some inspiration from them.

will probably rate some more games tomorrow but done a few today.

if you want to play my game its here - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/lunatic-luke

can be played on the web, the music gets pretty repetitive though so sorry about that haha, probably should have spent longer than 10 mins on it

it's all online ! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/drop-of-life

Try your hand at this quest like card game where you summon demons and control a cult.

Me and my fried, who are the creators of this game, where extremely happy with this Ludum Dare's game. Even so much that we are starting plans to make this a full game. All feedback is greatly appreciated, especially since we are trying to make something greater than this game. What are you waiting for? Give our game a shot by pressing the link down beneath!

The Cult of the Morning Star

Anyone looking for something text based that works within a web browser, please feel free to have a go of my entry.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/the-day-of-the-chosen

It's my first entry since 2013. I've been away from development for so long, it's good to have as much feedback as possible.

There are multiple endings to this one so be sure to try it at least twice, picking different things each time in order to get a better feel for the experience.

If you played my entry, I would like to thank you for feedback and playing the game! You are awesome!

If you didn't play my entry, I would encourage you to play my game and rate it. I would be really grateful.

I think this is my best game I have ever made for game jam. I'm really proud of me that I finished the game how I wanted. Although, I'm backing to my main project now More on twitter. Peace ;)

Here, you can play and rate my LD entry

Just wrote a little scene in Godot that renders each level of Fluffensnuff and saves it as one huge image. Found it pretty nifty to talk about levels and progression :D

I can share the code if anyone is interested, it's pretty straight forward (as is everything with godot it seems).

Play 10 unique levels of a challenging yet fun platformer, and see if you can escape the castle you were trapped in! 🏃🏰

Play and rate here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/ballsy-escape

You can now play directly in webbrowser to our game (and we fix the bugs you saw)

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/hackz-memories

Hello ! Here my game from the Ludum Dare Game Jam

After reads some comments I took time to add an easy mode. To be honest, after 72 hours of work on it I wasn't really objective on the difficulty at the end of the Jam XD

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/no-more-chicken

Thanks to @instafluff @elysiagriffin @mrjoshuamclean @syrapt0r for streaming their reaction to the mysterious adventure of Dave the dev.

What is it that's so shocking? Find out yourself.

He's a photo of Everyday's team! We are very happy for what we delivered for #LudumDare44, and, as game develop students, we hope to show even better games on the future! Haven't you played Everyday yet? Check it out on https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/everyday

Please include a quit button in the game, otherwise I have to alt tab then quit the game from taskbar.

We are very exited to present to you our first ever ludum dare entry: Xochipilli's Trade. We had a lot of fun making the game, and worked till the last hours to get a finished product. You can play it directly on browser on our itch page.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/xochipillis-trade

https://sharpedstonestudios.itch.io/xochipilli-trade

You have to pay the blood price to please the foreigns gods. Not yours of course, only your men's. Be Generous, they may reward you with good fortune in the temple. Find items and perks during your descent and kill the great Ocelolaloniin the depths of the temple to get the precious relic of Xochipilli.

Move: arrows

Slash: D

Fire: F

Jump: Space

Gamepad supported

I can not see buttons "Delete", but you can play the game through your browser at This link.

We got some feedback from our peers/professors at the University and corrected some bugs in Everyday's Bar managment and dialogues! Now it should have a better gameplay for you all! Haven't played Everyday yet? Check it on https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/everyday

Almost 40 rating! Thats crazy! :´)

Please check it out and tell us what you think!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/fateshift

Also, we are building a list of games to play and rate, so feel free to post yours in the comments!

We are fixed some bugs and now you can try on new version! Please check it out and tell us what you think!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/love-deathswords

Hi , i am a young game developer. I am 14 years old. I love to make games. Its my first game jam. And i like to get a position here but i think it's impossible for me. However you can support me. I just request you to checkout my game. Link Is this https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/boxes-rush-1

Thanks U,

The more button is kinda slow. I remember someone ages ago made a browser that listed by type ( HTML 5 / Windows / Linux ) etc so it was easier to browse the games.

The more button is killing my left mouse button!

Play and rate: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/stay-alive

We've added web support for Blood and goods for the lazy ones, although we encourage you to download the desktop version.

We've also launched a Discord server, because we're going to improve the game even more, and we want your help!

If you want to slay some creatures PLAY THE GAME!

Come and say hi, I will play every game you link me and will leave honest feedback! I'd be very happy to do so :)

https://www.twitch.tv/thevinter

I discovered that it's possible to stretch my game over both of my monitors and it's actually kind of awesome!

Play and rate my game

https://youtu.be/cnlniT0SB5o

Thanks for all the amazing feedback we have gotten for our game Kappetalize.

The game uses what's called "active ragdoll" which means that it's not animation based but based on physics joints and forces. We sough out to mimic the popular game 'gang beast' that also uses this approach for movement. This does however lead to what people refer to "clunky controls". This is a hard problem to fix, especially during a jam. So instead we choose to embrace this by making it a party game where everything looks quite silly. We though that if the enviroment the player is placed in is silly, it does not matter that the controls are a bit silly as well.

Some feedback has been about improving these movement if we would continue working on our game, but i don't think we can get much further without a complete overhaul or moving to traditional animations, which would kind of break the whole theme of the game. Do anyone have suggestion on what could be done here? Should we just embrace the clunkyness and ignore the ones not liking it or try to cater to them as well?

Hi everyone,

my name is Twan. Together with Julien I developed Blood Rite for this Ludum Dare 44.

Blood Rite is an actiony-puzzley game where the player starts in an arena filled with traps and obstacles. Looking for an honourable death, the player has accepted to join a ritual of his people where people are wounded with a cut and try to collect the skulls of 3 that have failed before you and bring them to the altar.

Using a time mechanic where time only moves as the player moves, the game becomes a bit more puzzle than just avoiding obstacles.

I wanted to do a write up of how our gamejam went and share some of the WIP things from along the way of our 72 hours. We're really curious as to what you think of our jam game, so let us know in the comments what you think of it:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/blood-rite-1

Team

Julien (Code, music and SFX) & Twan (Art, animations, menu and writing)

Tools used:

• Construct 3 (all code, using the visual scripting language)
• Piskel (all in game art and menu animations)
• Paint.net (menus & letter as game intro)
• Reaper (music)

Game Jam Progress

Getting to know each other

Julien & I met a few days before the jam on crowdforge where he had set up a team wanting to make a 1-bit game. We had a short talk, introduced our previous (jam) work and decided we could work together. As I had never done any pixelart before, especially 1-bit pixelart on a very low (16x16 pixel) resolution, I spent a little time in my lunchbreak before the jam to see what was possible and what things totally not. Here are some of the first characters I made to learn more about the technique.

I shared them with Julien and he linked me to some great tutorials on the subject which I then watched to further orientate myself.

Day of the jam

Brainstorm

Our first thought associations of the theme were about gambling. We talked about that Justin Timberlake film where you need to buy time to stay alive and coin dozers where you put in so many coins, just hoping for a few to fall out on the other end.

We quickly moved over to a story/setting something where a big boss was controlling you and the your life away to make money. He wouldn’t care about you, if you dies, he’d just hire a new person. Trying to find a mechanic which was not about killing, we talked about trading away body parts in a certain order to make the most profit for this boss.

Julien came up with the idea of that time is money and movement takes time, so why not play with time, movement and currency. We decided on a bleeding mechanic where you need to find the optimal route somewhere to survive and get to the end. The boss had thrown you in this “maze. This seemed to fit what was possible in the 16x16 pixel limit and was close enough to the theme that we could start and see where it would lead us.

Working Together

Working as an artist alongside someone using Construct was really great. Julien could quickly make builds and show iterations of gameplay changes and implemented art. Especially as we were not in the same room. It was easy to try out some different things, discuss directions and spot places where the art and code didn't match.

Piskel, like Construct, was a great and flexible tool. I could export seperate images, GIFs and spritesheets where needed to show something or deliver final art. Being able to show things on you piskel profile page directly was also great to show and discuss art progress. Julien was very trusting of me, so often what I drew, he would be very quick to throw into Construct and we could quickly see how

First versions

Julien made a version of the game with some cubes sliding left and right (which would later become our wild horses) and the player.

The first version of the game.

From there I sketched out the horse, a ice-skating man who could zig-zag over the screen vertically (he didn’t make it in), the tentacle and the stomper.

While Julien continued with implementing the time mechanic, and setting up the scene I worked on all the character and background animations.

Here is our character, getting thinner and thinner the more blood he loses... Poor little guy..

We discussed an ending for the level and I proposed adding a big sword in that would kill the player. I love drawing splatters, so I just wanted to do some ultra-violent thing and kill the player when they won and have even more blood on the screen. Julien loved the idea and we discussed how many the story of the game wasn’t about this big boss throwing you into an arena, but it was a holy ritual where you had to do something to be allowed to die a heroic death.

At the end of day 1. We had the game running with only the horse enemy in, some coins that you had to pick up, the player moving and a blood trail behind him. We both had no idea if this would be anything good and if we could implement all our ideas from before.

Day 2

One of the first changes we tried out on day two was how the game would feel like being played with the keyboard instead of mouse. Playing with the mouse felt great and really worked with the blood we had over the screen as it would really be everywhere. It felt very free and even when you died, you had painted a nice little painting on the floor.

Using the keyboard controls did make the game more intense as you where really controlling the character, not just have him follow your mouse. It also seemed to make the stopping of time feel less like a bug and more like part of the game.

We added and tweaked the other enemies to make work: the stomper, and a tentacle that would rise from the ground. As a little joke I also added a flower, so sometimes a flower would come from the cracks instead and would do nothing. We didn’t put too much thought into it, but when I pushed Julien to put it in the game, we immediately thought it was a great addition. It added a bit of randomness and silliness to the quite dark game.

Julien added scanlines to the game and although at first I really didn’t like them, when he accidentally changed back on a build later I felt the scanlines really made the screen more comfortable to watch. He asked me if I wanted to go back, but I immediately said no.

The final task was adding a more clear progression in the game. The coins you had to pick up didn’t fit the game, we changed them to skulls and decided to add a podium in the back that would show the skulls you had collected to show the progress. Doing this made the game finally feel like a thing. Julian had designed 5 levels and added the big sword finish and everything clicked. Both of us called it a day and went to bed with a relieved feeling.

Day 3

We had both counted on a 2 day jam, so we tried to complete everything on the second day. While I went to my work, Julien worked on music, sfx and fixing small bugs. Even though I can’t recall the small things Julien fixed in the last day, I can say that the difference between the build we had end of the second day compared with the third day was like a piece of wood with lots of splinters and rough edges, while at the end of Monday the game was so much smoother and satisfying to play.

We had a few friends test the game during the monday and decided to add the last level into the game to make it a little more challenging. Some reviews have said it was a little difficult, but both julien and I like it. It really challenges what you have learned while playing and gives you a stronger reward feeling for beating it. It’s still a relatively short game experience, but we both feel now it’s a fun and cohesive bitesize experience that doesn’t overstay its welcome.

Music

As Julien was quite experienced making music, he took the task on him to make songs. He started with a tribal-like rhythm which we discussed. We talked about the fantastic soundtrack of “Ape Out” and how cool it was that it was interactive. Brainstorming a bit, we thought it would be great to layer the song, adding more and more drums, the further the player got in the game. When playing the game with the sounds implemented for the first time, it really blew me away how well it fit. Julien had captured it perfectly.

https://soundcloud.com/julienlussiez/blood-rite-music/s-sVZgo

Main Menu Progress

Here are a few iterations of the main menu we went through before reaching the final design. I made these in Paint.net because It would’ve taken me too long to draw everything in lots of 16x16 pixel images. I did eventually export the blood drip out to piskel and animate it in there just because I like the animation interface for that.

Conclusion

To end this post, here is a big file with all the art that we have used in the final game. Thank you for reading our post mortem and I hope to be able to play your game in the upcoming weeks!!

Hey you......

Yeah you... Com'ere,

Closer...

A'ight listen to me. Are you interested in some goodies? yeah of course you are hehe... Want some shit that's off the market? you looking for stuff you can't get on Amazon? I've got something for you... eeeehhhg...

Go to this website... you won't regret I tell ya: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/lucis-little-trinkets

Just keep it in the deal okay?

can you define it plz

Roguelite platformer with narrative elements (hard!)

Link : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/mouseketeer

Hello guys !

If you could just try our game and give us some feedback, that could be cool ! Of course, don't hesitate to share with us your link in the comments section, we can't wait to try it !

Thank you !

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/pourparler

Mass is your life source. Consume it. It fuels everything.

Check it out here - play in your browser!

Windows build added by request for better performance.

We arrive soon to 100 received evaluations, it's so much fun to see that. We only have one thing to say "Thank you"

And for those who have not yet tried our game, here is the link: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/piggy-bank-1

Pls try our game, and please leave a comment so we can try your game too.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/seed

Play 10 unique levels of a challenging yet fun platformer, and see if you can escape the castle you were trapped in! 🏃🏰

Play and rate here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/ballsy-escape

Come check out our game! Hammed Robbery !

Plus! Leave your entry in the comments and I promise I’ll get to it in a reasonable amount of time!

Memories of a Captain is a story rich, action based compo game that will test your piloting skills but also your ability to make decisions. It features multiple endings! Only one person so far got the best one, tell me in the comments if you do too!

Play it here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/memories-of-a-captain

don't disappoint Satan, rate Zoltan evilness here :)

You can play the game through your browser at This link.

Join Fluffy, Snowball and 4 other cats in the Cats Without Cars Arena right here:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/cats-without-cars

And lets find out who is worth the most bounty! See you in the arena my cat-followers!

You can play the game through your browser at This link.

You can play the game through your browser at This link.

If you like leveling up and competing with leaderboards, come try out our game!

Busy Hell Tycoon

Leave a comment and we'll play your games :D

Then check out our entry called "Path of Redemption": https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/path-of-redemption

I am going to be playing and rating games for a couple of hours now and would love some suggestions on what to play!

                               Check out our LDJAM44!

                          PIZZO TYPING HAS ARRIVED!

               💸💸 TYPE TO PAY SICILIAN MAFIA 💸💸

                                         CREDITS:

                        💻 Ignacio Muñoz Márquez

                        💻 Miguel Melgar Reyman

                      🎨 Antonio Carpintero García

                      🎶 Ricardo Roldán Fernández

                                       CONTROLS:

                                      JUST TYPE!

                             💕 Thanks for playing! 💕

                             📤 Thanks for sharing! 📤

                               You can play it HERE!

You can play it right now in your browser

Explore our game Beyond the Slot! It's full of action and fun! Playable in your Browser :)

Have you played our game Arrow of Light yet? https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/arrow-of-light It's an action-adventure platformer with cute graphics, catchy music and a fun shooting mechanic. And you can play it in your browser! Wow!

Hey guy,

I've got some time now to play some of your games now!

Somehow I want to give everything a chance.

Do you have any recommendations? :)

Hey you……

Yeah you… Com’ere,

Closer…

A’ight listen to me. Are you interested in some goodies? yeah of course you are hehe… Want some shit that’s off the market? you looking for stuff you can’t get on Amazon? I’ve got something for you… eeeehhhg…

Go to this website… you won’t regret I tell ya: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/lucis-little-trinkets

Just keep it in the deal okay?

*Try our game is really quick and available on windows and WebGl *

*Try our game is really quick and available on windows and WebGl *

Hey all! We've now released a downloadable version of Blood Quest on Windows, macOS, and Linux!! It runs much better, and we've even made a custom installer for windows! :)

If any macOS and linux users could please check it out just for bug testing that would be wonderful, as we don't have those devices ourselves.

Please download it and check it out here!

Play Lifeless Treasure here:
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/lifeless-treasure

Hi everyone, if you missed it here is our game for LD44. You have to make your family become more and more powerful by managing the lives of your heirs, marrying them to gain money and influence !

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/les-liens-du-sang!

After a failed attempt at a roguelike for #LD43 I tried to learn the lesson for this time, so I set submitting a somewhat decent entry as my main goal. To do so I'd really have to keep scope under control.

Enter Overburnt

Ideation

Last Friday after work I felt too tired to brainstorm ideas with the final round themes as I usually do and went to bed early to have a good rest. That way I could have an early start on Saturday morning. I wasn't too keen on the final choice because it felt too limiting, but an idea started to take shape relatively soon (you can see it on the notes screencap below):

Time management with a capitalist-ish setting + "permadeath" (or rather, perma-fatigue...).

With the International labour day just around the corner I thought it was a good match with the theme both mechanically and from a narrative point of view: You would play the role of a salaried worker exhausting him/herself to maximise the income for a somewhat sociopathic patron. I also happen to like the game mechanics in games like Overcooked or Diner Dash, so I had a thing.

Even if the idea stuck quickly I kept resisting it for some hours, searching for something better, until I stopped wasting time and started designing. At this point the game was intended to have a cooking thematic (the title, the "recipes" terminology and even the README on Github still reflect this), and I'd have a player character controlled with a gamepad or a keyboard moving around to do the job. The effects of fatigue would be obvious, since an exhausted player would move slower, or be able to carry around less things.

However, after spending time creating a placeholder walk cycle I reconsidered: I had almost nothing ready at that point and player control could take time to get right. I decided to push it down on my priority list and start with simpler drag and drop controls, with the avatar now being a part of the interface, as in DOOM. This would buy me more time to have something functional sooner, but then I also began thinking that a cooking time manager was quite derivative, so I changed my mind again. Instead of cooking I switched to a "fantasy town" theme, where customers would be heroes trying to equip themselves. With these two changes the game finally took real shape in my head, and actual work would start.

What went well

• Scoping and prioritization once I got past the initial doubts.
• Design focus. I have a nasty habit when I'm making games for jams: As a programmer first, I tend to prioritise system implementation over doing something fun with those systems, and with less than 48h to do EVERYTHING it's super easy to get lost on architecture details or succumb to the temptation of adding yet another (incomplete) feature instead of creating levels and thinking about pacing. This time I tried to put the game's design first and to some extent I did better than other times.
• Art polish. It can still be improved, and the UI still needs more work, but I'm happy with the buildings and items. Characters were a bit rushed, but they don't look bad either IMO.
• Core mechanic is solid and engaging.
• Android support almost out of the box. Credit to Unity here, of course. I hadn't originally planned to make a mobile build, but as the deadline got closer I thought: "Why not?" I did have to make some adjustments so the UI adjusted correctly to my test device's aspect ratio and it's a bit harder to drag the smaller areas there, but other than that everything was functional.

What went wrong

• Theme connection is unclear on the game's current state. In my head the theme fits like a glove, but right now that doesn't show up in reality.

  First, the fatigue mechanic isn't fully fleshed yet. It's missing impact in gameplay, there's barely any audiovisual feedback, and levels right now aren't punishing enough so you actually need to hold the brakes and stop optimising the crafting pipeline in order to rest a bit.

  Second, I also wanted to have a fixed, small "salary" the player would earn at the end of each level so she could notice how smaller salary was compared to the earnings she's made on that level. This wasn't prioritary, so it was also cut from the submission tasklist.

  And then there would be other more obvious mechanisms, like having pictures showing conversation between the player and her boss, which were never really on the table for the COMPO to-do list.

• Lots of time wasted on Saturday. You can see a glimpse of this on the Ideation section. I wasn't really convinced about the game I wanted to make for several hours, and while I believe the decisions I made were correct in the end, a lot of time was wasted to arrive there. That time could have put to way better use, such as...

• No time for sounds or music (again!!). :sob: I've made some tracks now for the first post-compo version, but I'm cranky that I couldn't do anything for the actual submission.

  You can hear a bit here (no effects yet, though): https://youtu.be/cHKijHNQGNU

• Controls may be unclear if you haven't read the (admittedly long) "HOW TO" screen text. I noticed this while showing the game to a couple of friends who struggled to figure out how they could craft things or give them to customers until I explained. In my mind controls are really intuitive (even if they still need more polish), but on the one hand I have played similar games in the past and on the other, there's this tiny, tiny detail: I f*cking made the game :sweat_smile:

  I have on my post-compo task list a couple of entries to either improve the "how to" screen or, even better, teach the player to play in-game, but I shouldn't take for granted that people will immediately grasp the controls.

And well, this is pretty much everything. In general I'm pretty happy with the result, and I expect someone can enjoy playing the game.

Thank you if you've read up until this point :D

Calling this a post-mortem seems extra-fitting for Soul Searching...

Since the end of the JAM I have received some great feedback, which 100% will help me develop the game, and more importantly my skills generally. As I said, this was my first ludum dare (second gamejam) and first platformer-styled game, and I wanted this to be an exercise in learning and developing. It has definitely been that.

What Went Well

The feedback I have so far received for the artwork, both character-wise and environment has been very positive. This is massive for me, as even though I enjoy and feel proficient in character spriting, environment art is something I have very little experience in. With this game, I wanted to get the mood right. It is a game that focuses not just on life and death, already deep topics, but in the human condition, morals. And actually asks the player to consider the objective/subjective nature of morality. Do some people deserve a second chance at life? I felt that quiet, but creepy music was a good fit, and a low saturation palette in a dark environment lit sporadically would add the correct ambiance. I felt also, that the player (Grim) shouldn't be running around, it's a sombre game; he should move slowly. This is a point of contention. I feel the dialogue is good too, and this has received mixed feedback but I think this is down to teh random nature of the dialogue. Upon generation, each NPC villager is assigned a random story ID, which determines the several options of this they may say, and what they say depends on the state of village life (e.g. whether you have killed all the businessmen, or priests, or whether pox is spreading through the village/whether you have killed all the pox-ridden people), however this, I now feel is too "behind the scenes" to be appreciated by the player...

Improvements to be made

Leading on from the dialogue, feedback has been that it would be better if it was more obvious who was dieing and who deserves to survive/die. I wanted to leave this partly up to the player, but I can definitely think more about changing dialogue to make personalities more extreme to make it easier for the player (but everyone has good and bad, right?). Another way I though of dealing with this is to add to the HUD or icons over the villagers. For instance, a little icon to show they are ill/dieing upon speech. Maybe, assign NPCs with a morality score (which determines partly their dialogue) and this can be conveyed on the HUD in terms of how much "good/bad" you have taken from the world?

Another improvement would be in terms of story, and this comes from watching my game being livestreamed on Twitch. It's currently open-ended and potentially could be played forever, but I feel a larger, over-riding story arc would help create a fun experience to work towards for the player. I am unsure how I want to do this, but maybe something to do with the morality taken/kept in the World mechanic I touched upon above. Obviously, the map and game itself would have to be increased to fit a larger story arc, but it's only small currently because of the time-constraints of the jam.

Movement was a contentious point. I felt movement of the player should be slow, to fit the mood and ambiance of the game. But many players of the game have expressed a desire for player movement to be faster, and with higher jumping. Again, after watching the game being played on Twitch, and seeing players struggle with jumping, I certainly agree I need to adjust the jumping mechanic. I will also make slight adjustments to player movement to increase walking speed... but not by much... Like I said it was my first platformer, and I do feel my design on platform placement/player jumping needs to be refined, with the feedback I can confidently go ahead and adjust. Knowing it wasn't quite correct the first time at least informs me what it shouldn't be like.

The Play + Rate is still going on, plenty of time left, so maybe there will be a second post-mortem but that's all for now.

Thanks for playing and rating!

Turns out you can't name a post 'Hello!' due to copyright conflict with the song. XD

Just wanted to introduce my game; Sigillis! In this one, you draw symbols on the screen to cast spells. There isn't any keboard controls to remember, you just need to draw patterns. Seems easy enough. Or is it? This simple little mechanic builds complexity throughout your playthrough, so the game becomes quite an interesting challenge! I'm so happy with how it turned out, surprisingly fun, and I'm glad I got the chance to innovate.

If you can spare the time, I would love for you to play the game (available on web), then if you could, I'd be infinitely grateful for a rating and comment here!

LD has been an awesome experience thus far, and I hope everyone else is loving it as much as I am. I'm so sad that it's frequency has been reduced to twice a year, but that just means I'll have to make the most of the two we have. I hope you enjoy my game, and have a good day! :smiley:

Please comment with your games so my team and I can rate them!!! We had so much fun playing all the games in my last post like this that we just had to do it again. Please don't be shy and send me your games!!! :) and if you like, you can check out our game here! :)

What a crazy day. What a crazy week for that matter. Thanks a ton @kylazaur , watching you reviewing Cats Without Cars on Twitch, seeing you playing the game we created was really an experience we will never forget! Also thanks a ton for all the amazing feedback we got.

Beeing part of this beautifull community is really one of the greatest experiences I ever had and I enjoyed every second of it scrolling through all these breathtaking pieces of art you people created! Please tell me if you want me to look at your game, cause I really can't get enough ;D

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/cats-without-cars

Keep voting and leave us your feed back, you rock!!!

https://youtu.be/JEaYybE82KU

You can play the game through your browser at This link.

I've been working just as hard all week as I did for the jam and I'd say that Fools Fortune is coming along swimmingly! As of right now I've finished;

• The initial 22 card tarot set, which allows for 44 scenarios to be implemented (22 cards + 22 flipped cards)
• Indicator showing the player which stat will be checked against or affected (got a lot of comments about this)
• Further explanation to the player that the stat draw will be a roll under situation
• Visuals that display after 10 seconds to show the player that they click, click and drag/swipe cards for interactions
• Event and Heirloom cards that will be usable between playthroughs. Further explanation being that an event card is one that you will be able to force into a run, you can select either an event or heirloom, events will replace one card somewhere in your run. Heirlooms are permanent stat boosts i.e. something that gives you plus 1 strength
• Item card given to players, heirlooms will randomly be given when a player is given one of these
• Text skip button (since a lot of people were talking about text being slow)
• A tool to easily add more scenarios (as well as more scenarios added to the game)

With that said there's still a lot left for me to finish;

• 4 more suits of art for the other suits of cards (14 per suit)
• A total of 156 scenarios
• Item card art
• Change the death/finished run visuals
• Options menu
• Android testing
• Unlocking suits through play
• Drawing a run before play begins, ensuring duplicates are not present (can't be done until 11 scenarios at a minimum are implemented)

(My three favourite cards thus far)

I'm also debating doing an "unhinged" suit, that doesn't exist in actual tarot that would be another 14 cards (28 scenarios) that are all joke scenarios.

Hopefully Fools Fortune will turn out as good as I'm hoping! Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated, if you have any questions as well feel free to throw them my way!

Don’t forget to play and rate Fools Fortune here; https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/fools-fortune

You can follow Fools Fortune’s post jam development at:

Twitter;https://twitter.com/Gear_Steak

Itch.io;https://gearsteak.itch.io/fools-fortune

Fight fires and help push us from 18.75 to 20 ratings!! Play here

...better late than never! Please enjoy this fighting game called Tamashii.

Read the itch.io description for controls!

Click here to play!

To begin with, I created a sketch of what our logos and potion bottles will look like.

First step

The idea with a bottle of "skull" or the emblem of "shield and sword" were not bad, but in order for all the elements to look organically in our game, it was necessary to abandon the details.

Second step

This is how the second stage of the picture looked, with which the programmer could already work, but, of course, were not ready. Well, the result was such a result 😁

Third step

As you can see from the picture, we decided to change the view of the last bottle to the cake. Becouse this element is not a subject for sale, but it restore player's HP. Therefore, it looks like something edible, and not something that can kill "Snow White" 😖

You can play the game through your browser at This link.

Climb your way to the top in the chillest new battle royale, Peak Myths!

FREE TO PLAY IN YOUR BROWSER!

64 FANTASTIC COSMETIC ITEMS!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/peak-myths

Come try out game! Hammed Robbery !

- BOB (yes, that's the game's name, just BOB)

Hey guys! After some feedback all around, we've decided to list here the possible game endings, so that some of you may go after them, if you wish. As we'd have loved to create an achievement screen in-game, this is our workaround while LD play+rate time doesn't end. We're very excited about this little one and about all the receptive feedback everyone is giving, in and out LD. Maybe we keep working on this one even after the Jam.

If anyone who didn't play yet would want to try it, BOB is right HERE!

But be aware that the rest of this post is SPOILER sensitive, okay?

[FRIENDLY SPOILER WARNING]

So, we'll post a more complete post mortem with our insights, tribulations, justifications, etc., but basically, if you already played the game, maybe you have noticed that it basically runs with 3 attributes, being one of them the visible Energy meter and two other hidden values, Hope and Chaos. This other two keep going up and down following the player's answers, sometimes both changes, sometimes only one, depending on the answer, but one of them always changes. Here is the endings list, as "achievements titles", and how to achieve them. Good luck!

BASIC ENDINGS - New Home - Survive until a certain number of turns. - Powerless - Just let energy run out.

MID-GAME ENDINGS - Spoiled Humans - Keep the Hope attribute at 100% for 4 consecutive turns. - Hopeless Humans - Keep the Hope attribute at 0% for 3 consecutive turns. - Rage Quit - Keep the Chaos attribute at 100% for 4 consecutive turns.

QUESTION/ANSWER DEPENDENT ENDINGS - Cold BOB - Let people be sacrificed and keep the Chaos attribute at 100% for 4 consecutive turns. - Mad Captain - Accept Captain to take command of the ship for a while and keep Energy around 0%~20% and Chaos around 70%~90% for 4 consecutive turns. - Greater Evil - Accept the Alien refugees in the ship and keep the Chaos attribute at 100% for 4 consecutive turns. - Defective Ship - Deny avoiding the asteroid belt, then deny fixing the hull with the machinery and keep Energy around - 0%~20% and around 70%~90% for 4 consecutive turns. - Sick to Death - Accept funding the Doc experiments, then deny the Kid's demand on keeping the lights on, and let the energy runs out.

Come enjoy the relaxing peaceful mode of Seaway

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/les-pattesthe-legs

Granny won't be around forever...

Check out the Keyboard Cowboy's second Ludum Dare game, Knit Worth! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/knit-worth

A big thank you from our whole team for all of the support and feedback so far! Keep knitting!

Hello Everyone!

Hope you all had a good time making games over the weekend!

I am streaming more Ludum Dare games on https://www.twitch.tv/ursagames

If you want me to stream your game, I have a form here: https://tinyurl.com/ursaLD44

Every game that is submitted on the form will be streamed (unless it is breaking twitch TOS)

I don't do strict time limits on games, so the queue might run slow at times, but there is a spreadsheet that I write down timestamps of when your game was played to help find your game in the video if you miss it on stream!

Also, you can check out my game here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/grim-adventures

...is something I experience very often. Both in my education and work, it feels like someone in your head is constantly comparing you to your peers and coworkers and telling you that you're out of your league, or that you cheated to get to where you are.

I think that probably started when I had a piano teacher for several years when I was younger that expected nothing less than perfection from my performances, which ultimately felt like I had to either be absolutely flawless in my play, or be viewed as having "not practiced enough". That attitude has stuck with me throughout high school, university, and now (only sometimes) my job. If I didn't do it well enough, I shouldn't have done it at all.

That's sort of what my game is, behind the curtains. It's an oversimplified arcade shooter that I scoped so small, I absolutely couldn't mess it up. I was afraid of not being able to finish or create something compelling, and so I kept it to an absolute minimum despite being able to do so much more. No music because my music isn't good enough, no special ideas cause they weren't unique enough, and very little fancy hand drawn art cause I'm no artist.

It's a terrible feeling to be held back by yourself in your head, it almost feels like your finish line doesn't get closer no matter how much you run. I'm sure many of you can relate.

The immense positive feedback I've received from those who played my game has been a reminder for me that it's pointless to think that way. I am getting better, but that feeling still lingers here and there.

So I guess here's an extremely simplified version of my personal "Postmortem" - Don't hold yourself back next time.

I haven't posted about my entry yet so here it is: Double Deal (HTML)! You start in a boat that has mysterious doubloons that can convert other rival currencies into itself, and your goal is to use doubloons with other traders to make it the dominant sea currency. I want to see how far others can get in its unpolished state. Try it out, but be warned that it ended up a bit confusing and difficult to learn!

...and that means COLLECTING REALLY NICE CATS

cLiCk hEr3 t0 pLaY n0W!

Test your luck in Hot Slots: All In.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/life-as-currency

This won't be any ordinary devlog, no. It's a techlog, where I'll detail the processes behind my game's Pattern Recognition Algorithm that coverts drawings into a defined game input. My game, (Sigillis btw) has you drawing symbols on the screen to cast spells. The crazy thing about the system is the potential complexity of the symbols. The system is rather complex, but with some fun graphics, it should become rather understandable.

The techlog isn't ready yet, but I'd love for you to play my game in the meantime! I'm also planning to make a big postjam version with heaps of special features. If you could muster the time, feedback and suggestions are much appreciated, you can drop them here.

If you would like to be alerted when the techlog comes out, you could follow me on itch.io or follow my LD account, but honestly, I'm not sure how reliable LD's notifications are (or if these posts even send notifications). If anyone could fill me in on the LD notification system, it would be much appreciated.

I've also got a new patch coming within the next 24 hours, so stay tuned for improved performance, cleaner code for your eyes to view and another important bug fix. I'm hoping to find the time to annotate the pattern recognition algorithm, to hopefully allow you to take a peek yourself (without your eyes melting from horrific structure and a hundred commented out debug lines).

Thank you to all of the wonderful jammers who've played, rated and left feedback on my game, I appreciate it so much. You guys are stars! Honestly, I wouldn't be making this log without your ongoing interest in my work, so thank you all! :star2: :star2: :star2:

Try to survive longer on the moon by shooting enimies and trade kidnies to survive longer. Here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/space-rabbit

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/time-hero - Ludum dare page

https://altazar0456.itch.io/timehero - Web page

The Idea!

So I had the idea from playing a boardgame called Carcassonne where you lay down tiles to build a kingdom. I wanted to take this tile building concept and put it into a video game.

I am using game maker studio 2 and found a free extension that allows you to load rooms within rooms. It was designed for gms 1.4 so it was a bit of a hassle to work with but I got things working.

My first attempt with room dog

Lets work on grid movement for tile placement

Hand Crafting the rooms

This was a fun process b/c there are 32 rooms total. The first room is always the same but you the player get to lay down the remaining 31 rooms in a randomized order. Here are few of the ones I thought were pretty fun. Note all the enemies and rocks look the same in the photos but in game are randomized.

Using a low color palette

This was probably the most key thing for me since I'm not an artist. I used this awesome color palette https://lospec.com/palette-list/rustic-gb by Kerrie Lake.

So I was able to make enemies, rocks, and power ups pretty easily. It made life simple and it looked consistent. I was actually pretty happy with the look of the game.

Coming all together

Here you can see it all coming together at a glance

Play The game

I would love to hear your feedback and see if you enjoyed the game as much as I did. This was the first time I ever attempted to do anything with randomization and endlessly loop the game so it was a really fun process.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/99hearts

Previously the WEBGL version of the game was a bit unplayable but now it should be fine. I've also fixed several typos in the game. Check out the game here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/cream

Brain Jam - A gamejam game about making a game. In a gamejam.

My participation this LD was connected to a smaller gamejam held in my city. A total of 8 games were produced in a single place, and a few businesses were involved, interested in that growing gamedev scene. In the end, my game was chosen the winner of them all in this local jam, which was GREAT :D

Well, turns out if people like the concept so much, I might as well bring it forward. Been thinking of a mobile release, with improved aesthetics and content, something akin to 'Reigns' meets 'Papers Please' meets 'Gamedev Tycoon' type of thing.

I'll be posting a revised build a couple weeks from now, and on the months to come i'll be working on the fully polished (and I mean it, I know how ugly it looks right now) mobile version, which will be put for sale, a test of the waters for a potential new game studio born out of Ludum Dare, and a show for those businesses who might just take game development more seriously as an industry with economic potential near the heart of Brazil.

If you haven't yet, please check out Brain Jam and give your feedback! We will be taking all opinions into consideration when creating the full version of the game.

Hey, everybody!

Edit: Link I forgot XP https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/coinroll-adventures

I thought I'd go ahead and shamelessly promote my second LD game; Coinroll Adventures! (Made it Godot)

It's a short puzzle-platformer where you play as a stack o coins.

I hope you all enjoy!

Bonus GIF!

Please checkout my entry for LudumDare44. Kick some cute BUT.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/paper-combat

We as a team have been thrilled with the flood of positive reception we've been getting for our game, Knit Worth. Hearing about you guys enjoying our game is hands-down one of our favorite parts about participating in Ludum Dare.

We'd like to return the favor and spread the love for some of our favorite games we've played so far. So without further ado, here are some of the Keyboard Cowboys' "Top Picks":

The Ends

Made by @memory-of-god, "The Ends" is a brutal look into the cycle of trying to live two lives at once. One life is trying to achieve your dreams, while the other is trying to make enough money to keep you afloat at a brain-dead job (at least, that's how we interpreted it!). Sporting an art style reminiscent of PlayDead's "Inside", it executes a simple idea and manages to capture the struggle of making ends meet.

Play "The Ends" here! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/the-ends

Seize the Clay

Made by @failedstarfish, @adamd, and @seconddimension, "Seize the Clay" is one of those rare entries that lets you flex your creative muscles. In a world straight out of a children's storybook, you are tasked with creating pottery to sell and keep your business afloat. The game gives you pot designs to work from, but if you really wanted to, it also allows you to craft your own potted creations, mold them into any shape you want, and paint whatever design tickles your fancy! This is definitely one relaxing entry.

Play "Seize the Clay" here! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/seize-the-clay

InstaLifePlus

Made by @nox282, @neakiir, @skyllee, and @voidaerun "InstaLifePlus" is a neat rhythm-esque game that has a narrative unfold as you play it. It's a super ambitious game that features multiple endings, and a surprising amount of polish considering how much is going on. We'd recommend playing this on an Android device if you can, but if you can't you can still get a solid experience on their HTML5 version.

Play "InstaLifePlus" here! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/instalifeplus

That's all we have for now, but we'll likely be back with more soon! The Keyboard Cowboys are constantly wranglin' up new gems, and we're still trying to get through all of the games from everyone who's left feedback for us on Knit Worth.

In the meantime, give these games a look-see. They definitely deserve the attention!

*Try out our game ! its short and available on Windows and WebGl*

*Try out our game ! its short and available on Windows and WebGl*

Bloodbarn is a farming game where you grow TV's, Microwaves, Tables (and more) and use them weapons to defend your farm!

• You've discovered a way to grow more than just vegetables!
• Adding your blood to the soil along with raw materials like wood and metal, you're able to grow non-organic items on your farm - such as like Tables, Microwaves and Desk fans!
• However, the vegetables aren't happy about this non-organic farming technique, and will attempt to destroy your crops on a daily basis!
• Use your newly grown items to fight off the vegetables... and lets hope you've got some left at the end of the day to earn your living!

Gamejam Page (PC and WebGL): https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/bloodbarn

Gameplay Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HD66dAfSBc8

Playtesting some more games today, make sure to try out Rashness if you did not already ! Sorry for the low quality gif :p

Money Fighter is a Versus Fighting Game where 2 players can battle for the glory of money ! Play this game with a friend on the same computer keybord and have fun to play and to try 3 unique characters with a unique special attack you can use when you pick up money !