Hi, I'm an artist looking for a programmer to team up with! I've never worked with a team for LD I'd love to team up with you!!! I use the Godot game engine! I'm hyped for the jam!! Here's my art style!!! Cheers!!

also reminder: make sure to drink water, take breaks, and have fun!!

Hey there! We're team of happy jammers based all over the EU. Since our resident sound-wiz can't participate in this Ludum Dare we're looking to take on someone new!

The current team is made up of a 2D artist + two programmers/gamedevs working in Unity, though we might still grow on the art side. Among us we already have a bit of jamming experience and aren't totally new to game-dev either.

We're pretty enthusiastic and like to put in the hours (at least the few that the jam allows...) and we would like you to share those qualities. However, we also pay great attention to have a welcoming and safe space and generally great vibes all around.

If that's you, come join us at: https://discord.gg/JnyzbDX or PM me on Discord: Sid#7611

If you want to check out a recent project, go here: https://sidremus.itch.io/urghodyssey

I did a lot of game jams in the past 10 years and have more then 10+ Ludum Dare entries. Here are my 10 tips for you if you are doing a jam the first time:

1. Be prepared

It is important that you are starting prepared in a game jam. Don't install the latest version of your game engine or IDE 5 mins before the jam is starting. Create and prepare everything you need before the jam starts.Doing those upgrades to late or in the jam can lead to time problems because you are more fixing your problems than creating a game.

2. Know your toolset

You are having only 48h to create a game. It is really important that you know your tools. Know your programming language, know how the tools you want to use are working, know how to export your game or how you have to use a version control system. If you struggle sit down before and practice.

3. Don't think too big

People are really often underestimating 48 hours. Find a game that is doable in 48h. A tip can be to find a game idea with only one core mechanic. Not more. If you have time left you can add more stuff at the end.

4. Prototyping

Try when you are starting with your game to have a runnable and playable prototype working as fast a possible. Don't spend to much time into the first feature of your game with polished graphics, nice sounds, etc. It happens too often that you have to change the idea of your game and throwing parts of it away. If you had then spent 5 hours into creating the best possible inventory system you can ... this would be waste of time.

5. Have a timeline

48h is not much time. If you think about it then you will see that 48h are nearly no time. It is not only the character that has to run around. Think about points like Inventory System, Animations, Game Logic, Game States, Restart Level, Score Counter, Menu System, Interactions, Game Over / Win States, etc.

A good tip is to have a playable prototype done by the end of the first day. On the second day, you have time to do all the bug fixing, polishing, etc.

6. Work healthy

Get enough sleep and eat healthy food while you are in a game jam. People tend to not sleep from Saturday to Sunday or eating only fast food. In my opinion, this is the biggest failure you can do. Stay healthy and plan enough breaks over the day. Take a short 10mins walk outside. You will be surprised what these 10mins are giving to you. It is a game jam and should be fun.

7. Have a web version

People underestimating the power of a web version. If you have only an installable downloadable version of your game people often are not willed to play your game. They have to download it, extract it from a zip / rar file and then install it. People are afraid of getting a virus on their pc etc. If possible try always to have a web version ready. You will see that you will get tons of additional ratings when people need only one click to play your game.

8. One Minute Rule

Don't forget that people are rating after the Ludum Dare tons of games. Normally more than 2000 games are created over one weekend. Get sure that a person who is playing your game is able to understand your game in under one minute. If you are lucky the person will play your game maybe 2 or 3 minutes.

If people are not able to understand your game in the first minute they tend to not play it. The tip here is to explain your game mechanics and the game controls well directly at the beginning.

9. Rate games

Rating games after the Ludum Dare is an important point. Play and rate as many games as you can in the first 48h after the jam. The more ratings you are doing the higher is your rating score. Your game will be more suggested to be rated next for people. It is also normal if you have rated a game that this person is also rating your game.

10. Listen

Listen to the feedback. The Ludum Dare community is a nice one. You have hobby game developers here and people who are doing this every day at work. Listen to the feedback people are writing as a comment under your game. Maybe plan to create a second version of your game after the Ludum Dare implementing all the feedback you got. This can help you a lot in jumping your skills forward.

My first time participating game jam. I'm so excited!! :smile: Have fun everybody :confetti_ball:

I remember playing few LD games like 5 years ago. I was pretty intrigued by the idea of jamming or even making a game myself. Took me some time. Now I’m joinig LD 47. Pretty surreal! ⛰️⛰️

I've got a question also - do I need to opt-out of Music/Audio if using previously made music (tracks never used for any game)?

This is my first Ludum Dare ever! Me and my team are really excited for this opportunity. Good luck everyone and greetings from Argentina!

2nd Ludum Dare baby! Maybe this time, I will play enough games so that mine gets featured.

My first ever game jam, but not my first game (See profile for shameless plug)! Unity/PhotoShop/Audacity/TBD?

I'm in this time hopefully! I'm 0 for 2 on actually submitting anything to these, but this time I've got the weekend off, no plans, and a new found love of UE4! (may still fall back on Unity depending on the theme)

• Tools: whatever
• Caffeine: Yes

This round was the best so far. We specially like perspective shifting games like FEZ or the recent Toodee and Topdee. Day and Night reminded me of this pixar short film https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJz_noKP-Bw I always thought a game inspired by that could be really cool.

We will be @ the Pennington Station [ 512 Virginia Ave, Joplin, MO ] All weekend, anyone is welcome to set up and compete in the LD with us. Come join a team or solo, even just to playtest!

I just spent over an hour battling against Unity, trying to prepare and re-use my main menu and pause menu from my previous Ludum Dare entry. Apparently moving from 2019.3 to 2020.1 breaks a lot of things in what should be just a simple export-import routine...

Oh well, this is why you prepare things like this ahead of time, so you can use your jam time actually making the game, not fighting against your tools.

I look forward to discover the last round :smile:

Me in

Planned tools: - Unity (2D), C# - Pixen (art) - LoSpec (color palettes) - Bfxr/GarageBand (sound/music) - Pages (planning)

I'd love to learn some new tools but my school work has mostly kept me too busy for that. Also I have a midterm exam on SUNDAY so that'll be taking up some of my time. Hopefully I'll be able to throw something cool together though!

This time I've got @yukey0 back with me, and we're ready to lose hours of precious sleep and (I for the most part) drink a f*ckton of redbull! :D Good luck to everyone!

I will be doing the jam solo this time. I'm going to attempt something more visual novel-y. I'm going to use HTML5 for this one. Clip Studio for the graphics. Google Docs and good old pen and paper for note keeping And Visual Studio for the spaghetti code.

Good luck everyone!

Glad to have something to distract from everything else for a bit.

Going to try something grid-based and turn-based to avoid the trap of game feel polishing I always fall into.