I chose to use LD47 to create a miniature workflow and test something I have wanted to do for a long time: Make a Post-It note version of a published game.

Here is the Game Page: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/the-convolution

The Itch Page: https://greebles.itch.io/the-convolution

Essentially, could I reduce a whole big, complex thing into a tiny, single screen square of space and make it mimic the ___ (experience, theme, mechanic, gimmick, etc.) and would someone "get" the thing?

So, the theme pops up... and CRAP. Games exist inside loops EVERYWHERE. They exist for narrative reasons, as game features/mechanics, as meta-commentary, and sometimes, for no apparent reason at all. At least I had a lot of games to choose from!

The one I go with? The W - - - - - -. It checks off all the things I like. I get to use clever wordplay to describe how I view the original game AND it is a synonym for loop? Heck yes. (Yes, I ONLY one thing, cringing wordplay.) Bonus, this one is technically... a parody. (The cute little play space. Complete with OVER 12^ puzzles to solve and at least^^ 4 audio logs)

Did it work? Did you play thru it enough times (3rd time) to get the Guy Fieri Audio log? Does any of it matter because I specifically chose a game that obfuscates what it is? What is "obfuscates" and why do I like pronouncing it the same as Socrates?

Was this a clever thing? NO. It is actually a little bit lazy. I LIKE LAZY, SOMETIMES. Is it in the spirit of the Jam? In the end, not quite, and I won't experiment this way here again... but it was exactly what I needed to try out moving forward for personal work when I can't give the project the real time it deserves; it's a tiny place for a piece to exist without fading away completely... until I can pick it up again. And it gets to exist as a piece of work itself. So I got what I wanted out of it this time. I hope you do to. That, and... even if your game idea is BIG/GRAND/AWESOMELY-HUGE/MAMMOTH/GARGANTUAN/EPIC/JUST KINDA LONG... you can start incredibly small and test if the idea shines thru.

Also, side note, comments are appreciated, but, in the spirit of the game's source inspiration, I must block you. It's the rules.

^12 When you count each panel puzzle, the activation puzzle, all the environment puzzles, and the environment activator ^^Only 2 Audio logs per loop. No perspective is too obfuscatesitated.

The animation now looks better! Should I update the game just to change the actual animation with this one, or it doesn't change so much?

Also, what do you think about this animations? Would you like to see some that aren't in the game yet as well?

FADE TO BLACK. Play Troubled Mind: A Life of Torture: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/troubled-mind-a-life-of-torture

Using Godot's Path2D node and a handful of Line2Ds I found a way to shape my course entirely dynamically by editing the Path2D's curve in the editor. Using a tool script I matched every point in the drawn lines of varying thicknesses to every point in the curve. I made it like this because I had intentions to procedurally generate the track, but with this event being a limited time jam combined with me not bothering to figure out how to match a collision to the outside of a road generated by a curve, I scrapped it. This did however leave me with a very convenient tool for editing at least the visuals of the track.

If you want play a game on a track that's a result of this tool, find it here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/spectre-circuit

Can you reach level 20 in our game Stuck in Paris?

If you do, you will earn a spot on our in game leaderboard! In addition, @cocapasteque will create a custom car for you and add it to the game!

3 people already managed to do it, which is the reason we now have a Fiat Multipla and a dog on a car in the game.

And if you like explosions: Turn on Fun Mode!

Bust-a-Loop is a puzzle game mixed with a fighting game where you have to make a cool, looping combo out of the random moves you're given. Players have been showing off their execution and creativity by submitting combos.

Submitted by Morkalb

Mork is back at it again with this diverse combo. The enemy is combo'd onto the mine a couple ways here, showing the flexibility of the combo system.

Submitted by @xelphyre

Not all combos need the fancy attacks you unlock later. @xelphyre shows off the possibilities of just the basic moveset.

Submitted by @peachtreeoath

One from my personal collection. I love passing a fireball under the dummy before kicking them onto it. Stylish and practical!

Think this is up your alley? Give Bust-a-Loop a shot and send any cool gifs my way!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/bust-a-loop

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/zen-loop

Bjorn to Dance (Web playable): https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/bjorn-to-dance

Leaderboard: https://infamy.dev/highscore/web?id=bjorn-to-dance

We're incredibly surprised and happy with the response to Bjorn to Dance. We really hope everyone had as much fun playing it as we had making it. We've also had so much fun playing everyone else's games--so many incredible ideas and excellent executions. Cheers, everyone! See you in Ludum Dare 48!

Hey everyone, thanks for the feedback and ratings thus far! If you want to try out my game Ringchaser, please do!

To play, Use NUMPAD key combinations (there are alternate keys if you don't have a NUMPAD!) to match the configuration of color-coded targets as you move along the ring, destroying them and earning you points. Bonus points for accuracy.

Use the NUMPAD to match the targets and destroy them:

Please Play & Rate HERE

Thanks!! :)

Hi! We'll be playing your LD games on stream.

Submit your games here Watch the stream here

The original idea was to hide enemies and all structures behind the 'dark' part of the level. This would allow to unload 'old' level data and load new 'chunks' when player does not see it. Not sure if you can read this idea from the very first sketch. :smile:

Still love the hand-drawn concept art (#3).

The Ludum Dare has become a tradition for me. This was my fifth time entering, and I went into it with high expectations for myself. I was really proud of my previous compo entry for the Ludum Dare 46, and it placed really well, too. On top of placing in the top 25 overall, I got my first little trophy icon 🏆 for placing 1st in the fun category. It was going to be tough to top myself.

break

My fifth Ludum Dare game, break, has an interesting premise. A modern-day computer appears overnight in this lush fantasy world, but none of the townsfolk actually know what the machine is. You play as a highly-regarded wizard who is expected to solve the mystery of the machine.

The computer is shown to be infinitely spawning monsters using looping code, and the goal is to expand the script until you find a "break" statement, ending the game. Each expansion to the script changes the game world, making it easier or harder.

The game itself isn't actually about programming. It's an incremental top-down shooter where you defeat monsters and collect gold. There are NPCs that reward you with disks for completing these tasks, and the disks are what lengthen the computer's code.

My interpretation of the theme wasn't very original, admittedly. I expected a lot of other people to have programmer interpretations of the theme, but I still think it works really well. Some other ideas I had for this theme were Timeline Miami and Ring Road.

Timeline Miami would've been a parody of Hotline Miami where, whenever you fail, you'd retry among your previous attempt(s). You'd be able to kill your past selves, and vice versa.

Ring Road would've been a survival game that took place in a city circumferenced by a circular road, and every new day, you'd wake up at the spawn location, keeping all your items.

I decided on break because I felt like it played to my strengths more than the other two.

Music is usually where I start with my Ludum Dare entries, because it's where I'm the least confident. I spent the first couple hours writing a song in FL Studio, and I ended up with something presentable. While it might've sounded decent to the average listener, my initial composition was... unorthodox. For those of you familiar with music theory, my chord progression was V > V > IV > ii > IV. That strange progression could work in the right hands, but I didn't do it any justice, so I ended up rewriting the whole song with more reasonable chords.

I'm happy with how the rewritten version turned out, and a lot of people complimented how cheery it sounds.

For all of my previous entries, I recorded my sounds and then edited those recordings. This time, I did a lot more of my sound design digitally. For most of the sounds, instead of recording a sample, I created my own sounds using the VSTs I was familiar with. I feel like this helped me be a lot more varied with my sound effects.

I really wanted to go all-out with graphics this time, because I knew I could. My last entry was very bland and gray, so I wanted to make a colorful game with a lot more to look at. It seems like it payed off, because tons of people are complimenting my rushed art! I didn't do as much animation as I wanted to, but that's okay.

I'm not a writer, so I tried to use the dialogue as a way to direct the player and throw in some quips. I've always wanted to make a narrative game, and while this isn't what I had in mind, it's definitely my first Ludum Dare game with actual writing. Some of it may have been unnecessary or confusing, but I hope it's not too bad.

I definitely feel like the gameplay shines here. The only thing is that the difficulty doesn't scale very far. If I were to continue this game, I'd definitely make the golden enemies a bit harder than the normal ones. The gameplay doesn't feel repetitive because you're consistently unlocking new features, but it can feel mindless without much risk or strategy.

I'm happy with how I presented the programming aspect. I think it's very digestible to people without programming knowledge. However, I wish I would've added a strategy element with the computer without sacrificing the simplicity.

Pros

• Plays well. No big issues with how it feels.
• Looks and sounds good.
• A unique premise, all things considered.
• User-friendly, despite being about programming.

Cons

• A little too easy with a lack of any strategy elements.
• Minimal animation.
• Some of the NPCs are unnecessary fluff and potentially confusing.
• Could've been more.

I actually had to cut my entry 15 hours short to get tested for covid-19. Two of my housemates tested positive, so I spent the majority of my last day traveling. I received my results very quickly, and thankfully I don't have it, but it still stinks that I wasn't able to use all the time that I had.

After finishing some game dev work, we'll be giving more live feedback for your games! We'll prioritize anyone who is in chat first since it's more fun to talk with the developer. Stream will start at 8PM PDT and we'll start playing games around 10PM PDT.

Twitch

Enter your game here!

Our game: Undead Carnival Carnage

Thanks to everyone who has rated our game and provided valuable feedback! We really appreciate each and every comment that is made :smile: Roller Riches is an incremental game where your goal is to build a roller coaster that coaxes poor suckers (your guests) out of their money.

We're thinking about redesigning and rebuilding this game from the ground up as a fun long-term side project, with a focus on adding more traditional incremental game mechanics (prestige, multiple currencies, an actual semblence of balance, etc...)

Please feel free to post your game, and I promise to check it out! If you're interested and haven't given Roller Riches a try yet, please check it out here!

ELA now has post jam versions that save your progress when you quit the game. I didn't update the WebGL version because I assume that is the one most people will be judging on for the jam. The originals are still up for judging. https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/endless-looping-adventure

Now that I know how to publish stuff to the main feed, I figured I might as well talk about my game jam's post mortem here, since I received a lot of nice feedback and comments from folks here (thanks again everyone! I really appreciate it! It makes me happy to see how welcoming this community is :) )

Anyway, with that out of the way, let's dive into this!

Things that went well

• Trimming the scope: From all of the feedback that I received so far, I think for being my first game jam, this is something that I am really glad turned out well. While I did have a lot of ideas for my game, as the jam went on, I realized there were just some things that I unfortunately could not get to. As such, it allowed me to really focus on the aspects of the game that are already in the game (i.e. difficulty increases over time)
• Sticking with the theme: I was a little worried that my game would be a little too simple for the theme, but from what I been hearing, people really like the theme I went for! That makes me really happy since I honestly had a bunch of ideas for taking on the theme, but to hear this one stuck like gum gave me a lot of confidence.
• Persistence: I did have some moments during the weekend where I was getting burned out since there was so much that had to be done still for the game. However, what really kept me going is realizing that this will be one of the rare moments where I can actually complete an entire game over the weekend. That as well as the feeling of accomplishment helped me realize that this is only temporary, the satisfaction of the end result will make the time well spent.

Things that didn't go well

• Coding Style: While this could be seen as a benefit since I was on a huge time crunch, as a programmer first, seeing the code I written for scripts makes me really sad ahaha! I know I could do MUCH better with it, but because I knew I would be pressed for time, I had to take some shortcuts. While in the end, the product works, I knew if I spent my time a little more wisely, I could have had more time under my belt to do some clean up work.
• Time Management: Ahh the old classic for a game jam. This honestly boils down to spending a lot of time on work that wouldn't have made it in the end as well as not sticking to one task until it is complete. For working alone on this, I had my time divied up on multiple aspects (art, music, programming, game design), which really pushed my limits on how much I can do in one sitting. While it is a lesson that I found very valuable, I know that I need to be more organized with my ideas and execution for any future game jam.
• Feature Creep: This kind of goes along with the last point, but I want to address that there was more things that I really wanted to do for the game (more challenges, scene transitions, random level layouts, etc), but I unfortunately learned the hard way right before the halfway point of the challenge. So in the end, I am happy on the end result. I wanted to improve the initial thinking process that I had for the game, since that would helped my stress levels a LOT.

Future Goals

• Cleaning up the code. Did I mention that already?
• Adding in the second challenge. I did have some of it done, but it is not fully implemented yet.

Next Steps?

• Going to mark on my calendar the next Ludume Dare and any other game jams since I LOVED my time here!

And that's about it for my post mortem! Apologies for the long duration, but I had a fun time overall on the challenge. I wish everyone luck on their projects and I look forward to trying other people's games as this month goes on! If you haven't already, come try out my game here. You can even play it in the browser!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/loopy-dungeon

Loopy Dungeon is a tower defense where the path you take at the beginning of each wave is the path you will be on for the rest of that wave!

You can now test my "remake" of Pacman directly on browser :

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/pacxit

https://youtu.be/Vhzs2z0PKkQ

Thanks for the feedback on the game! We've updated the game some reported bug fixes.

Are you now working from home due to COVID-19?

Do you feel like you are Stuck in a Loop everyday eating, sleeping, zooming, while trying to fit in family time?

This game explores that monotony. Try not to let the beat stress you out. Stay calm, cool and collected and you too can maintain the perfect work/life balance!

Give it a try… https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/dont-stress-that-beat

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/aboard

Play in Browser ^

Controls: Arrow Keys

Play Time: 5 minutes

Looking for new players! Comment your game and I will play it.