I've decided to remake our game's title art into something more realistic (but stylised 'cos why not?)! If you're interested there's a link to our game: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/mission-8

Ps: I hope you'll like it!

Hi there :smile:

We need few more reviews to get a score ! So don't hesitate to play it here

The Stuck in the office team would like to thank you very much because thanks to you we reached 120 downloads :smile: :smile:

This is our first Ludum dare and we are very proud that the game has left you so much. If you want to support us even more feel free to test the game and give us feedback so that we can improve the game.

Your turn to try to get out of the loop

Ludum page : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/stuck-in-the-office

Itch.io page : https://itch.io/game/summary/776791

With less than a week left I thought I'd promote my post-jam entry, a 15 minute horror short story that delves into the surreal and grotesque. Can you spot the "loops"?

If that sounds like your thing, pls play and let me know what you thought! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/placeholder-1

Just a quick plug for the jam game we made a few weeks ago. We have enough votes, but more are always welcome. It's fun to read people's feelings and critique on our game.

Play our game here!

Play our game here!

Time Prison is a tricky, fast-paced platformer inspired by speedrunning. The levels are very short, but there are strict time limits. The time you save in each level is added to your Timescore. This number is important to increase in order to progress in the game. If you fail to increase the number enough, you'll find that the path through the game will send you in loops. Find the doors that let you deviate from the route, and collect sweet upgrades!

This game took us a lot of sweat to make. We worked in a team of 5, with two of us on programming full-time. It was a lot of fun, and I learned a lot about Godot in the process.

Haven't tried our platformer game for LD47 yet? you should! We would like to have some more reviews and feedback, so we can improve for the next time. Thanks!

My 11th Ludum Dare was once again filled with ups and downs, but I did manage to put out a game. This is the story my LD47 Jam entry, The Pongs. This blog contains an overview of my development weekend and some technical details.

Day 1

There’s not much to talk about for this day. Once the theme was announced (“Stuck In A Loop”), I do what I always do… come up with no ideas. Usually, I like to review the themes before they are announced and come up with some basic ideas, but I did not get that opportunity this time. After a few hours coming up with nothing, it was now early Saturday morning (EST) and I decided to call it a night.

Day 2

Saturday morning, and still no good idea. I had a couple of ideas, but nothing I wanted to really work on. It was at this point I decided that LD47 may not be for me, and I shut it down… discouraged as always.

Not one to totally give up, I decided to give it another try and put out something rather simple. I played around a bit, and got a pong-like game working where you try to shoot the squares out of the loop they are stuck in. Progress was slow, and the game was not all that interesting to me.

I used some basic Photoshop skills to create the loop. Using Unity, I rotated the loop, and added basic square and triangle shapes to create the pongs and the center firing mechanism. I was going for a retro look, so the white shapes seem to fit well. Physics added to everything.

By the end of the day, I had pongs bouncing around inside a rotating loop, and I can fire bullets at the pongs. I’m still not loving this concept, and considered giving up so many times, but I kept going.

Day 3

It wasn’t until I decided to add faces to the Pongs that the game started to interest me. Back to Photoshop to add eyes and several mouth styles. The face script is pretty basic, but here is where the pong’s character is created. The eyes will blink randomly every 4 to 6 seconds. The mouth will change shape depending on what happens. The default is a smile, and will change to a frown if it hits a wall. It will change to a surprised look when a bullet collides with it.

Keeping with the retro look, I added some blips and a chiptune soundtrack. At this point, I found myself laughing at the reactions of the pongs while I was play testing and I began to think I may have a game here after all.

I added some additional sounds for when a pong finally escapes. I recorded myself doing some “Yay!” sounds, loaded them up in Audacity and raised the pitch. I think it came out well, and really adds to the game.

Day 4

Since I didn’t really get a good pace on development until Day 3, I of course missed submitting for the Compo, but there’s still time for the Jam, and now I’m “all in”. I no longer had time to put together a way to increase level difficulty as the game progresses, so I decided to create the options screen where you can choose the number of pongs, the speed of the loop rotation, and (if you are daring), the option for a second loop.

Technical Things

• I used the following tools to create The Pongs: Unity, Photoshop, Paint.Net, Audacity.

• I originally started using Unity’s new Input System, and it worked well while playing the game, but I just could not control the UI correctly… maybe it’s because I am new to it or it is still a work in progress, but I just could not get it to work. I finally decided to scrap it and try Rewired (I used it before and I like it a lot), and I had a similar issue when trying to navigate UI. I guess that problem was me indeed! Finally, I pulled out all controller libraries and used the old-fashioned KeyDown commands since there is basically only 3 keys used in the game anyway.

• I used my open sourced pooling library to pool the pongs and bullets… you can use it too!

• I created different eyes and mouths for the pongs. Eyes blink at random intervals. Mouths change based on what the pongs hit.

What Went Well

• Again, I submitted a game! Always a good thing.

• My motivation increased once I made some simple changes like changing the sprites and adding some basic sound effects.

• I think adding the options menu worked better than trying to figure out a way to add levels to increase the difficulty of the game, and some of the people who played/rated the game agreed.

What Could Have Gone Better

• Maybe I should learn how to use a controller library before using it in a game jam? Figuring out the complexity, failing, and then removing everything took a lot of time.

• Lack of motivation was strong in this LD. It wasn’t until the end of Day 3 that I really felt that I had a workable game and that did have an affect on the overall submission.

• I decided on a “lower the score, the better” scoring system, but I think perhaps a “fastest time to clear” may have been a better system to implement (or maybe some combination). It is possible to wait around to see if some of the pongs leave the loop on their own which definitely impacts the current scoring system.

Conclusion

It was a difficult Ludum Dare for me, but I have a submitted game that I liked playing and developing. I am happy with the way my game turned out, and I am considering enhancing the game and doing a full release… there are a lot of features I would like to add.

Are you ready to open portals into the past?

Go play Tempus Locus! All you need to play is a browser, a keyboard, and 5 mins!

[](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/tempus-locus) [](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/tempus-locus)

A brief look at gameplay! We couldn't get the melodies in the subsequent levels to sync because 2 people who know nothing about music decided to make a music game xD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dLUZfwqzpY

We're ways away from the ratings required, so all support is appreciated :)

Try it here! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/dj-loopman

Check it out now! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/time-saver

That doesn't mean you should leave him hanging you know! (Can't resist the bad puns, sorry).

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/hang-on-bill

hey guys! Please check my game if you haven't done yet. Me and my teammate coded it in python and weren't able to compile it via py2exe, so you'll need python3.* and pygame1.9 to make it work. I know it's a big limitation for my game, but please if you installed python and pygame check it out! I'll leave a screenshot right under. PS: it's my first game jam, I had a lot of troubles... https://verga.itch.io/magic-rush

🔥 Only 6 days left to PLAY & RATE TIME TO DANCE! 🔥 (We are still rating games as well, so feel free to post yours)

We've read a lot of things, spotted what could be fixed/improved, what we could add etc. Because it was a JAM and since efforts were put together to deliver something in a certain time, we've decided not to fix bugs (like MIKA). For us, it was above all, the occasion to make a game we would love to play and to create a common experience.

SO NOW, as we really love this game, we are currently working on a post-jam version, that will be released a short time after ratings are over.

Until then, our dear game artist Eliot Trouttet is currently working on some new visuals that will be added to the new version.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL THE FEEDBACK WE'VE GOT ❤️

Feel free to follow us on TWITTER and ITCHIO

Cheers from savvy community

Hi guys! I want to have 40 rates at the end of the submission! I am so close, If you want to support me, please play my game! We only need 5 rates!

link: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/stuck-in-a-hoard-while-looping

Also as a bonus, I will play YOUR games. If you want me to play your game. please link it below, thank you!

-WitekWitek

Hey guys wanna stress your mind? Play our game "qoutes" it only takes a few minutes and can be played in browser. Thanks in advance. https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/quotes

Hey guys! I just need a couple more ratings for my game Space Loop Kit! Please rate my game, so i can have a result :smiley:

I had a blast making this. It's a space shooter with weapons and defences working together with a drumkit. I've made some bugfixes and did a little balancing. It's made with Godot.

Have fun!

Play the :video_game: here: Space Loop Kit

If you want to have some feedback for your game, just leave me a comment and i'll have a look at it!

Am I evil for making a game about this poor turtle: But putting an evil twist on it in which it wants to spread its misery to all other animals? Mind you, no animal actually gets killed in my game, just incapacitated for a little while.

After only 16 days, my game Outside The Loop has 200 plays already! Thank you so much everyone! (Of course, some plays are non-Ludum Dare gamers, but this number is still incredible for only a little over 2 weeks)

This was quite an unusual jam for me. On Saturday morning, when I'd usually be hard at work getting started, I was in a car hearing to the Cotswolds for a caravan holiday. I had my ancient laptop and my external hard drive with me, managed to get an entry developed and published on time, and now, with the rating period nearing its end, it's time for my traditional post-mortem.

First, though, I'd like to say a massive thank you to everyone who has played Super Jump Guy so far, and left such great feedback! If you haven't played it yet, please do, and I will play yours in return.

What Went Well

• I've finally gotten the hang of playtesting, and making sure all the bugs and edge cases are ironed out before I publish. The collision detection issues that plagued me in previous jams are essentially gone, and nobody has reported any glitches, which is fantastic to hear.
• Even better: I've finally learned how to use PICO-8's music tracker! After putting it off for 2 1/2 years, it wasn't even that hard in the end! As a result, Super Jump Guy has not one, but two full-length songs, plus a full suite of sound effects. It's amazing how much difference a decent soundtrack can make to a game.
• The simple fact that I was able to, for all intents and purposes, program two wildly different games within my shortened time limit, and well within PICO-8's resource limits, and while in a caravan in the middle of nowhere with a terrible Internet connection! This was probably my most ambitious LD entry to date, and I'm immensely proud of myself for being able to pull it off.

What Went Badly

• While I did manage to pull it off, I still can't help feeling like I overscoped a bit. I had to rush the game in a few places because I feared I was going to run out of time to get it all done. The lack of background detail is the most glaring example: I was going to add some proper parallax backgrounds and then I just kinda... didn't.
• I've already had at least one review criticising the forced multiple playthroughs, which I knew would be a problem. Yes, looping is the whole point of the jam, but playing the exact same level four times in a row is still not going to be the most exciting thing in the world. I was also concerned that Jump Guy's meta-commentary might lean too far towards "criticising the player for doing something that the game is forcing them to do", which is a ludonarrative technique that I hate, but I think (hope) I managed to avoid that.
• Overall, it feels a bit barebones in places. There's not enough variety. This is a concept that's begging to be fleshed out more than I could do in just 72 hours.

What Comes Next

I've already released an update to Super Jump Guy to improve some of the graphics and sound effects, and optimise some of the back-end code. I have a couple more graphics tweaks in the pipeline - some of which you can see in the GIFs above - and post-jam I intend to update the final section to refine its mechanics a little.

I believe this is worthy of being expanded into a full game, and I already have an idea for how it would work. I'd have to use a different game engine, as PICO-8's limitations don't give me much room for expansion, and I'm wary to commit myself to it in case I end up abandoning it after two weeks like the other game dev projects I've started this year.

So the best way forward from here is for me to create a full-size game in PICO-8. I think I've finally gotten good enough at using it that I can tackle such a project, and once I have that under my belt, I can start to think about tackling a larger project such as Super Jump Guy. Baby steps.