Hey guys,

So these past weeks we've been doing a lot of borderline obsessive scrolling through the Games feed to check our grade compared to others. You know, just to get a feeling of how we were doing.

Anyway,it was a bit tedious. So I figured I'd try and create a small tool to check our rank. And now it works and I figured I'd share it with you guys:

https://ld-rank-checker.herokuapp.com/

It's pretty straight forward: paste in your LD entry's URL and submit. Then see the result:

:smiley: if you happen to like it, feel free to share it around. And of course: if you haven't yet, play our game: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/ld-46-guinea-pug :v:

Hello, this was my first Ludum dare!!! It was so fun and AWSOME. All the games published were super awesome!😛Wish I get to play them all! Sadly LD46 is about to end😢. I am 11 and was super excited about this. Hopefully I can get more feedback. Play my game and give feedback at https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/the-last-flower. Your feedback will come in use in improving the game and my coding skills!!! Also, I am making a full version of this game with all your feedback in mind. Thank you so much for your support !!😜😁😄 I am trying to get 💯 ratings on my game. Help me achieve my goal by sharing this game and by leaving a review/rating. One again thank you so much for your support! 😑😃🙂

Hello, this was my first Ludum dare!!! It was so fun and AWSOME. All the games published were super awesome!😛Wish I get to play them all! Sadly LD46 is about to end😢. I am 11 and was super excited about this. Hopefully I can get more feedback. Play my game and give feedback at https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/the-last-flower. Your feedback will come in use in improving the game and my coding skills!!! Also, I am making a full version of this game with all your feedback in mind. Thank you so much for your support !!😜😁😄 I am trying to get 💯 ratings on my game. Help me achieve my goal by sharing this game and by leaving a review/rating. One again thank you so much for your support! 😑😃🙂

https://youtu.be/gOFLgwLXdds

Had a blast composing original music for our LD46 entry about "Angst".

• Play/rate the game here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/angst

About

Angst is a 2D adventure-exploration game about fighting one's inner demons.

Help a socially anxious lady to make it through a day at her office job without having a panic attack.

Learn how to fight your inner demons by finding healthy ways to discover comfort in a busy and crazy world! You'll encounter various demons inside her "mind forest", use the environment and music to push them away and get back to the office.

Soundtrack

Stream/download the original game soundtrack on Bandcamp.

• https://amerigo.bandcamp.com/album/angst-original-game-soundtrack

Thanks to everyone who played so far!

We did a kind of big update post-jam improving the UI and the visual feedback and adding an in-game tutorial screen. We were thrilled with the response the game got over the past couple of weeks so we decided to polish it a bit ^^ Hope you like it and drop you links below if you want us to play your game ♥♥♥

Val and Boris from Loveapple Games present our latest game: Cyto Killer: Save our Cells! It is a realtime strategy game. We tried to base the game on actual cell biology, and each unit has a background story!

This was a very productive Ludum Dare for us. Beside the game, we did a Ludum Dare rating search engine and 3 warmup games: Reflections, The Gnome, and Ludum Dare: The Game.

This was the first time we did a realtime strategy / tower defense game, and we found it tough to actually turn it into a game with interesting strategic gameplay. But, as time progresses, and the game started taking shape, we became quite excited about the behaviour and dynamics of the different units and enemies, and we ended up creating 7 unit types and 4 enemy types. The game isn't quite balanced, in particular, player doesn't really get a lot of time time to learn how the different elements of the game work. All the levels are winnable though! We did put in a lot of interesting behaviours, and it seems a lot of people enjoyed the game, and some showed they completed it. Thanks everyone for your great feedback!

ENEMIES:

Our VIRUS is inspired by INFLUENZA 1918 (A/H1N1) aka SPANISH FLU, which killed up to 40 M people, outperforming WWI in deadliness. Some claim the death toll was even higher, some think the then recommended (over)dose of aspirin (newly off-patent in USA) as a treatment may have caused some deaths. We also considered Polio, Marburg and Influenza A Hong Kong viruses, but they are a bit complex for 14x14 sprites.

The tiny freshwater SNAIL represents the tropical disease SCHISTOSOMIAIS, aka BILHARZIA or SNAIL FEVER. The snail is not the pathogen but plays host to it (a parasitic flatworm SCHISTOSOMA, aka blood fluke - YUK!) for part of its lifecycle.

Our BACTERIUM started life (in LD46!) as a tapeworm-like intestinal parasite, but ended up as a bacterium that seems to be a crossover between bacillus (rod) and spririllum (spiral) forms. Let see what that mutates into....

SUPERBUGS (Level 5 upwards) are two rare new strains which are proving difficult to eradicate. SUPERBUG1 is a mutation of the distinctive orange rod baccillus salmonella typhi which has developed long yellow flaggelli. SUPERBUG2 is a novel parasitic form of P1V1 resembling Avian flu. Both are difficult to pin down directly but much has been learnt from examining the trails of destruction they leave in various channels.

DEFENDERS:

MACROPHAGES attack invading bacteria by swallowing them up and killing them in an acid bath. Our MACROPHAGES look a bit like monocytes.

The MAC (Membrane Attack Complex) goes after invading bacteria and kills them by penetrating the bacterium's outer and inner membranes (it pops it like a balloon).

Our BACTERIOPHAGE is inspired by Enterobacteria phage Lambda (λ), a bacterial virus which infects the bacterial species Escherichia coli. E-coli - your fave kind of food poisoning!

APOPTOSIS (programmed cell death) is one of the immune system's mechanisms for zapping defective cells (eg pre-cancerous cells) and virus-infected cells. Kill your own cells to survive...

MARKER ANTIBODIES detect and point to pathogens such as bacteria, so that immune system destroyer cells can home in on them and go in for the kill. Marker antibodies grass up other cells - the body's very own snitches :)

Play our game here!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzmW64nVnOk

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/hype-dream

hi! it's the last call to play our cute game about well, making games <3 I'll try to rate all commenter's games tomorrow ^^ thank you for everything and stay safe!! LD 46 was amazing <3

Little time left before the end of the vote and I decided to play my game and record this video:

https://youtu.be/j38LnPe6Y_Y

Play: https://axgord.itch.io/bastion-defender

Rate: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/$187433

Friday, April 17th

* Tomorrow is the day*. Tomorrow is the day when thoughts will become dreams, and those dreams will turn into ideas, and those ideas will be what my world revolves around for the coming three days.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

It isn't as simple as that. I will need time to make things happen. And time is a scarce resource in Ludum Dare. :clock:

I am used to going completely solo when it comes to making games, but this time, I manage to convince a friend to make some art. This will hopefully decrease the workload on me a bit, which will allow me to spend more time on other things (like sound, which I skipped last time). :computer: :slightsmile: :computer: :slightsmile:

However, all the time that saves me will not be close to enough to make up for what I will lose, due to a couple of disastrous coincidences. :cry:

The first disaster is my fault. Two months earlier I had replied to a text asking

"can you cover my shift 7-12 on the 18th of April?"

with a confident

"yeah, I'm not doing anything that day anyways!"

completely forgetting about Ludum Dare. This means, that I have to spend 5 hours at work, and then another 2-3 hours sleeping after work, as I can't get enough sleep when I need to wake up at 5:45.

The second disaster is purely coincidental. The three days the Jam is going on happens to be the three days leading up to the hardest Physics exam that I've ever had to study for :pencil: (why does it have to be quarks and relativity?), and I haven't studied nearly enough! It doesn't help that my newly-recruited artist is also studying for this.

Despite these setbacks, spirits are high on Friday evening. Sadly, I can't stay up until the theme is announced (03:00 in my timezone) since I have to get up early, but no matter. I was ready.

Saturday, April 18th

:clock6: 5:45 Wake up

:clock7: 7:00 WÖRK

:clock12: 12:00 Done with work. Heading home. Eating lunch. Probably sandwiches :stuffed_flatbread:.

:clock1: 13:00 Call up my artist, we discuss how we were going to approach the theme. We don't really get anywhere, until I realize the double meaning of the word keep :European_castle:. I bring forth my idea :

"Imagine a guy screaming: KEEP! IT ALIVE! and then there being a living Keep stomping him to death? Let's do that!"

and there is no doubt in our minds; this is the perfect idea. Now we just have to start making it!

.

But instead I go to sleep. :sleeping:

:clock5: 17:00 I am tired, delirious and miserable, but awake. Slowly the gears in my head start to turn. Our first plan is to have a top-down game (i want to capture the feel of "Right Click to Necromance", anyone remember that game?)

:clock7: 19:00 I scrap the top down idea because I don't feel like implementing collisions and position tracking and projectile aiming. It isn't really that difficult, but my brain is quite mushy at this point. Instead, I decide to go with straight up side-view 2D.

:clock730: 19:30 Fill my mouth with delicious dinner. :forkknifeplate:

:clock8: 20:00 Back at it again. I start implementing movement, a camera that can follow the player. I also make some ground from a square that I colored green and set the width to 100 000. (that should be enough, right?) my friend completes the keep design:

He wants to put banners on the keep, so it is only natural that they are the colors of Sweden :flagse: as we are both Swedish. Naturally, we also put Danish :flagdk: banners on the enemy to fuel the Nordic rivalry!

:clock9: 21:00 By this point, I am quite tired so I go to sleep. :sleeping_accommodation:

:clock9: 21:05 :bed: Sleep is for AMATEURS. :muscle: :angry: :muscle: I have too many ideas and I feel like I know how to implement them. I am actually surprisingly productive and implement a shooting system. Now, my plan is to have a system where no mouse input is required, to make the game easy to play on laptops. I am happy with the result, but in hindsight, making the game easy to play on laptop just made the aiming clunky and bad for everyone. But as I am making it, I'm just happy it's working!

:clock12: 24:00 Now I'm REALLY tired so I stop writing code that I will have to rework tomorrow anyway. Instead I open Cubase and play around with some sounds. I find the brass sounds quite fun, and I end up making the intro fanfare.:trumpet:

:clock1: 1:00 I actually go to sleep.

Sunday, April 19th

:clock9: 9:00 I wake up. Today, there is no distractions. Nothing stopping me from sitting the entire day in front of the computer, trying to get my thoughts onto the screen.

:clock7: 19:00 Still need to eat, though. :rice:

:clock12: 24:00 By now, I have mostly completed the core elements of the game. I am far from done though. The ground is still ugly as hell, there are no sound effects, there isn't a menu, I only have two enemies, being the archer :bowandarrow: and the cannon :bomb:, and I have only just started on the soundtrack. Most importantly, I haven't made a cutscene where a guy screams KEEP! IT ALIVE! and gets stomped to death. But progress is good. I make a checklist of everything that still needs to be done.

Monday, April 20th

Which just happens to be the only day this century that can be written as 4-20 in both the American and European way of writing dates! :evergreen_tree: :date:

:clock8: 8:00 I wake up. Normally, i would have to spend time getting to school, but in Sweden, higher education has moved to online classes due to the pandemic. This saved me time (but I'm not sure i did anything productive with said time).

:clock9: 9:00 School. I don't care what I'm supposed to be doing. I need to get comfortable enough with Physics so i can justify spending time on finishing the game later.

:clock4: 16:00 School is done. I have focused on tomorrows exam for the bigger part of the last seven hours. Now it is time to get some stuff done.

:clock5: 18:00 Somehow, I am starting to get through my checklist.

I make a ground sprite and make the ground infinite. :ballotboxwithcheck: I get sound effects done. :ballotboxwithcheck:

:musical_note:

I haphazardly frankenstein together code from different scripts to make two new enemies, a catapult and a ballista tower. :ballotboxwith_check:

And I finish the soundtrack.:ballotboxwith_check:

:trumpet: :drum: :trumpet: :musical_score:

It's time to start working on the opening cutscene.

:clock9: 21:00 I am done with the cutscene. :ballotboxwith_check: I managed to complete every single TODO on my checklist (which usually doesn't happen when I write one). Now begins the agonizing task of checking for issues...

:clock11: 23:00 Thanks to my brand new lightning fast Ryzen 5 3600 CPU :zap: (that I bought literally because compiling for HTML5 took so long), I can fix issues with resolution, presentation and other problems quite quickly. Is this it? Am I finished?

:clock12: 24:00 The sound is clipping. I've never had this happen before. I need to fix it. :mute:

Suddenly, I feel calm. No, I don't need to fix it. No game is perfect on release day, weird glitches can be fixed tomorrow, without breaking the rules (i think?).

I throw together a page on itch.io and one on this website.

I press publish...

And that's it. The game is done. I am happy with the result. Considering I lost pretty much a full day of productivity due to school and work, the end product is way better than i would've thought, and in my opinion, it blows my earlier submissions out of the water completely.

Try the game here

Hey guys, so I thought I could do a little wrap up of my Compo entry called Chicken Luck. It was my fifth Ludum Dare game and since game coding is my job for several years now, I thought I'm adequately prepared for the challenge.

Graphics: I do have small graphic design background but it was some time since I created any 3D model or graphics of any sort so I at least tried some things in Blender before game jam started to not struggle with most simple tasks. I must say I was very happy how Blender evolved in time and user experience was actually quite good. I've used single file for all models relying heavily on collections. Export to Unity was without issues. I even had some time to do some rigging and animations. This was most surprising to me as my previous experience with rigging was some poor human autorig few years back. But guess what? It's not that complicated and with Blender's Auto IK feature it is actually possibile to get useful results with just very simple rig.

Coding: This was my first entry where I didn't use any custom code base on top of standard Unity libraries. Oh boy, what a freedom! No unnecessary UI codes, game managers, loaders, tweeners and what not. Just a blank page and the sensation to start from ground up.

Design: I feel like I still have much to learn in regards of design. First I wanted to have a lot of physics environment interactions which would make the game more interesting and easy to make. For example some animated blocks could push chicken to empty space. Oh boy, what was I thinking? I literally killed several hours trying to figure out how to combine physics interactions with player controls. After I got something finally working I realized that result is not smooth so I threw it all and redesigned the game to current state.

Sound: I think this is my weakest point now. Although I borrowed a recording device from my friend and I'm quite happy with sound effects, I was not able to add any music. I do not have the skill needed to put together something ear-pleasing in like two hours. That is definitely something I would like to work on in the future.

Overall it was again a great learning experience and motivation for future development. I love Ludum Dare!

P.S.: I would be very happy if you have time to play and rate my game:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/chicken-luck

We have recived your feedback on our submission and it gave us a boost do continue developing it. Changes:

Movement:

• adjusted jump hight and movementspeed
• added slight aircontroll while jumping
• the player now uses only his head to look up and down
• fixed the jump controll
• fixed walk on ceiling Bug

Shooting:

• adjusted weapon aim position
• added firemodes
• added manual reload

Turrets:

• added gravatiy to turret shells
• properly hit moving targets (without spread)
• shoot only if path is not obstructed
• Changed turret values to be worse, because they were to strong
• Turret Balancing

(changelog : https://fluffyvoxels.itch.io/aa-jumper-2/devlog/145199/version-02)

If you want to try it: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/aa-jumper

We will continue to update the game, with the next update planed next month - this time actually contianing some bigger new features like weakpoints on airships.

We hope you have fun with the changed version.

I think the balancing of my game is getting better. I had a few playthroughs where the pacing felt right. I am still working on it though and would really appreciate some feedback on how it is doing. But remember: That is the post-jam version! If you want to rate, you should only rate the Jam Version!

Here is the link: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/me-tree

I really appreciate all the feedback I have gotten so far! I really enjoy this jam. Thanks a lot guys!!

If you need more ratings or a higher school, we will try yours and play it! Please check out our game, Wordbound! It's a story based typing game about staying alive against demons! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/wordbound

Hey everyone, we would be pleased to reach 50 votes, and if you have time feedbacks to help us build a better post jam version! Thank you by advance :kissing_cat:

When we designed Hatching Dragons, we had few goals in mind. One of them was the bow drawing mechanic, that would be basically the core of the game. But we didn't want to go for a mouse aim/twin stick shooter, so we dug deep into our memory.

Back in the days when indie and freeware was basically the same, there was this game called Bulánci, which become a legend here in Czech republic. Everybody knew it, there was no LAN party without at least few rounds of Bulánci, no school break without four people on single keyboard playing Bulánci deathmatch.

So that's where we took the inspiration for four directional movement style, that allows for interesting, though not very common gameplay, and also for some brutal PvP. Shame we didn't have enough time to finish the PvP mode, but the foundation is there, so maybe a post jam version can improve that. Let us know if you're interested!

In case you want to try our game, play at https://honeygames.itch.io/hatchingdragons and rate at https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/hatching-dragons

In case you're interested in Bulánci, you can find it here https://www.bulanci.cz/ (turn on your browser translator, the website seems to be czech only) You can then tell us if we managed the movement to feel right!

This update brings the Multiplayer Mode, so now you can play with your friends!

You can check the game here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/guns-n-violets

You can check the devlog here: https://wallaby.itch.io/guns-n-violets/devlog/145207/added-multiplayer-mode

I've worked on non of these games, but they all need a few more votes in the last 45h, in order to get get results, so let's get them there! Do feel free to comment further games that need a few more ratings to reach 20 below this post!

Schroedingers Daughter (Webbuild available) Play as the daugther of reknown physican Erwin Schroedinger (as in Shroedingers cat) and save the kittens from his cruel experiments. Super fun idea, quite challanging, and kind of teaches you quantum physics on the side!

Cat-5 (Webbuild available) Ever wanted the feeling of being on an oldschool win 95 machiene and battelign with a catimage generating virus? Well who wouldn't!

Unfurmiliar Territory (webbuild available) This one is a classical sidescroll shooter, but it has impressive pixel graphics and the best acapella shoot soudn effect I've heared in this jam!

Tales of Freedom (webbuild available) Given the theme I'd have though sneak and stealth games would be all over the place. Turns out I was wrong (somehow everyone went straigt for fire ...or eggs?!). Anyhow if you want to satisfy the sneak itch afterall this game has got you covered.

Petra (Windows only build, UE) If you are anything like me you can never quite get enough oldschool puzzle & trap dugeon crawler. This one comes in a first person UE style.

Over the last couple of weeks I've been hard at work reviewing and redesigning my Ludum Dare entry, The Dark Cave. Based on all the positive feedback and attention the game has received, I have decided to continue development into a full game. Your feedback has been an invaluable part of this process and is deeply appreciated, thank you.

If you would like some context, you can check it out on Browser and Windows Desktop here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/the-quiet-caves

One of the best features to have come out of the game was the 'sound mechanic'. As many of you have pointed out, this mechanic was underused within my Jam entry. As part of the post-jam development I have been heavily experimenting with the sound mechanic, creating a bunch of really fun game-play elements and systems that I am currently still exploring and developing. I believe there is a lot that can be done with this mechanic and I'm really enjoying playing around with it - the game is practically designing itself at this point.

New Content - Sneak Peak

Here is a sneak peak at one of the new enemy types you'll encounter. The currently unnamed 'Spiky Ball' creature telegraphs its attack direction to the player. Once it hears a sound it moves over to that location and sets a new target path, killing whatever creature is in its way. One or two of these can be quite easy to avoid, but things get a lot more complicated and fun when lots are on screen at once.

Artistic Direction

Although it wasn't my intention, I had accidentally created an atmospheric art style out of squares and some lighting. This became one of the most liked aspects of the game and a leading factor in further design decisions during the jam.

Post-Jam I have been experimenting with different ideas and tools to both improve and speed up the artistic development of the game. However, I still want to keep the same black and grey aesthetic as I feel it lends itself well to a game about blind creatures living in a dark cave.

One aspect I've been experimenting with is the use of parallax effects. I originally took a scripted approach to this, but eventually ended up using a perspective camera instead. It still needs work, but I currently like the results so far and believe it could add a lot to the atmosphere when properly used.

The gif compression made it difficult to properly distinguish the layers, but here is an example of how this looks at the moment:

Next Steps

I've already designed some of the areas and a bunch of fun creatures and challenges. The controls have been improved and I'm currently experimenting with climbing ropes and rock formations. I've been experimenting with different character designs and story elements, but I don't want to say much more at this stage.

I'm excited to share more in the future!

Thank You!

The feedback and support for my game entry has been so inspiring. This really is an amazing community and I can't thank you all enough!

If you would like to follow the post-jam development of The Dark Cave, I'll be posting updates on my Twitter from time to time.

I'm Tom, and you can find me on Twitter here:
https://twitter.com/DeveloperTom1

The Dark Cave - A Small Atmospheric Platformer

Check it out on Browser and Windows Desktop here:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/the-quiet-caves

this jam was the best one I've joined in my life! not only I was overwhelmed by the positive feedback... yesterday I was thinking about how good this over all was... and I wrote a list of goodies!

but before you read the list, you need to know that my game is a decision based game, and you manage scarce resources to win.

1. Got Introduced to Important games. thanks for one comment and a streamer who played my game.
   a. 60 Seconds (the entire series)
   b. The Oregon Trail.
   already played both and learned tons to improve the game!
2. Played and analyzed all decisions based games in the Jam that I can find.. I asked for these at this post.
3. Wrote an in-depth article about my analyzation.
4. Watched a lot streamers play the game (amazing feedback).
5. Got tons of important feedback on my game through comments.
6. Met really cool other devs.. some had decision based games like mine and I followed them on twitter, added to discored... etc
7. I want to Make Mammoth Expedition which is a practice project and publish it to stores.
8. I never was closer to being on any store.
9. Achieved the most game I am proud of. people I know or here seems to really enjoy it instead of the huh-interesting response I get.
10. Worked with my wife and my brother on something.
11. Got a little bit of exposure to my game. Some people might play the full version (even if one plays it its something)
12. Proved that I can make fun games (I never proved that before, only that I can do code or interesting mechanics).
13. Tested the System to its fullest(my game uses a really complicated system that I've been building) trying to finish something with it as polished as this showed me a lot of bugs and limitations that I needed to improve before trying to build something big (and then waste time fixing a lot of content).
14. Realized what speed-up tools needed.

a. Event editor panel to speed up event creation(I am doing advanced editor scripting for the first time in unity)
b. Balancing tool (its really complicated to explain but basically I can foresee average resources with every situation)
c. Testing tool(to pass days. insert events quickly when I need to test them...etc)
d. Localization system. (realized this should be done early or it will be very costly)

also, if you want to play our game and give us feedback here.

thanks for reading !

Hi all. This is been such a fun experience. Thank you to everyone for sharing your a bit of yourself in all these thoughtful, fun, and artfully crafted games.

Since the competition is ending I wondered if anyone wanted to try Level 2 of my game, thump-thump.

https://thumpthump.herokuapp.com/index.html

The instructions that appear during the game appear too quickly I realize now, so I am explaining them here.

Level 1 is easy, just use ARROW KEYS and keep bumping into hearts to keep you and them full.

On level 2:

Use the SPACE BAR to place 2 "fans" that can blow the hearts in any direction. These can help them avoid the white "quicksand" or more quickly free them from it.

CLICKING THE SPACE BAR TO PLACE "FANS"

HOLDING THE SPACE BAR WHILE OVER THE "FANS" TO CHANGE THEIR DIRECTION

I will definitely reciprocate and leave feedback for anyone willing to give this a spin.

Thanks! - Jon