While not the best results in overall cat I couldn't expect more as there were some issues and bugs that ruined the overall experience of the game.

By the time I fixed it it was too late as people stopped playing and rating. Lesson learned, do more testing next time :D.

Rendered a little speechless at the fantastic feedback and results for my first ever attempt at a game jam. I plan on making a post mortem video soon but for now I still need to digest the amazing fact of being top 100 across all categories. I'm very proud of this, thank you so much to everyone who played, rated, and left feedback on my game to help me improve it for an expanded future release.

PLAY HERE! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/dont-kill-death-or-die-trying

Thank you so much :two_hearts: :fish: :fire:

This was our first game jam, this is the first complete game we ever made, and would you look at that!

And on this incredible results day, we received some other wonderful news!

Flippy Fish is live on Google Play Store :arrow_down:

Here is the link for those who want to download the uploaded version of our small funny action game on their phone. No add, no in app purchase, and C# code available to everyone on github :hugging:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Doot.FlippyFish

See you in October :hearts:

Thanks guys! It was just an amazing experience that allowed us, albeit partially, to make our dream a reality! We received a LOT of quality reviews and decided not to stop there. Now we are developing a full-fledged version of our game, which I hope you can play soon.

You can play the Ludum Dare version here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/aqua-vitae

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QotE094Y5ks

If you are interested in our progress, please follow us on:

*Patreon, Facebook, Youtube and Twitter *

Thanks again to the entire LD community! You are the best! :heart:

Hey guys! A lot of you have sent me your games to play and give feedback, I played 8 of them and then got sick and had to take a break, now I’ve resumed playing and already uploaded a new video!

So if you want any feedback or want to see a random dude who is practicing game dev for a long time to play your game and give feedback in the most causal format then send your games too!

you can send here: https://forms.gle/adk9nyLJh7jsRHnW8

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/the-totally-convenient-feeding-machine

The feedback seemed OK so I don't quite understand what happened. I agree it wasn't my best game ever but my only game that scored worse was one I rushed in 7h total for LD#15 (that one was really bad).

I have been doing LD for 18 years and I can't even score in the top half anymore... :/

So, this was my first Ludum Dare and it went awfully, from the overall mood (with someone very close to me becoming ill just a day before the LD) to software driving me mad (lost an hour because my IDE had forgotten where Unity was) to software driving even madder (Unity deciding it didn't recognize my animation until I renamed my 3D model from "humanoid" to "Jesus" for some unknown reason) to just overall not having the necessary skills for such an experience (I learned that I can't just texture stuff in Blender and have it be picked up by Unity somewhere around mid-day 2 for example).

Day One seemed "fine", but day two was so bad I really believed I wouldn't make it and in fact, 3 hours before the deadline I had a 3D model, a background, some code, but no game whatsoever, I even believed there wouldn't be enough time to get anything interactive to post. After a lot of pissed off variable name and a bit of crying, I had something to post : it is awful, the graphics are buggy, the gameplay doesn't work, nothing that I wanted to implement is there except one thing which doesn't look like it should and doesn't work like it should, and that's without talking about the fact that I didn't have time to do any music nor any sound effect : it was a painful and disappointing experience.

I feared these results, because to be honest, I wouldn't have been surprised to be in the dead-lasts for all category : my graphics are buggy, the gameplay is interactive and that's already saying a lot, there's no music, no humour, the theme was supposed to be there but not implemented right so it isn't really there : I failed and I expected these results to show that... but weirdly enough, they don't.

I'm in the sub-1000 on some of those !

Compared to the 1383 participants, that's a huge victory ! Even better : my shitty buggy 3D got me in the sub 800 on graphics, not that far away from the upper half, and that's the strong point of my submission (which is insanely reassuring for me as clearly graphics interest me way more than code or music). ld-rank-checker tells me I'm #966, sub-1000 again... it's hard to believe.

Like, seriously, I expected 1200th+ on all of those, I don't know what to say. I've no word for those 21 people who ranked my interactive experience.

Thank you so much.

Scores

• Overall: 1944th (3.167 average from 26 ratings)
• Fun: 1316th (3.271 average from 26 ratings)
• Innovation: 2521st (2.083 average from 26 ratings)
• Theme: 2245th (2.979 average from 26 ratings)
• Audio: 1469th (2.609 average from 25 ratings)

This being my first game jam I was a bit apprehensive about the feedback I would get and was anxious about whether someone will even bother playing my simplistic game. However, I needn't have worried because this community is amazing! I'm extremely thankful to all the people who gave my game a try and more importantly gave me some feedback, no matter how small. I look forward to LD 47 where, hopefully, I will be able to do a better job. :)

Really proud of what we achieved!
If you are interested in making your own desktop games check out Desktopia!

In the end, almost 70 of you played my compo entry Super Survival Ball, the true ultimate ball game, and it was met with a very positive reception that I am deeply grateful for. Here are the final judging results for it:

Not quite what I was hoping for, but I'm pleased that my best category was fun, as that was my goal.

That's not why I'm writing today, though. As those of you who played it know, I ambitiously added an online leaderboard feature that allowed for everyone who played the game to face off for the high score. And now that judging is over, it's time to recognize those extraordinary players who not only played my game, but excelled, and showed themselves to be ball game champions by scoring over 1 billion points!

Keep in mind that players were able to enter any name they wanted, so I don't know who these people are.

1. SodaKing, 10,522,729,190 | The only player with over 10 billion points is SodaKing, a true master of bouncing balls. Godspeed, SodaKing.

2. Me, 9,148,285,150 | This run was my attempt to dethrone SodaKing. I stood no chance.

3. Cae, 4,148,655,450

4. Tempii, 4,080,410,810

5. Me again, 3,274,112,780

6. TheCamel, 2,721,956,360 | This one is a friend of mine from work.

7. Zanthous, 2,225,085,980

8. Me again, 2,040,812,750 | I had to play a lot in testing, obviously.

9. Endurion, 1,325,558,680

10. Rille, 1,175,148,370

11. Tempii, 1,075,712,900

12. Tempii, 1,010,866,240

Thank you to Tempii, in particular, for playing so many times.

Those of you who think you can dethrone these champions can still play here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/super-survival-ball

In total, 53 scores were submitted. Thank you so much to everyone who played and rated, this was a great time. I hope to see all of you again in October.

Thanks everyone for playing and rating my game! It means a lot that people would spend time playing my game and giving feedback. I feel like I've already become a better designer! Anyway, let's get into what I've learned, and the scores...

Fun (1640th)

This... was kinda expected. It's not that good of a score (3.12/5), and I think that either came from the game being too confusing (due to the lack of a tutorial), the length of the game, or just it not being fun to some people. In version 2.0 (not out yet, I'm working on it...), I already added a tutorial and significantly decreased the length of the game, from 500 seconds to 370.

Innovation (1288th)

Apparently keeping a fire alive had already been done before. I saw a lot of other games with this theme, and there isn't a problem with it! It's a good idea, but I probably could have made it something creepier. Not to mention a point and click survival horror game wasn't too innovative either.

Theme (694th)

I'm pretty happy with this one! I'm glad it resembled the theme.

Graphics (1841st)

...I should of just done pixel art. Well, I had fun drawing it, so whatever. It's staying!

Audio (366th)

Pretty good! Despite there not being a paper pick-up sound and only one ambient track, I'm glad people liked the reverb and sounds!

Mood (137th)

WOAH! I was not expecting the mood to be this high up! I'm glad I was able to convey the mood of the game well (even with only one ambient track)!

Overall (960th)

I'm glad people liked it and enjoyed it.

Post Jam Version (2.0)

An update to CaveFlame will be released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart CaveFlame. The major changes include: - Menu, Intro, and Ending Music - A tutorial - New ambient sounds - Shorter game time - A reworked ending, as well as a second one - Other small changes, like the valve turning dark when it cannot be turned and not being able to leave when it is in the Fire Room instead of dying - Cheat codes(?) (maybe... there's not a lot of fun cheats to do with this though)

I'm not turning this into a $10 commercial game with a $50,000 kickstarter budget. Although, making it mobile wouldn't hurt...

Anyway, thanks for reading! Here's the game if you want to check it out!

Oh, what's this? Ratings are in? Wow, let's go take a look: Hmm... a little small... let's zoom in... Alright, things looking normal... scores in the 50 - 70th percentile, not bad not bad...

Wait... what's that? ENHANCE! WHAT!? An outrage! An absolute shock! An affront to the dignity of my did-it-in-less-than-five-minutes graphics! We must get to the bottom of this. Okay, let's empty out the folder of assets in my game and get a line-up. Alright, here are the suspects:

Suspect No. 1: The Concept of Love

A bit lumpy, but this one seems to have an alibi: it's just a particle effect and, to be honest, probably the most polished thing in the game, graphics-wise... what's the next suspect?

Suspect No. 2: The Concept of Heartbreak

Well now, this pair of shady fellows seems like a plausible MURDERER for my graphics score! I mean, they might look good if they actually coordinated, but as a particle effect where each is just randomly placed... hmm... looks pretty bad, huh. Well, let's keep 'em here and see who else might be to blame.

Suspect No. 3: The Negative of the Concept of Love

Okay, all these images that are clearly derivatives of the first one are getting a bit suspicious - and this one is just for a fade in/fade out. Granted, it is way too low resolution to be scaled as big as it is used, and it's a bit weird when it clips into the edges... but, I don't think it murdered the graphics score...

Come on... think... what are the graphics that the player stares at for the whole time...?

AHA!

Suspect No. 4: A circle

Oh man, now that I look at it again, Circle is pretty unpleasant to look at... as one commenter put it, Circle has a bit of a resting "horrified screaming stare" face. Of course, it's not like Circle plays a big role in the game, right? Oh, it's one of two main characters? Well that's not good, but I feel there must be something more. Still, it's gonna be hard to tell Circle how ugly it is...

Doesn't the player control something? And what about the background? Or the levels? I don't see anything in here for them... really suspicious how I can't find the sprites that make up the majority of the game... hmm... wait... what's that little thing? Is it even there! ZOOM IN! Oh, I think we've solved this!

Suspect No. 5: A single white pixel

AHA! This must be it! This little pixel was masquerading as most of the graphics - just using various colors and scales as disguise! Heck, it thought it might be able to be the main character without much modification! I bet this didn't help either... of course, Suspect No. 4 is still... certainly a contender for the ~murderer of the graphics score~.

Welp, I'm exhausted. That was a lot of investigative work. Still, I think these graphics are better than average for me - at least there was a color scheme this time, haha!

This was my 4th Ludum Dare and 15th game in total!

Does anyone have these stats or know how to get them? I noticed the person who usually posts them didn't make a game for this jam. I just like to see where I fall within percentages especially since there were SOOOOO many submissions

Thanks to everyone who tried our little game, we're eager to continue to work on it as a little side project and see where it leads us :)
Was a fun gamejam, good work y'all!
Don't stop believing and developing <3

I'm absolutely gobsmacked that we managed to get first place in Audio! Definitely have to give props to @hydezeke for the visual inspiration and making everything work together, credit to my friends who provided their lovely voices for the ending theme, and for people like you for playing our little game.

Last week, I wrote a Twitter thread on the musical/audio decisions that went into our game, which you can find here if you want to learn more:

https://twitter.com/MrHassanSan/status/1256652601187328000

And here's the full OST (minus your own musical improvisations):

https://soundcloud.com/hadurant/sets/plateau-melody-ost

Thank you so much for playing, and congratulations on your game!

So my first Ludum Dare has come to a close, and I have to say, I loved the experience. Not only was making the game super fun, but grading and playing others games was a blast too. Not only that, but I think I did pretty good all things considered for my first game, especially considering It was a Compo game.

Overall: 212th (3.775 average from 53 ratings)

Fun: 103rd (3.902 average from 53 ratings)

Innovation: 247th (3.653 average from 51 ratings)

Theme: 146th (4.069 average from 53 ratings)

Graphics: 307th (3.735 average from 53 ratings)

Audio: 157th (3.67 average from 52 ratings)

Humor: 270th (3.296 average from 51 ratings)

Mood: 398th (3.367 average from 51 ratings)

I'm most happy about the FUN catagory. Not only did I place very well (the top 5% if the total number of participants is considered to be 2,000), but it's the category I wanted to do well in as well. Most of my other game jam games I've created haven't been seen as very fun, and that is what I strive for in my games. I defiantly believe that this game shows my progression in design philosophy for the better, as not only did I find it enjoyable and replayable, but others did too.

Other categories such as mood and graphic I though I would do worse in, seeing as I just threw them off to the side, but If I had the time I could have put more time into the characters and world. Things like a dynamic background would really elevate this game to a new level, but sadly, nobody has the time to put in every feature they want.

I think for the next time however, I'm going to try to create key bindings and controls that are more intuitive, as I believe that is what this game is missing the most. I know that every game has flaws, but I feel as though when a player tries to play a game, but doesn't understand how, they have a poor experience overall. I defiantly need to find better key combos that are more industry standard (Like making jump space bar, and not L)

I had a blast this game jam, and I hope you all did as well. If you want to check out my game, I'll be happily abliged.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/keep-it-afloat

Hi There !!

Here are the results for my lil game, Nothing too great but oh well !!

For next Jam would love to connect with someone now, so if you are a solo developer looking to make something great next time around do ping me :)

Thanks everyone for playing and all the good comments! :heart:
We really enjoyed this game jam together and we can't wait for the next! We currently work on big update for Save the Fish to make it more stupid: new features, seagull and playable on TWITCH!

Keep in touch and follow us on itch: https://labelpastek.itch.io/save-the-fish
Love.