Coming off a losing streak I'm determined to make this one a win! Last two Ludum Dare's I attempted "simple" strategy games and didn't get either of them finished. So this time around I'm gonna return to narrative adventure stuff as that's my comfort zone and I'm much more likely to get the game finished in a weekend.

Tools wise I'm sticking with reliable ol' Unity. I know with all the bad press a lot of indies are moving over to Godot but I still like working in Unity regardless of what the company is up to.

I also should have a friend joining me for this one hopefully, which is a nice change from my typical solo jams.

I know my theme suggestions aren't going anywhere so I had fun with a little G-Gundam reference:

First day has gone really well. We didn't start until the afternoon but we've got all of our basic game systems working in engine and running nicely on iPhone too.

We're making a narrative driven adventure/RPG in a forest of hungry little monsters who discover humans are invading their land. Sadly you're not strong enough to fight the humans alone so must unite the tribes of tiny creatures to overcome the human threat.

Goal today was to get an MVP built with an overworld map, a random mob encounter, dialog in one of the tribes villages, a simple fetch quest and one boss fight. We got most of the way there but the fetch quest and boss fight didn't quite make it. However I'm not complaining because all the gameplay systems are in and working so we've got a solid foundation tomorrow to focus on getting content in there to support the stuff we built today.

Art here is all placeholder but it is the general visual style we're going for.

Although I was always planning to submit in the Extra non-competitive category I had hoped to be done on Monday but it took me another day of fiddling to get the game complete and it's now uploaded.

Twilight of the Forest is complete. A narrative focused RPG with a story about a forest full of tribes of small monsters who must defend their land against invading humans by putting aside old grudges and coming together.

I worked with my friend Erin once again. We made a deduction focused adventure game for LD54. We did run into a few hiccups along the way with how we'd planned to split the work up, but it all worked out. We targeted an MVP version of the game by the end of Saturday and although we made good progress it was clear we weren't on track, so we swapped roles around a bit and spent Sunday churning out content. That left monday (and I guess Tuesday) to piece it all together and voila we have game.

The game was designed to be played vertically on phones, and it does run nicely on iPhone though it may not go any further than TestFlight.

Glad to have this game complete as the last couple of LD's I've tried to work solo on small strategy games and I failed both of them. Good to have another victory in the bag.

After failing LD54 and LD55, I'm glad to have a finished game once again for LD56. So thought I'd just write up a classic post mortem of what went right and wrong.

WHAT WENT RIGHT

Ambitious but tight scope - I knew I wanted to make something story focused but with some tactical sections to break up the dialog. So during ideation I mulled over a lot of different combat systems but I ruled out anything complex and kept trying to think how do I simplify this down to something I can code in a few hours. I really wanted each race you ally with to bring a unique flavour to combat and when I finally decided that each ally would essentially just add extra combat abilities like healing or tanking I realised how simple I could make it. When adding a new race just meant adding one extra button that heals 5 hp you're onto a winner for a jam length game.

Simple art style - I was planning to do the art for this and I'm not an artist so I needed something I could do quickly. 1-bit low resolution pixel art with a striking colour scheme was something I was sure I could do passably. Thankfully we ended up switching roles so I had a much better artist in the end but the quick style meant she wasn't overworked in the process. I don't always think enough about art style ahead of LD but this time it really helped a lot.

MVP first - I'm a big believer in get the game playable asap and build from there. The "it'll all come together at the end" approach so rarely works. So I had all the basic gameplay systems build by the end of saturday. That way we were going into Sunday with a clearer idea what was working, what wasn't and how much time we had. Made adjusting scope and delivering much easier. At one point the game had four tribes and four bosses but both went down to 3 as it became clear how long things were taking to build.

WHAT WENT WRONG

Untested project roles - I worked with the same partner on LD54 and we made a cool little deductive adventure game. We wanted to try mixing up roles and trying different stuff for this jam, however we neglected to really test or prove out these changed roles were going to work ahead of time. It didn't quite work out and Saturday night when we looked at progress we knew we need to make a change if we were going to deliver. So we reverted to how we'd done the last jam and that worked out great.

Genre confusion - To me this was always an interactive fiction game with some combat sequences to break up the storytelling. However from the LD feedback it's clear a lot of players were enjoying the combat but felt the storytelling was long and getting in the way. I don't normally run into this because when you show screenshots of a point and click adventure game you kind of get a self-selecting audience who are into that style of game. I think screenshots of this game draw in RPG players who aren't down for pages and pages of dialog. There's certainly improvements I could make to make the dialog more engaging but there is a fundamental problem of mechanics driven gamers are going to be frustrated by half of what is in this game.

Monday commitments - I was sure I had Monday clear to finish up the game. Wrap it up, polish it, release it. Instead I rerealised thanks to social media it was one of my best friend's birthdays that I'd forgotten about and spent a bunch of my evening being social and hanging out with them. So I had to finish up the game on Tuesday. It was always going to be an "Extra" game anyway as I'm non-competitive but a recurring problem for me is not having time on Monday to finish up.

CONCLUSION

Learnings for next time is to keep a tight achievable scope, focus on MVP first and make sure we've got a clear idea who's doing what and that they're prepared for the work involved. I would like to say "make sure Monday is free" but I say that every jam and then somehow it's not.

Great jam folks, see you all at the next one...

Glad this event escaped cancellation. Always super excited to make something for Ludum Dare. Working with a couple of friends this weekend who have never done a game jam before supporting with art and writing. Though we're obviously waiting for the theme announcement we're already toying around with some gameplay ideas that excite us as group. Gonna be a fun weekend, hope it goes well for everyone else.

It's 2am in the UK so brainstorming is gonna proceed in the morning. See you all IN THE DEPTHS!

We're making a gothic supernatural psychic fishing game. I'm including a screenshot of the overworld, but not of the fishing game itself as that's full of copyright placeholder. Will share that tomorrow once the art assets are in.

Really happy with progress on the first day. We were targeting a fully playable MVP by end of day 1 and although we didn't quite hit it (and I never really expected we would) we got very close. Which means we should be fully playable early tommorow with a ton of time to polish going into Monday.

The team have done great especially as neither of them have worked on a game before. Huge amount of art assets and writing produced in a single day.

Biggest challenge for me tomorrow is the fishing game (not shown) is fully playable but not interesting enough a decision space yet. So I'm going to mull over that one tonight and see what I can do with it tomorrow.

Our gothic supernatural fishing game is going well. End of day 2 and we have a huge amount of mechanics, artwork and writing. Way more than I normally do in a game jam but the team have just been super motivated and churning out great work. Tomorrow is going to be wrapping up everything, bringing it all together with a level of polish and piecing everything we have into a full game experience.

I was always planning to enter the non-competitive Extra category however our game arrived a week late this time around. Sadly it was a classic case of over-scoping that meant we had to stop short of delivering on the Monday. Then we all had other things to do so the game was paused for most of the week, until I came back the following weekend to get it shipped. Glad it's done though.

We created a gothic supernatural fishing game, set in a sinking abbey you have to use your power to fish into the world of the dead to gather clues from the strange people within so you can find a way out before the doom clock strikes midnight.

I was working with a group of friends who'd never made a game before and although my experience was meant to keep us in check to make something we can do in such a short period of time, instead we all got swept up in some cool ideas and built a much bigger game than we should have been attempting.

However the team did a fantastic job delivering a huge amount of artwork and writing that supports this strange little journey down into depths of this domed abbey.

The lesson for next time is the same as always: SMALLER SCOPE!

If you want to give it a go it's available here: Fisherman's Fiend

There's a web build and a windows download.

Have had a great time with the past few LD jams so super keen to do something this weekend. However plans have come up so I'm like only going to get Sunday afternoon and Monday to make something. Son tiny scope it has to be.

Hey folks,

Looking forward to another great Ludum Dare. No matter the theme I'm sure we're going to see some awesome games.

My plan this time around is to build something for the Playstation 1. Not just the beloved horror art style in Unity/Godot but for the actual hardware.

A lot of my development lately has been for old hardware as it puts contraints on you that I think really focus me, compared to the blank slate of modern engine.

I just finished a Dreamcast RPG inspired by Tron for a longer jam, so check that out if it sounds interesting to you:

https://lockeddoorpuzzle.itch.io/scorch-nexus-access-point

So good luck everyone, can't wait to see what you all make.

Here's my progress so far on making something for Playstation hardware.

https://youtu.be/UJZoy4E77P0

The basic idea is sitting alone on a space station exploring signals from a dead world below.

In a weird place with this because I've built a lot of stuff and it's working but the actual game side of it isn't coming together very well.

All my best Ludum Dare events are when I have a strong idea at the start and I make that thing. All my weakest are when I struggle with the game idea.

This weekend my idea is a bit nebulous and I'm kind of building and iterating hoping to find the game. Sometimes this works out for me, often it doesn't. Going to mull over what I've got tonight and see if I can find an interesting game in this.

It's still recoverable but it's on a knife edge.

I wasn't entirely sure if I'd finish or abandon this game as it wasn't really coming together as well as I hoped. It's about sitting in a space station scanning a dead planet below for signals you decode to unravel a story. However I really wanted it to be more of a puzzle solving mystery but none of my puzzle stuff really came togeher so right now it's more of a story game. The main reason I didn't abandon it is I quite like the story even though the gameplay is a bit more minimal than I wanted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWC77kpXPEY

I've still not properly tested it on real PS1 hardware, still running through emulators right now.

This was always planned to be a jam game so I've still got another day to finish up. Well an evening as I'm working tomorrow. Thankfully almost all the game content is in there already. I just need to do a bunch of polish tomorrow night which I think is well within reach.

So while this may not quite be the game I wanted it to be. It is going to be finished and released tomorrow. So I'm happy enough with that.