First Game Jam, spent almost the entire first day struggling with ideas and on one animation. Worth it!

I'm hoping my submission counts cause I was struggling with Godot uploads having never uploaded for Web before. Either way I had fun and feel so good finishing a game finally! Great job everyone!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/59/while-you-were-here/, is a cozy little puzzle-platformer inspired by The Last Guardian. you guide a boy and a big golem using simple signals to solve puzzles together. Would love feedback from puzzle folks. Also if you get stuck, you can restart the level in the pause menu 😅

Here’s the link to play the game:
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/59/while-you-were-here

While You Were Here is a cozy little puzzle-platformer inspired by The Last Guardian.
You guide a boy and a big golem as they learn to trust each other and solve puzzles together.

Would love feedback from puzzle folks!

I hope you enjoy this little game, and I’m looking forward to playing yours!

What went right

The biggest win wasn't even design. It was being slightly more organized in Aseprite than I've ever been. Not much, but it's honest work (and still not that good 😅). Just enough, like naming layers and separating animations, that I didn't hate myself every time I had to make a change.

I also kept the scope as tiny as I could, which helped a ton.

A few animations I'm proud of

Mostly just happy I broke the cycle of starting things and never finishing them.

🎮 Play it on Ludum Dare

Designing puzzles in 48 hours is brutal

The hardest part of this jam for me was the puzzle design. Puzzles are unforgiving in a way art and code arent. A rough sprite still works. A confusing puzzle just stops the player cold.

I'm a big fan of not giving away all the info to the player and letting them discover things for themselves. But I'm starting to realize I could've leaned a little harder into subtle hints to nudge players along the way. If this one lands well, I'd love to keep building on it with more levels and really focus on getting those hints right.

Thanks so much for playing my game, and if you beat level 3 you are a true gamer. :sunglasses:

Play While You Were Here

A little nod to The Last Guardian, the game that inspired this whole thing.

Thank you so much to everyone who's played While You Were Here! I've been drawing more poses of these two because I can't get enough of them!

Play it here

Thank you so much to everyone who's played While You Were Here and left such kind words. Reading the feedback has been the best part of the jam honestly.

The positive feedback has me completely sold on keeping this project alive. I'm working on more levels, better hint design (a running theme in my comments 🥲), and general polish based on what people have shared.

This community is amazing :heart:

What's one thing you'd keep working on from your own jam game? Drop a link, I'd love to play!

Play it here

Spent way too long on this one. The box just squishes the boy like a pancake. Sorry to anyone who experienced this while playing 🥲

Spent several iterations trying to prevent Godot's collision depenetration. Ultimately decided on per-body collision exceptions:

• disable the hitbox
• let it slide past
• re-enable when it's clear

Work smarter not harder I guess...

Share your funniest bugs if you have em!

Thanks LD, this has been wild.

This was actually my first ever jam, which felt kind of terrifying going in. I've been making little game prototypes for years and never quite finish any of them. Turns out giving yourself a hard 48-hour deadline is the best way to actually ship something. I went in with no real plan, just some ideas about a boy and his sleeping forest spirit companion, and somehow came out the other side with a tiny puzzle game I'm genuinely proud of. Working solo on a Compo is exhausting in a way I'm still recovering from, but also one of the most fun things I've done in a long time.

The best part has been reading every single comment over the past week. So many of you played, voted, pushed through rough collisions, got stuck, quit :stuckouttongue:, and still left thoughtful, kind words. It's been overwhelming and so exciting. I'm already looking for more jams to join.

I've also had a lot of fun playing your games. The variety this round has been incredible. So many wildly different takes on the theme. It's been truly inspiring.

If I had one thing to do better next time, it would be game/puzzle clarity. I leaned hard into "let players figure it out for themselves" and I'm realizing that a Game Jam isn't the best place for this type of gameplay.

What's next

Post LD, I plan on continuing this project as much as I can. I've already started working on a few more friends:

So look out for more to come!

If you haven't played yet, this is your last shot before the moon falls.

Play While You Were Here

If you're still looking for votes, drop your game in the comments below and I'll try to play as many as I can tonight!