This weekend, on the night from Friday to Saturday, the 49th World Festival of Game Developers, or simply the game jam Ludum Dare, kicked off.

The theme of the jam is "Unstable". I was absolutely determined NOT to participate this time, because there were plans for half the weekend, and I don’t want to do a “half project”, except for show and media presence. In addition, other endeavors languish on slow steam.

Nevertheless, out of the corner of my eye, I followed the situation. In the first hour after the start of the jam on Twitch, 35 streams with the tag "Ludum Dare" were active.

Exactly an hour ago, the reception of games ended. Several thousand people published 2,926 games of varying quality and content (there were 5,773 applications in total).

In general, what is all this for. Still, it turned out that way ... that I still left a mark on LD49, and another project was added to my portfolio 😂

As the saying goes, it is difficult to rest when others are working. One team worked so fervently on their game, using github and discord, and broadcasting everything on twitch, that by the middle of Sunday I could not resist ... And I also got involved in the process. As a result, I made a number of 3D assets for this team, which influenced the final "look-n-feel" of the game, participated in setting up the lighting, and also helped to keep timing and important / unimportant in mind. This time I did not do the code, whereas the last Ludum Dare I did entirely in solo. Nevertheless, I combined business with pleasure: I helped the team, participated in the creation of content, once again imbued with the spirit of the game jam, again felt this frantic rhythm and concentration of efforts at one point.

The game is called "Coffee Crisis" and is about running a coffee shop, where the air conditioner has broken down, and visitors are still arriving - that's unstable for you.

As usual, the scope of the game was prohibitively wide, some core things were being completed by the team literally in the last four hours, and the game was uploaded 13 minutes before the deadline! Of course, the build is somewhat unpolished... but completely playable! The game takes about ten minutes, but the main thing is not the speed. Bit how people approached the task, with what expressive means they created a game situation and mood. And how were they able to work out what they managed to work through 😂 By the way, all games on this jam are evaluated in seven nominations, from graphics to humor.

You can play here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/coffee-crisis

Player goes to "work out the shift" (about 5 minutes), finding time to service the cash register, start the coffee machines and deliver orders - trying not to anger the visitors with waiting and not catch heatstroke. Water from the mini-fridge saves the barista from the heat.

There is no HTML version yet (and I'm not sure what it will be - due to the peculiarities of GLES3 in Godot 3+). But the game weighs only 40 MB, downloads and starts normally, it works stably (!).

I am very pleased that I entered LD49 in the "free employee" mode, and worked with a good, well-coordinated, well-mannered and sufficiently qualified international team.

That's it. Oh yes, on one of the walls of the game level hangs a modified poster (derivative) of Sting, who turned 70 on the day of the start of Ludum Dare - October 2.