This was my first game jam and I had a blast! I learned a lot that'll help me plan better the next time around. I appreciate everyone that took the time to drop me a rating! I'll do the same for you as well. Let me know how many zombies you can kill!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/deck-of-the-dead

Ludum Dare 41 has come and gone and the results are in! While there is definitely a lot of room for improvement, I'm happy that my first game jam resulted in a playable game that people enjoyed overall!

Postmortem

The theme of this jam was "Combine 2 Incompatible Genres". Participants were given 72 hours to create a game incorporating this theme. My initial ideas for genre combinations and basic mechanics were:

• Typing/Runner: Typing letters/words correctly makes the player run
• Typing/Racing: Typing makes the car accelerate
• Puzzle/Shooter: Clearing blocks kills enemies
• Memory/Shooter: Matching cards earns ammo

I opted for my fourth idea and adapted it to be a Memory Card/Zombie Survival game.

What Went Right

• The game was completed and submitted on time
• The genre combination worked well
• Core mechanics were implemented, fully functional, and provided a challenging gaming experience

What Went Wrong

• The scope had to be dialed way back to finish on time
• Omission of in-game controls/instructions left some players unsure of how to play
• A couple of nasty bugs slipped through testing (patched post-release)

Conclusion

This was a great learning experience! Being my first game jam, I didn't have a solid idea of how much I could accomplish in such a limited time frame. I had planned on adding many things such as multiple enemy types, weapons, animations, a scrolling level, etc., that ultimately didn't make it into the submission. In my haste, I also forgot to include in-game controls and instructions. I thought the user interface was intuitive enough for players to grasp the mechanics but a few reviews reinforced to me the importance of explicitly presenting these details.

I plan to make Deck of the Dead into a fully featured release after I wrap up my current project, Bud Blitz. I'll likely target mobile platforms as I think they would be best suited for this type of game. The knowledge gained and feedback received from this game jam are invaluable and will help to make the next iteration of Deck of the Dead an even more entertaining and challenging experience.

I'd like to thank everyone that played and rated Deck of the Dead and tip my hat to all my fellow indie developers that participated in LD41. I look forward to seeing you all in LD42 in August!

Postmortem source

Play Deck of the Dead

Hi all! I'm stoked to participate in LD42! This will be my second game jam (LD41 was my first) so I'm hoping to improve on my previous performance now that I have a feel for it.

My Tools:
* Unity
* Visual Studio
* Blender
* ProBuilder
* GIMP
* Inkscape
* Audition
* BFXR
* GitKraken

Can't wait to see what you all make! Let's get it!

Just hit 20 ratings! Thanks all!

This was my second Ludum Dare. I thought I would finish a bit earlier than last time but it was right down to the wire again :P Had a blast though!

Check out my game here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/screen-space-defender

I'll rate/comment back! Looking forward to seeing what you all made!

Thanks to everyone who played and rated Screen Space Defender! I had a blast playing your games!

Ratings Breakdown

Postmortem

The theme of this jam was "Running out of space". Participants were given 72 hours to create a game from scratch that incorporated this theme. The concepts and mechanics I came up with were:

• An Arcade game where the player types incoming filenames to prevent them from being downloaded and having their hard drive run out of space
• An Action game where the player must eliminate enemies in a specified order to make the approaching spiked walls recede
• An Action game where colored boxes fall from the sky and must be destroyed by the player by matching their fist color to the box before being crushed
• A Puzzle game where the player must unscramble images and close panes to prevent their desktop from running out of space

I went with my fourth idea as I felt it was the most unique. I also thought it would be fun to create the simulated operating system in the game.

What Went Right

• The game was completed and submitted on time
• The presentation was polished and visually appealing
• The mechanics worked well and the audio selection complimented the gameplay nicely

What Went Wrong

• The difficulty scaling mechanic of having multiple versions of each puzzle with an increasing number of pieces made the game too hard and was removed
• The delay added between selecting the second puzzle piece and the swap occurring was too long and not well received
• Limited testing time resulted in some bugs making it into the release (patched post-release)

Conclusion

Another Ludum Dare in the books! This was my second game jam, and while it didn't go quite as smoothly as I had planned, it was a great learning experience that resulted in another playable title.

Time is always an issue. The 72 hour window is tight and really forces you to refine your scope. I had planned to add an online leaderboard, as well as additional animation, OS interaction, and puzzles, which didn't make the cut. This is something I hope to improve on in the next jam.

I'm happy to have made progress in the graphics department. As a programmer, art is not one of my stronger skills, although it is something I have been working on. Screen Space Defender rated higher than Deck of the Dead in Graphics and Mood so I consider that a win in itself.

I'd like to thank everyone for playing and rating Screen Space Defender. The feedback is greatly appreciated. I had a blast creating, playing, and rating games during this jam and I can't wait to do it all again for Ludum Dare 43 in November!

Play Screen Space Defender

Dave Brake Creations

I'm stoked to be participating in LD44! This will be my third LD (also 3rd game jam) and as was my goal last time, I hope to keep improving and make something better.

I missed out on LD43 because I was wrapping up production on my debut solo title "Bud Blitz". If you're interested in checking it out it is currently on sale on itch (ends today) for 20% off. The itch purchase also comes with a Steam key!

➡ itch.io : http://bit.ly/BudBlitzItchio

I can't wait to see what you all come up with! Let's make it a good one!

--Dave
https://www.davebrakecreations.com

Evil Dungeon is a 2D Dungeon Crawler game made in 72 hours for Ludum Dare 44.

You find yourself all alone in the darkness of the Evil Dungeon. Use your flashlight to illuminate your path as you collect items, avoid obstacles and traps, and try to escape. Beware the Demon Gates as they cost health to pass. Be mindful of your route or you’ll pay the ultimate price…your life!

Play/Rate Here

I'll do the same for your game! Respect!

Thanks to everyone who played and rated Evil Dungeon! I had a blast playing your games!

Ratings Breakdown

Note: Percentiles were calculated differently this time around. In my previous Ludum Dare postmortems I was unaware that the total entries reported included those which did not receive the minimum of 20 ratings to be considered ranked. This time I utilized data obtained by @adroitconceptions which can be found at: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/mud-framework/total-rated-games-by-jamcomp-and-category-1. Also, I was unable to opt out of the Humor category for this jam although I didn’t intend for it to be rated in that category.

Postmortem

The theme of this jam was “Your life is currency”. Participants were given 72 hours to create a game from scratch that incorporated this theme. I brainstormed numerous concepts and mechanics such as:

• Spending life to buy items/upgrades
• Selling blood obtained from enemies to a blood bank
• Luring/trapping people to sell on the black market
• Surviving as an animal in an environment full of hunters
• Collecting money to stay alive
• Navigating a maze filled with “life tolls” that consume your health when passed

I had a feeling that most people would be making something where the player spent health on items and upgrades so I wanted to try something different. I went with the last idea and came up with an evil dungeon full of traps, darkness, and “Demon Gates”.

What Went Right

• The game was completed and submitted on time. Although the scope had to be reduced, the game was fully playable and bug-free.
• The flashlight mechanic looked nice and worked well. I used the flashlight/darkness to limit the player’s visibility which made choosing the right paths more challenging.
• The level design provided the right amount of challenge and progression. The first level serves to introduce the player to the flashlight and Demon Gate mechanics. The second level introduces the arrow launcher and spike traps. The third level increases in complexity and contains numerous areas where the player can choose to cross a Demon Gate, taking guaranteed damage, or try their luck avoiding traps and obstacles and potentially incurring a greater health penalty.

What Went Wrong

• Time management. I spent too much time on prototyping features, building a test level, and creating sprites that didn’t end up making it into the game. The scope had to be reduced as a result.
• The presentation wasn’t as polished as I had planned. Notably, I didn’t have time to add background ambience/music which would have went a long way in the mood department. Also, player and UI animation didn’t make the cut which made things feel more static than I would have liked.
• The Demon Gate mechanic was a bit too punishing. When the player chooses an incorrect path such as a dead end, they are penalized both times they pass the gate. In retrospect, I should have disabled the gate after it is crossed so there is only a single penalty per mistake.

Conclusion

This was a rough one! It was my third Ludum Dare/game jam and ranking-wise it was my worst to date. The root of the problem came down to time management. I spent an abundance of my limited time frame prototyping my various ideas which didn’t leave enough time to make the actual game, or at least the game I had envisioned.

It wasn’t all bad though. This was my first game jam game that featured multiple levels, rather than a single level containing waves or increasing in difficulty. I was also happy with how the flashlight mechanic turned out. I got a chance to brush up on my trigonometry, gained more experience creating sprites and working with tilemaps, and learned a few new things about Unity and Cinemachine.

I’d like to thank everyone for playing and rating Evil Dungeon! Your feedback is a great help to me and I really appreciate it! Although the outcome wasn’t ideal, I still had a great time creating, playing, and rating games during this jam. I’ll be back with a vengeance for Ludum Dare 45!

Play Evil Dungeon

Dave Brake Creations

What's up all? I'm back for my fourth Ludum Dare. I seem to always end up adding audio an hour or two before the deadline so the goal is better time management this time around! And of course, to finish :P

My Tools: Unity, Visual Studio, Blender, ProBuilder, Aseprite, GIMP, Affinity Designer, Audition, BFXR, and GitKraken.

Good luck to everyone! Have fun and stay hydrated!

--Dave
Dave Brake Creations

Thanks to everyone who played and rated! The chicken is happy! 🐔❤️

If you haven't played yet click the link below to check it out. I'll rate your games too!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/45/egg-scramble

Dave Brake Creations

Thanks to everyone who played and rated Egg Scramble! I had a blast playing your games!

Ratings Breakdown

Note: Percentiles are calculated based on the total number of ranked games in each category. A game in Ludum Dare is only ranked when it receives 20 or more ratings. Ranked data courtesy of @adroitconceptions.

Postmortem

The theme of this jam was “start with nothing”. Participants were given 72 hours to create a game from scratch that incorporated this theme. I’ll be the first to admit that I found this “theme” to be more of a starting condition, and not only that, a starting condition that most every game follows. Nonetheless, after a period of brainstorming I came up with numerous concepts and mechanics including:

• Player starts without teeth and must find them scattered throughout the level. Taking damage removes a tooth and places it somewhere in the level to be found again. Taking damage while having no teeth is death.

• Platformer that starts with no blocks or platforms. Hitting a colored button makes blocks of that color appear which lets the player access more areas of the level. Must hit all switches to reveal all blocks and reach the goal.

• Start in a monochrome world. The goal is to restore color to everything by collecting colored orbs.

• Player starts as a 0 with legs. They must jump back and forth through an upwards stream of objects, collecting objects which increase their score and avoiding others that cause damage. Increasing score changes the number the player’s body is made of. The higher the score, the larger the number/hitbox. Jumping while airborne makes the player dash. Jump is the only button.

• Side-scroller spaceship shooter where the player starts with no ammo. Player can trigger a brief shield that absorbs enemy projectiles and allows them to fire back.

• Player is a chicken in an empty coop. They must eat food scattered around the yard to fill up their egg meter while dodging predators. When their meter is full they must return to the coop to lay an egg. The level is completed when all of the nests are full.

It took me longer than usual to decide on what I was going to make. I ended up choosing my last idea as I felt it was a good use of the theme and something that I could complete in the given time-frame.

What Went Right

• The game was completed and submitted on time. As per usual, the scope had to be reduced to accomplish this but the end result was playable and functionally complete.

• The artwork came out nicely. I’ve been doing some practice with creating vector art and I got a chance to demonstrate that with this jam. I’m still much more so a programmer than an artist but I feel I’m making progress in this area. The ratings and comments seemed to indicate this as well, which was nice.

• The core mechanics work well. The game has a simple premise with an effective execution. I would have loved another 24 hours to implement more of what I envisioned, but time is never on your side during game jams.

What Went Wrong

• The artwork took too long to create. While I was able to create better visuals, it came at the cost of time. I underestimated the amount of time it would to create everything I needed, and as a result, the scope of the game had to be slashed in order to finish.

• The game doesn’t include audio. This was my first submission to not have music or sound effects. Ironically, it was also the first Ludum Dare where I planned to record my own sounds rather than using premade sounds and opting out of the Audio category. This would have helped boost my mood, humor, and overall ratings.

• A couple of bugs made their way into the initial release. These were the result of some last minute code changes prior to submission. I had to remove numerous things I didn’t have time to finish and made a couple of mistakes along the way. Luckily these bug were patched the next day so the impact was minimal.

Conclusion

This was my forth Ludum Dare/game jam. Most of my rankings were on par with my last LD, which I wasn’t necessarily happy with, but I made progress in Graphics and Humor. Unfortunately, spending too much time on the artwork resulted in having to cut audio, an additional enemy type, and enemy behaviors, among other things.

While it wasn’t all good, it certainly wasn’t all bad either. I managed to create a simple to play game with a charming aesthetic. I created 3 levels of progressing difficulty, multiple waypoint behaviors for the foxes, and an effective algorithm for randomly scattering the food around the yard. I also got more practice with creating vector art as well as a better understanding of how long it takes me to create assets of a specified size and detail.

Once again, I’d like to thank everyone for playing and rating Egg Scramble! Your feedback is a great help to me and always appreciated! I was hoping for a better result but I’m proud of the progress I’ve made and what I managed to come up with in 72 hours. I had a blast playing your games and I look forward to doing it all again for Ludum Dare 46!

Play Egg Scramble!

Dave Brake Creations

Hey all! Back for my 5th LD. I missed LD46 because I was starting a new job so I'm stoked to catch this one. Haven't been doing a ton of gamedev lately so it'll be nice to get back in the groove. Can't wait to play your games!

Dave Brake Creations

Debug Or Die (also known as Baba Is Loop :P) has passed 20 ratings! Much appreciated!

I've been having a blast playing your games and I hope you've had fun with mine as well. Haven't played yet? Take it for a spin at: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/debug-or-die

Leave a rating and I'll leave you one too! Keep on jamming! ❤️

Dave Brake Creations

Thanks to everyone who played and rated Debug Or Die! I had a blast playing your games!

Ratings Breakdown

Note: Percentiles are calculated based on the total number of ranked games in each category. A game in Ludum Dare is only ranked when it receives 20 or more ratings. Ranked data courtesy of @adroitconceptions.

Postmortem

The theme of this jam was “stuck in a loop”. Participants were given 72 hours to create a game from scratch that incorporated this theme. I thought this theme was one of the better in recent memory and brainstormed the following concepts and mechanics:

• Player stuck with a hula hoop around body. Bounce through the level with the goal of removing the hoop.

• Race around a track using timed button presses to increase speed. Reach the target speed to break out of the loop.

• Bullet hell game with screen wrap. Dodge enemies/projectiles that loop across the screen and kill enough to break out of the loop.

• Puzzle game with a programming mechanics. Break out of the loop by pushing around and aligning command blocks to satisfy loop conditions.

• Runner played inside the radius of a large circle. Jump to avoid traps/enemies. Circle gets smaller the longer you play.

• Hamster in a wheel. Didn’t think this one too far through.

I ended up going with the puzzle game with programming mechanics because I thought it was a good use of the theme and I’ve wanted to take a stab at something like Baba Is You.

What Went Right

• The game was completed and submitted on time. As has become a running theme with my jams, the scope had to be reduced, but the end result was playable and functionally complete.

• The level design came out nice. I was able to design levels with progressing difficulty that showcased the mechanics and challenged the player. I also included a tutorial level to introduce the mechanics which I felt would be especially helpful to those without programming knowledge.

• The core mechanics work well. The grid-based movement made it easy to control/play. I incorporated break points, which are an obstacle that can be moved, and comment blocks which the player can pass through but command blocks cannot. If the player already had programming knowledge then it would be immediately obvious what each of the block types does, and if not it was easy to pick up.

What Went Wrong

• Numerous features and polish had to be cut to finish on time. These included additional levels, multiplication/division blocks, additional environment affecting conditions akin to the door in level 3, undo functionality, sound effects, and graphical polish/animation.

• No undo functionality. This was mentioned above but it was something that many players mentioned. It can be frustrating to have to start a level over after pushing a block into the wrong position when you’re already close to the solution. Again, this was a planned feature that didn’t make it in.

• A couple of bugs made it into the initial release. On the plus side, they weren’t game breaking and it’s very likely they weren’t noticed as I patched them the day after submitting.

Conclusion

This was my fifth Ludum Dare/game jam. It was also the longest I’ve went between jams (a year) due to being busy with a new job. This left me with a bit of rust that had to be shaken off early in the jam that undoubtedly cut into my time budget.

There’s always room for improvement but I’m very happy with the results. It was overall my best rated submission and the first time I broke into the top 100 in multiple categories. I chose to go with while loops because I figured they would be the easiest for people without programming knowledge to understand. I kept the math simple so the gameplay wouldn’t be frustrating but still provide a level of challenge and engagement. I also recieved numerous comments complimenting the usage of theme, level design, and educational value of the game which is always wonderful to hear.

I’d like to thank everyone for playing and rating Debug Or Die (unofficially known as Baba Is Loop :P). It was great to get back in the groove and make a game I probably wouldn’t have thought up if it wasn’t for the jam. I had a ton of fun playing your games and I eagerly await the chance to do even better for Ludum Dare 48!

Play Debug Or Die

Dave Brake Creations