Hello everyone! I'm one of those guys that have a hard drive half full of unfinished projects, might be nice to finish one for once :D
I'm a little nervous and almost scared but I am looking forward to the challenge.
I'll be using Unity for the most part and performing programmer art via GIMP and some very basic blender work.
Good luck to all! May the inspiration strike us all!
This will be my first ever LD. I'm a little scared haha. I'm not really skillful in any one area of game dev (least of all art and sound production), but I am going to do my best to give this a solid attempt!.
sad to announce guys I wont be finishing 😦 I've picked up a tummy bug somehow. It is hard to program when you have to rush to the smallest room in your house every half hour.
bitterly disappointed as I am genuinely proud of what I have managed to do so far in so little time. I'll carry on developing this game and release it to the world at some later point - both in its 'ideal' and 'intended' LD form and later on as a shortish and properly thought out game.
I am going to try and participate once again in LD. I tried 6 months ago but had to withdraw because I had developed a rather painful stomach bug. So I guess you could say technically this is my first LD :D
I'm hoping the universe is kinder to me this time around!
For the whitelist! And for further proof, see my page where about 12 hours ago I was forced to submit my game early due to life springing up suddenly.
Good luck everyone and may all your games compile without error!
Hey everyone! in just a little over 5 hours @ https://www.twitch.tv/balimaarthebassfish I will be streaming myself playing Ludum Dare games!
If you'd like to see your game played, please join the chat when I go live and we will get you sorted.
See you all there!
Hey gang, I'm Balimaar and this will be my second Ludum Dare. I was delightfully surprised how well my entry in the previous LD performed, especially considering the fact I had to submit 12 hours early thanks to a suddenly arisen schedule change IRL that I could not escape from.
This time I will be taking part in The Jam as part of a 2 person team! I will be focusing on the coding and game design. The team will be using the Unity Engine.
Yes, I know, but the whole Unity debacle kicked off too soon before a LD for me to learn a new engine. This will be the last time I use Unity and I'll probably be moving on to Godot... maybe Unreal.
I for one happily anticipate having an extra day to get things done! And now I'd like to introduce you to my team mate who has been involved in a few really nice projects. :)
Hi! I'm Biz, audio wizard and Berklee grad. I'm the composer for the indie visual novel game Camp Palut, and the primary sound editor for the audio drama Bird Woman.
I'm also a vocalist, gamer, storyteller, and general creative. I'll be working on sound and art for this game.
This will be my first Ludum Dare, I am looking forward to it!
:star2::tada: Hey there, amazing people of the gaming universe!
I'm absolutely buzzing with excitement to introduce the stellar crew joining me on this epic adventure for the 55th Ludum Dare! Drum roll for our fantastic lineup, please! :drum::sparkles:
First off, let's give a warm welcome to a shining new star in our constellation, LD rookie Jaquillyn!
Quill's going to bring a splash of color and creativity to our project, transforming our game into a visual treat! I'm a huge fan of their emoticon magic, and I just knew they'd be perfect for sprinkling that artistic sparkle on Ludum Dare.
Up next, the incredibly talented Bizzybee, my partner in crime from the last Ludum Dare and the creative genius behind Beach Brawl's catchy tunes!
With Biz's musical mastery, I'm on the edge of my seat waiting to hear the incredible soundscapes that will be our game's heartbeat!
And now, let's roll out the red carpet for our Ludum Dare veteran all the way from Belgium, the one and only Frank! :video_game:
Frank's previous LD games are a rollercoaster ride of wit and hilarity, and I'm thrilled to have his coding wizardry and bug-busting prowess on our side. Here's to making this Ludum Dare an unforgettable team debut!
Lastly, there's little old me, Balimaar, your enthusiastic Project Leader.
Together, we're gearing up to tackle every challenge that comes our way and turn it into something spectacular. So, hello world, and fingers crossed that the theme is not manure, right?
Let's do this! #LudumDare55, here we come! :rocket::space_invader:
Lead Dev of my team here, I hope you're all doing well!
I'd like to kindly ask for your help with something. Our game, "Apprentice Quest," could really use a few more ratings, especially in the Humour and Mood categories. Humour is something that I have been working on personally in my writing having sufficient ratings in this category will give me an idea of where I am at!
Your feedback means a lot to the squad, and it will helps us make future games even better. So if you've got a few minutes to spare, we'd really appreciate it if you could give our game a play and drop a rating or two.
I'll be back home from work in about 2-3 hours, and I'll be diving into playing and rating more games myself. So it's a win-win situation for all of us!
Thanks a bunch for your support, and happy gaming!
(Anyone got the trash can familiar yet?)
I'm super pumped to be diving back into Ludum Dare with my two awesome friends! We’ve really hit our stride working together—team synergy, anyone? The time zones are aligning nicely so we can have someone coding and crushing it practically around the clock! We tried this approach last time, and it worked out amazing—total game dev magic.
Last Ludum Dare pushed me out of my comfort zone a bit (okay, a lot), but the end result was something I was incredibly proud of. It just goes to show that pushing boundaries is where the real growth happens!
This will be my fourth Ludum Dare. So far, I’ve made “asteroids with a twist,” “space—err, seagull invaders,” and a visual novel with multiple endings! I'm equal parts nervous and hyped to see what we’ll bring to life in 72 hours of Godot magic this time around!
Now, let’s hear from the amazing team members who are jumping back in to share this adventure!
First up, a word from our Graphics & Sound Wizard:
Wise words from Bizzybee! Employing the KISS principle I have found to be very helpful as well.
Next we will have words from fellow programmer, Ludum Dare veteran and best friend of NamedMoose:
We’re steering away from visual novels and text-based games this time. Time to explore a whole new side of Godot!
So here we are, a diverse, multinational team ready to create something unforgettable and, of course, to play through all of your incredible creations too!
Good luck, everyone! Let’s make this Ludum Dare legendary!
Hey Ludum Dare community!
I’m beyond excited to share that our game Papercat Farms has officially crossed the threshold of ratings for official rankings! The sheer speed that this happened is a personal record for me—I'm not sure about the rest of the team, but it's a huge milestone that we are so proud of! A massive thank you to everyone who has played, rated, and given feedback on our game already—it means the world to us!
But we’re not stopping there! If you haven’t had the chance to play Papercat Farms yet, there’s still 14 days to jump in and share your thoughts. We’d love to hear from even more of you! You can play and rate the game here: (https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/papercat-farms) .
What's Next?
In the next week or two, we’re planning to release a post-jam version of Papercat Farms based on all the incredible feedback we’ve received from the community so far. We’ve been taking notes and are eager to make the game even better, so stay tuned for updates!
The Community is On Fire
I’ve been blown away by the quality of games in this jam. Every single day, I’m discovering new gems that make me laugh, think, and feel. One game that really tugged at my heartstrings recently is Raccoon Romance—seriously, I wasn’t ready for how much it made me feel! 😭 If you haven’t checked it out yet, do yourself a favor and play it here: (https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/racoon-romance) . You won't regret it!
Once again, thank you to everyone for the amazing support! Can’t wait to share the post-jam version of Papercat Farms with you all soon!
Stay awesome everyone!
Balimaar
Hey everyone!
We're a scrappy little team of three coming together once again to take on the Ludum Dare challenge! No official team name yet — we keep forgetting to come up with one, but hey, naming things is hard, right?
👥 The Crew:
🎨 Bizzybee – Music, SFX, Art
Hello to the wonderful LD community! …Oh no, I'm stuck doing the art again! How could this have happened. 😭 In all seriousness, I'm super excited for this LD. Having 3 days dedicated to working hard on something, and putting it out there within that timeframe, does something wonderful both for minimizing perfectionism and getting this compact feeling of accomplishment. Constraint is such a wonderful tool to work with in our increasingly overwhelming lives. I'm hoping to "brush up" on my art skills and put out something as simple and complete as I can manage within the time limit. I also haven't been composing music a lot lately, so I'm happy to have an excuse to get back into it. Here's hoping the theme is engaging, is capitalized, and has proper grammar. :P
🐞 Frank Gevaerts – Programming, Elite Bug Squasher
I've now had six months to forget most of what I managed to learn about Godot in the previous two LDs. This is fine! This will be my third team participation (my fifteenth overall), and while I don't know what the game will be like, I'm very much looking forward to the experience. Working with people who are actually good at music, art and writing is amazing!
🐟 Balimaar the Bass Fish – Programming, God of Bug Creation
I'm really excited to work again with Frank and Biz. We created a very nice and atmospheric visual novel with Apprentice Quest 2 LDs ago and in the previous LD we made what was our best game yet in PaperCat Farms — an adorable little farming game that was surprisingly engaging and fun! One key takeaway from last Ludum Dare was the fact that we just dived right into making PaperCat Farms without really deciding what we were going to do other than 'let’s make a farming game!'. We ended up with something coherent and playable, but it would have been even better if we spent a little more time planning at the outset. Looking forward to the grind and playing everyone’s creations afterwards!”
🛠 Tools of the Trade:
Game Engine: Godot
Art & Audio: Whatever Bizzybee pulls out of their magical hat
Communication: Friendly chaos in Discord, probably
💡 A Bit About Us:
Frank is a seasoned LD veteran, entering his 15th jam this time around! 💪
Biz is a college grad with serious creative chops in music and art 🎶🖌️
Balimaar is a part-time aged care worker and full-time Dungeon Master 🐉, soon to bring Pathfinder 2E into the mix!
Wishing everyone the best of luck, inspiration, and time management this weekend!
Let’s make something cool — and play the heck out of each other’s games afterwards!
See you all on the other side! 💜
First of all — thank you to everyone who played, rated, commented, left feedback, recorded videos, laughed, cried, ran out of ammo, and punched a bee in desperation.
Thanks to you, this was our strongest Ludum Dare performance ever as a team — not just in terms of score, but in how we felt about what we made.
This was the Ludum Dare where we finally clicked.
🛠️ What Went Right
We actually planned first. Instead of charging in with vibes only (RIP Paper Cat Farms), we spent about an hour deciding what we really wanted: a short, punchy game you could beat in about 10 minutes, dense with action, and fun enough to come back to.
We balanced from experience. We followed an old-school design principle (popularized at id Software, creators of Doom and Quake):
"If you can beat your game blindfolded, that's Hard. Normal should come before that."
This helped us keep the main route satisfying but not soul-crushing. Endless Mode is there if you want to hurt yourself. 😉
Our small early maps were intentional. We learned during testing that huge mazes with three enemies hiding at the end were just... boring. Early levels are small and fast on purpose to keep pacing tight and fun. Later levels grow larger and more challenging.
🐝 The Soul of the Game: Ammo Management
We received tons of thoughtful feedback (thank you again!) about ammo scarcity. Many players noted that running out of ammo could feel brutal — but also strategic.
We want to be very clear: this was deliberate. Ammo management wasn’t a flaw — it was the soul of Dive Into the Hive Mind.
We didn’t want you to be Rambo. We wanted you to think like Agent 47:
-Make every shot count.
-Decide when it’s worth the risk to punch.
-Adapt when things don't go to plan.
Some players loved this tension. Some struggled. But we believe it gave the game its identity, and we’re proud we stuck to that vision.
🎨 Behind the Scenes
Bizzybee – Art, Music, and SFX Biz went full mad scientist, doodling like a whirlwind and composing electric, neuron-inspired music centered around the note B ("bee," get it?). Despite a recent chronic fatigue diagnosis, she powered through and made more art for this LD than ever before. Constraint truly made creativity flourish this time.
Fgeva – Programming With up-front design this time, there were no last-minute panics. Fgeva hit all our main goals and even some stretch goals — though he may or may not have been hallucinating from sleep deprivation by the end. (LD tradition!)
Balimaar – Programming Terrified about implementing procedural generation — and then utterly euphoric when it worked. This jam had way fewer "we're doomed" moments thanks to early planning. Also: much less bee-serk panic compared to LD56.
🎯 Moving Forward
We are soon to release a Post-Jam Version fixing many rough edges:
-Polished visuals and SFX balancing
-Smoothed out web build issues
-Controller input fixes
-Small tweaks based on feedback
But importantly: the ammo balance remains true to the original vision. We made a game that demands careful thought and adaptation — and we’re sticking to that.
❤️ Final Thank You
Thank you for diving into the hive mind with us. This was hands-down the best Ludum Dare we’ve had — and it’s thanks to all of you who played, commented, encouraged, critiqued, and took a chance on our weird little bee-brain experiment.
We hope you had fun. We sure did.
🐝💚 — The Hive Mind Team (Bizzybee, Fgeva, Balimaar)
Here we go again—Ludum Dare number FOUR for our little trio! Every time the jam rolls around, I wonder if the madness of 72 hours will finally get the better of us… and every time, we somehow crawl out the other side with a finished game, a heap of stories, and a whole lot of pride in what we made together.
From our first outing with Apprentice Quest (LD55) to the chaos of Papercat Farms (LD56), and then diving headfirst into the strange and surreal with Dive Into the Hive Mind (LD57), each entry has been its own wild ride. If you’ve read my post-mortem from last time, you’ll know I came away equal parts exhausted and exhilarated—but mostly grateful to be doing this with friends who can match (and fuel) each other's energy when the clock is ticking.
After the long month of participating in Spooktober (in which two of my three teams submitted: The Road Less Travelled and Midnight Oil ), I'm looking forward to the one-weekend grind of LD! Like last time, I'm excited to see what comes of being pushed to finish more so than to perfect. It's such a wonderful way of training those "good enough" creative muscles. Fingers crossed that this year we can top our previous work!
Time for me to get some distraction from my chess engine and spend all my waking hours on a different game this weekend! I'm looking forward to seeing what sort of idea we come up with for whatever weirdness the theme is.
For me, Ludum Dare is about more than making a game in three days—it’s about the rush, the laughter, and the teamwork that happens when everything is on fire and we just keep going anyway. I’ve been looking forward to this ever since we hit “submit” on Hive Mind, and the fact that we’re now heading into our fourth jam together makes it feel even more special.
I’m ready for another weekend of sleep deprivation, ridiculous bug-fixes at 3AM, and those little breakthrough moments when something finally clicks and the whole room erupts in celebration. That’s the magic of this event—and the reason I keep coming back.
So yes, we are absolutely IN for Ludum Dare 58. The theme may surprise us, the scope may spiral, and the hours will disappear faster than ever… but with this team, I know we’ll have a blast no matter what we end up building. Here’s to another 72 hours of creativity, chaos, and camaraderie—let’s make it count!
We are in for Ludum Dare 59!
This marks the 5th entry for the aptly named NamedLudumDareTeam, and this time our terrific trio has become a formidable foursome as we welcome Phil of Pixel Prophecy fame to the team.
Phil will be handling graphics for the most part, but when crunch time hits he has the skills to jump in and help wherever needed. With him joining us, the team is feeling more well rounded than ever, and we are excited to see what the four of us can make this weekend.
And now for some words from the squad!
This Ludum Dare I decided to join a team of seasoned Ludum Dare veterans; BizzyBee, Ballimar, and Frank. My plan this time is to focus on art and visuals and then wait for it to meet the harsh reality of the traditional "all hands on deck" scramble. No matter how it's going to turn out, I am itching for some game dev in an amazing team!
Time to do this again, with a newly expanded team. Of course I've forgotten most of what I knew about Godot again, but that won't stop us. With graphics and music from Phil and Biz, Balimaar and I should have all the motivation we need to write some passable code. And whatever he says, Phil is also a programmer, so with this many pairs of eyes looking for them, even the toughest bugs will not be able to hide!
I am so excited to make a great game with this wonderful group, and to welcome the new, fellow unicorn-loving addition to our team. One of the best things about making a game is seeing someone else play and enjoy it, and Phil's streams have been a highlight of my last LDs. He's a delightful presence on stream, and I'm sure he will be even more so on the team. (I kinda can't believe we're actually working with him??)
This jam I'm trying out a new program, FMOD, and I can't wait to see what I can do with it. I am so grateful to get to collaborate with such amazing creatives and to participate in such a lovely community, especially when so many of us are struggling with fitting into a world that doesn't feel built for us. I know I'm feeling that a lot lately, anyway. Here's to another ludum dare full of community and self discovery. We'll all have to figure out where to create together next once it's gone!
I can't believe this is my 6th consecutive LD game jam! I have enjoyed 95% of my time here :D The 5% comes from occasions where I am staring at a bug for an hour thats threatening to nuke 12 hours of otherwise good work shudders Lets hope that doesn't happen again this time!
I am thrilled to have Phil join us. He's been behind some of my personal favourite LD entries in the past! It's also been a genuine pleasure to see him play the team's humble efforts on his stream. His sense of humour and the way he provides constructive criticism really speaks to the epicness of this gent's character.
I think I can speak for the whole team when I say....
LET THE JAM BEGIN!!!!!
A huge thank you to everyone who has played, rated, and commented on Searching for Signal so far! <3
It has been genuinely lovely reading your feedback, whether you vibed with the atmosphere, laughed/groaned at the puns, enjoyed the music and visuals, or very kindly pointed out the bits where our 72-hour jam gremlins escaped containment. Every rating, every comment, and every “hey, this bit softlocked me” has been hugely appreciated.
We are sitting at a lovely pile of ratings already, but like an ancient Aikon 3310 desperately climbing a ruined city tower, we are still searching for just a little more signal.
So! If you have not played Searching for Signal yet, please do give it a go. It is a short atmospheric platforming adventure full of rusty streets, chatty robots, questionable reception, and at least one phone with more determination than most of us had by hour 71 of the jam.
And here is the deal:
Play our game, leave a comment on our Ludum Dare page after playing, and I will play and rate your game in return.
Comments are especially helpful because they let me know you have played, and they also give us the good stuff: feedback, thoughts, bug reports, puns, emotional support, or just a friendly “I made it to the top and only fell into the void twelve times.”
Massive thanks again to the Ludum Dare community. You have been kind, constructive, funny, and wonderfully generous with your time. Phil, Bizzybee, Frank, and I are very proud of what we managed to build, and seeing people actually play it has been the best part of the whole thing.
Now please excuse me while I go now to return some ratings, and pretend I definitely did not create any bugs. Tee hee!
Thanks for helping us find a signal. <3