Bounced around a bit with art styles, but finally settled on pixel iso - we're getting there!

I saw a couple others making posts like this, and thought it was a great idea! Here are some of my favourites - give them a try if you get the chance!

[Top Row: Fleur Defense, Hommel, My Mother is a Caravan?, Ice Light]

[Bottom Row: Save The President, delivery_birb Has Logged On, Keep, Calm, The Isle]

Fleur Defense- A wave-defense type game where you play as a gardener trying to protect her garden from an onslaught of bugs! What really drew me into this game is the amazing fluidity of the animations! I'm definitely going to play some more later trying to get enough for that 9999 bug bomb. Created by @cileth, @royalsoup, @alphabeza, and @samstallion

Hommel - A simple, short game about a bee eating enough to become the perfect hommel - what's not to love? The movement extremely satisfying with jump impact, the game is quick to play through, and I absolutely adored the trees! Created by @supernapie

My Mother is a Caravan - a wonderful rogue-like wherein you try to earn enough money to pay a wizard to turn your mother back after she was transformed into a caravan! The story is humorous and the play is quite fun! Created by @lapisraider, @yno, @iaredeaded, @joelle, @joelloki, @hansoul, @alonzo, and @gideonnf

Ice Light - a puzzle platformer where you travel with a firefly through a snowstorm. I wasn't able to finish the game because I'm bad with platforming, but it gets a spot on this list for the atmosphere alone - it's inspiring to look at and has a great feel. Created by @indie-dragon and @thornduck

Save The President - This is the first game I played that I dropped a link to in a group chat so others could enjoy! The pixel art simple and fantastic, the puzzles are appropriately challenging for a Ludum Dare style delivery format, the game feels polished, the premise had me constantly in stitches throughout the entire thing, and the ending was incredibly satisfying. Created by @axlplosion, @unityyyy, @eddiethecubehead, and @elq

delivery_birb Has Logged On - An adorable and satisfying game where you play as a bird working through their delivery day while hacking signals so they can keep up a voice call with their friends! The dialogue is charming and funny, and you get to interface with a rat!! Created by @ferricsbo

Keep, Calm - I saw a blog post about this the other day, and I have never wanted to play anything more. The absolute best use of the theme that I've seen, with precisely the QWOPpy playstyle you hope for! Created by @maniulo

The Isle - An intriguing, story-driven game about learning the mysterious history of an isle. The visuals were beautiful and the story left me wanting to find out more about the fascinating world it built! Created by @zillix

Amazing Ludum Dare, everyone! It was so hard to choose just eight for this list - so many of the games I've played have been beautiful and delightful! I'm looking forward to see what recommendations others have to put up!

It's MaricolouRs' first Jam as a team! We're done our brainstorming, and I'm super exited for the concept we've settled on - there's a whole lot to get done!

Game Jam 48, here we come!

After a good rest and some good plotting, we're getting into it! Here's a preview of a few of our beautiful little fish.

It's nearing the end of the first full work day, and we're very excited about all of the work we've completed on Aquanomicon! ☆☆☆☆☆

A lot of the art assets I've set up this time have been a first with me, but I'm delighted with how they've turned out!

Day 2, and we've gotten through a lot of the art assets, coding and music for Aquanomicon! There's still a bit to go, so we'll be buckling in for a longer night, and there's a bit of writing to get done, but it's coming along!

After 72 long hours of work, Aquanomicon is done!

This jam posed a lot of new challenges, and we have plenty ideas of further additions to be made to Aquanomicon in the future, but for now, I'm very proud of our team and our first jam together!

Play Aquanomicon here

...and explore different levels of the ocean as you help a witch who's been thrown into the water sort through her horribly messy spell book! Meet fish, learn to craft potions, and maybe become a culinary expert along the way? Who can say!

After returning to Aquanomicon with fresh eyes today and looking at some of the comments we received, we realized that we had most definitely made the puzzle part of our puzzle/collection game a little bit too complicated. After fixing up bug concerns (re: some recipes being uncraftable, and the light potion not working), we set to work making this:

A complete walkthrough guide to Aquanomicon!

A part of the experience of Aquanomicon is taking a leisurely time reading through your spellbook, but even knowing the recipes, crafting them can be a little difficult, so fret no longer and craft to your heart's content! And though this guide shows the potion crafting recipe, feel free to take your time and craft some of your other fun recipes - you might just get another end!

If your game is playable on browser, or if you have any suggestions for other browser games you've played and would recommend, post a comment and let me know! I do my best to leave thoughtful reviews on anything I play!

It's not required at all for me to review your game, but if you're interested, after commenting please feel free to check out the game my team worked on, Aquanomicon!

I was inspired by @rongo-matane's concept to final sketches, and wanted to post some of the same for Aquanomicon!

The game screen

I did our concept sketches through clipstudio, but it did by and large end up looking a lot like the finalized game:

The original concept only had four inventory slots, but that was expanded when we realized it was a little too restricting and would have ultimately meant you could only use the things directly around you without being able to bring something from further up down with you into the depths. The spell book was also originally going to hide at the bottom of your screen and be able to be pulled up and put down, but ludum dare time restrictions get to us all one way or another.

The Witch

The witch herself went through a little bit of change from the beginning to the end of concept - we originally had her with her feet in cement rather than tied to a chain and sinking, but the latter concept ended up meshing a lot more with the design direction I wanted her to go in (if she was going feet-down, her hat would've flown away!)

I wavered back and forth on her final design, and didn't actually have it cemented until Sunday due to some indecision. Ultimately I'm happy that it hit all the main beats of her design that I cared about(though tragically the boots didn't make it through translation). We ended up going with design 4 - I hope everyone agrees it was the best of the batch!

I'd love to see some more planning to completion art for games, if you've got 'em!

It's just about time for one of my favourite parts of the game jam - recommendations! There have been a ton of great games this jam, but here are some of the ones I want to give a shout out to and point you all toward playing!

[Top row: Selkö, Dome Romantik, A Taste of the Past, Me: Tree! - New Roots]

[Bottom row: Billy's Gone Again, DeepO, The Plot Chickens, The Void]

Selkö - A beautiful and atmospheric game that sees you descending into the ocean in search of a rumoured secret in the ocean! With charming pixels and relaxing music, this is a light gameplay experience filled with plenty of charming fish! Created by @thekingbarry, @dodidouda, and @doot.

Dome Romantik- A visually stunning game with simple and elegant design about mining deep into the earth to escape monsters attacking your surface base. The gameplay is appropriately scaled for difficulty and there's a completeable ending to get to, so try to complete it and enjoy the beautiful art along the way! Created by @idinakloppstock and @rongo-matane

A Taste of the Past - For anyone looking for a narrative based game, this is one of the best I've seen this jam. It pulls heartstrings as it brings you through a journey of the importance cooking, connecting with the past, and learning to move forward. Created by @julia-lee, @johnnywan, @caiojmini, @isabelle-szeto, @lancival, @carolinewang, @kelvin-nguyen, @jaimi, and @emily-pitcher

Me:Tree! - New Roots - A very soothing game with the only objective being to grow. The gameplay takes a little to get used to, but after learning it's a calming game. It was a little saddening to get to the end without any more nutrients to grow, but very satisfying to look at the beautiful tree I'd made along the way! Grow your own lovely tree now! Make some fun shapes with those branches. Created by @groggi

Billy's Gone Again - A fun shooter! While this isn't the 'deeper and deeper'est game I've seen, it's a delight to play. The art design is charming, the music is very fitting, and while many shooters give you several near identical guns, the weapons provided in this game feel enjoyably and usefully different. Enjoy some cowboy time! Created by @willoxs, @preda, @rat-spine, @waltsontanaka, and @kingofnova

DeepO - Do some deep breathing exercises in this lovely little platformer! A well-balanced adventure comprised of taking deep breaths and launching yourself further, the controls feel wonderful. That said, it is definitely best played as a controller experience. Created by @alejandrodecea, @jmartinez-gamedev, and @rodrysson

The Plot Chickens - Solve a mystery about a chicken! This puzzle game includes so many charming characters, a beautiful little town, and a story that's fun to solve! It's very easy to get attached to the characters, and the humour is delightful! Created by @sarafilipa, @ru-mey, and @jpiolho

The Void - A suspenseful, narrative-driven game about descending into a pit. The voice acting is very well done, and the suspense as you descend made me more and more nervous with every puzzle I solved. Find what's waiting for you in the depths! Created by @zuhairghias, @axlplosion=, @gnahzanit, @deathhound, @ceyhun-yanikdag, and @amastryukov

It's been such a fun Ludum Dare, everyone! I'd love to see all of your recommendations - what games have made you smile? If you make a recommendation post, please leave it in the comment to share your favourites!

Excited to be doing this game jam with @Clairric and @Cinsynate again! Animations are starting to shape up~!

On the art side of things there's still plenty of polishing to be done, but we've got idle animations running smoothly! Here's our cast of NPCs! Who's your favourite? :eyes:

Best of luck to everyone starting into their day 2! I've just had breakfast and I'm about to start cracking open some more art assets, but I wanted to share a coding update first!

@Clairric has got our movement working in the placeholder map! You can book it around!

There's also some structure on NPC attention, but that'll be more evident a little later!

Working on the Jam, so we've got a while longer! Best of luck to everyone finishing up their compo entries!

Aaaand we're done! It was a busy weekend - our team had a lot of fun learning and creating this time around! We created a game where you run around at a monster party trying to avoid becoming known!

Play Unknowable Now!

Looking to play some browser games throughout the day today! If your game is HTML5, or if you'd like to share some recommendations of games you've played so far, I'd love to see them! :eyes:

If you're interested in playing a browser game, try to play some of the other games in the comments! You're also welcome to give the game my team made, Unknowable, a try!

Tinycon is here! Of course tiny creatures could only mean one thing - little friends! Attend the tiny convention to gacha, win, plinko and show off your marbz!

We overscoped a little (the timeless classic), but I'm proud of what we put together! I'll be polishing up the description and add a little more of a post on the process in the coming days, but for now it's rest time!

Try Tinycon here!