Hello LD community :) I'm very excited for LD40 as it'll be my first game jam and real test for me as an aspiring developer, however something that I just realised today is that since the Compo ends at ~2 am here in England I'll be unable to submit my game during submission hour (since I know my Mum won't be up on the idea of me staying up till 2 am to upload a game to this Ludum Dare stuff)

I just need to know whether it's possible for me to submit my game early (I've already searched). Thanks :)

According to my schedule, I have a 1-hour break. I've been working since 7 in the morning (UK) and I think I've made some good progress for my first jam with below average knowledge of Unity. The game I'm making is a sort of Procrastination simulator where you have to procrastinate as much as possible over the weekend. This is how it's looking right now. I know it looks VERY prototype(i) right now but I've given myself 3 hours after my break, for Art so it should be MUCH more polished. Hopefully I can get all of the Art done today and all of the key mechanics, it'll make my Sunday (and sleep) a lot less stressful. Anyway I'll let you get back to your game.

Happy Daring <3

You may or may not have seen my post a few hours ago on my current progress. The game was very much in its prototype stage. If you aren't aware, the game I'm making is about you attempting to procrastinate as much as possible over the weekend while balancing your 2 needs bars (energy and interest). Anyway, the game went from looking like this: To this: Personally, I am extremely proud right now of what I have achieved (especially for my first Ludum Dare) right now. Tomorrow I will be focusing on getting the computer and procrastinating mechanic done and mainly trying to balance out the bars with the time. Sound and Music is also required but I'm not too worried about those.

Anyway, Happy Coding <3

My first Compo and I greatly enjoyed it. I learned a lot about my skills in all areas of Game Design and learned a bunch along the way. It was also great fun looking at the awesome things you guys created (I find it amazing how with thousands of people competing everyone's game is different). Anyway my Game! Here it is. I think we've all been Jonny before, had to do work or an assignment but instead, we indulge ourselves into mindless hours of uselesness. I came up with a concept for my game really early (to my surprise; this Theme was veeery low on my list) and got to work in under 2 hours. After a few hours of working, I got to this. It was barebones and barely had any polish but it was a good foundation to work with. After a few hours in Art I, to my own surprise got this. I think I somewhat underestimated my time at first, I got very cocky with my time near the end of Saturday due to my Art making the game look like a finished product. Luckily I was able to piece myself together and got most of my initial plans done by the end. It's somewhat janky and unpolished in some areas, but this is not only my first Compo but my first real serious game Project and I'm more than happy.

Happy Coding :)

I've had a great time with Ludum Dare 40 it challenged me beyond of what I expected of myself and gave me a real challenge. Generally speaking I wanted to get 2.5 atleast on all categories, which I would call pretty above average for someone like me who only has a few months in Game Development. When the results came in today I was pleasently surprised that I was nearly on my target.

For my first Ludum Dare I am extremely happy with my results and any doubts I had before-hand have faded away by now. However I, of course have to face the music and give myself some critisisms as well.

- FUN - The category that I performed worst in was Fun. This mainly has to do with my next point but generally speaking the game lacked an interesting Gameplay mechanic to keep people interested. Next time I'll make sure to also think how well I am able to execute my idea not only for the Theme but also for the "game" part of it.

- User Interface - This is the one that most of the commenters touched on. It was difficult to tell which bar was which and a lot of the UI in general wasn't labelled. I also didn't have time to implement a basic tutorial... well that's a lie, making a tutorial didn't even cross my mind. Next time I HAVE to consider the actual person on the other side playing the game.

- Me being an idiot - I actually lost my game file due to my own stupidity. How is that possible you ask? Well, I must have tried to move some of my files to another folder (probably a GITHub repo) and accidentally deleted / replaced my new files with an early prototype. So now I've lost everything sadly :(. If you want proof by the way you can check my GIT repo on my game page. Thank Gabe though I uploaded before that happened.

Anyway, Ludum Dare has been an amazing experience and I'm 100% competing again in April, however with more knowledge and hopefully less stupidity. Thanks for reading if you did and have a good daz <3

Sorry for the long post.

Hello!

This is my second go at an LD JAM. First time I made quite a few mistakes which ended up costing me quite a few spots (My game ended up being one of the lowest-rated games in the compo), however! I've learnt quite a lot since then, I've actually been working on a side project for a while since the Jam (which should be done in a month or two).

I might as well give some tips to people who are new to the LD Jam (This is Compo orientated btw) - Don't waste your first day doing loads of prototypes and brainstorming, an idea is important but getting a playable version of it as soon as possible should ALWAYS be your top priority (I ended up having to hack together an ending in my last few hours) - Come up with an idea, then scope down, scope down, scope down and scope down. A good example of this is the game Plug Me for LD39 (https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/plug-me-1). The actual premise of the game is extremely simple, yet through some smart design choices, the game is very enjoyable. - Get some organization tools such as Trello or Github (but don't delete your repo like I did). - Make a tutorial... please.

Hope those help out :).

Here are some of the tools I'll be using:

• Unity 2017.3.1
• Aseprite and Photoshop
• Rytmik (or Bosca Ceoil if I'm feeling suicidal)
• My old snowball mic
• Pencil and Paper
• Pizza
• Pizza
• Pizza

Enjoy the Jam everyone!

Wow, just before I was about to post this @shard (most likely below this post) actually slaughtered more than I did (and I thought I was being stupidly strict). I went through some basic criteria before yes'ing or nay'ing such as: - Avoiding generic themes (Exploration, Simulator etc.) - Themes which are generic but don't look like it ("Dying is good" <= This is a roguelike) - Water, Time, Perspective, Travel, Duality, Colours - Too specific ("Bullets are edible" <= This sounds more like a game than a theme) - Too generic - Orders ("Game with less than 300 lines of code")

Anyway, can't wait to scrutinise the themes that ended up making it through (hopefully some of the ones I yes'd make it) and may the theme not suck! (and not be water).

Hello Everyone! As the first round of voting has started I wished to share my opinion on each theme.

• *You are the Weapon: *An interesting theme to say the least. I think one can look at this theme quite metaphorically which is why I think this is a much better theme than something like "You are the enemy". The only issue is that it seems to be more of a mechanic than an actual theme. So it gets a +-0

• *Deja vu: *No thanks. For one this theme should have been worded better (something like "Hang on, I remember this") so it's easier to understand. In general, it's a pretty poor theme where I could barely think of any basic concepts and the ones I did were WAY out of scope. -1

• *Learn from your enemies: *One of those themes where I scratch my head thinking, "Don't you learn from your enemies in nearly every game ever made that has some form of an enemy?". -1

• *A light in the dark: *Not a fan of themes that suggest a place or scenario. Also "Light" is a theme, "Dark" is a theme "A light in the dark" is not a theme. -1

• *Floating Islands: *Same thing with it suggesting a place/ scenario. Also similar to a previous theme (Islands) -1

• *Self-Replication: *I can see this one being very divided amongst most people, personally I think it's just too specific and most of the ideas I came up with were out of scope. -1

• *The Environment changes you: *At first I had the same thought as "Learn from your enemies" but after some thinking, I came to the realization that there can be quite a few different takes on this theme. Its also pretty wide as "Environment" can be interpreted as: Place, Weather, Condition etc. Nice theme +1

• *Same level, different challenges: *Not going to lie, this theme still confuses me. It's either a pretty interesting theme, the same thing as "One Room" or has the same problem as "Learn from your enemies. Had to give it +-0 therefore.

• *It Spreads: *I like the idea that 'it' is anything you want it to be, however not a lot of things can actually 'spread' so this theme is actually somewhat limiting. Still gave it +-0

• *Progress will make you weaker: *Sounds like a game that should have been made for the last LDJam -1

• *Only one light source: *Still kind of on the fence with this one. On one hand, I can see quite a few different interpretations of this "one" light source, on the other hand, I feel like a lot of games are going to play very similarly . +- 0

• *Death helps you: *Not sure whether I'm reading this wrong, but sounds like any game ever made. Death helps a player because now they know how not to die... Am I seeing things incorrectly? -1

• *Everything is a weapon: *More specific version of "You are the weapon" +- 0

• *Four elements: *Half of all games are going to be on greek mythology or some sort of resource collection/ management. Still I think some interesting ideas can come from this +- 0

• *Unusual Magic: *This can be a pretty fun theme to mess around with. To be honest out all of these this one may be my favorite. Lots of things can come out of it. It also doesn't state what magic, just a kind of magic so nearly all games will most likely be unique. +1

• *Indirect Player control: *What masochistic crazed person suggested this? This isn't a "fun" or "interesting" theme this is pure torture. -1

Phew. That was quite some writing. Anyway, hope you liked this lengthy post. As you can see, just like last time I'm not too hopeful that we'll get a good theme. Might as well prepare for "indirect player control" and "Floating Islands".

Hello again! Another round of voting has passed an, therefore, another day of voting has risen. I was slightly disappointed with the themes last time around, BUT... well... who am I kidding, they're still bad.

*(-1)You are what you eat: *I dislike how this theme suggests that your game needs to have some form of consumption mechanic in it. This sounds more like a mechanic for a game rather than a theme.

*(-1)Shelter: *Suggests a place which I'm not a fan of.

*(0)Inconvenient superpowers: *Originally was going to give this a +1 however after considering some of the points previously made about "unusual magic" I decided to drop it to a 0. For one, I can understand why an "inconvenient" superpower can be very limiting. This and the fact that there has to be a line between just a "power" and a "superpower".

*(-1)Keep growing: *Too similar to a previous theme "Growing".

*(0)Switching perspective: *Interesting idea. There's definitely going to be some interesting games based on this. The only problem is that I feel most games are going to be about: Cameras, View of another character or some weird dimension thing.

*(-1)Signal Lost: *This theme gives me horrible deja vu of LD39 (Running out of Power). Otherwise, the theme, in general, doesn't strike me as very interesting.

*(-1)One weapon, many purposes: *mmmm. My heart says "YES" but my brain says "NO". This is my kind of theme, but I can understand that a lot of people aren't interested in making a game with weapons in it. A better theme would have been a tool with many purposes.

*(+1)Colour changes everything: *Not sure what people's obsession is with colour. Welp here's another colour theme. I would actually like "colour" as a theme, it's very open for interpretations and I can see some interesting ideas come from this. It's my kind of theme.

*(-1)Shrinking world: *Suggests a scenario. Not a fan.

*(-1, maybe 0)You control the scenario, not the character: *This can actually be implemented pretty interestingly, however, I feel like many games are going to be way out of scope also this isn't a theme I'm not a fan of in general.

*(0)Control multiple characters: *Similar to the last one. I can see some interesting ideas from this. I feel like most concepts are going to be easier to implement and also I find it more interesting.

*(-1)You are being watched: *No thanks. Suggests a scenario.

*(+1)Don't stop moving: *Originally gave it a 0. But after some thinking, I realized, "Hey, you can actually do a lot with this." This could be seen as moving physically, moving progressively, moving with time. Lots of ideas spring to mind with this theme!

*(-1)If you can't see it, it doesn't exist: *Doesn't make sense to me. 99% of the time (unless it's invisible) when I can't see something, then yes, you are correct, it doesn't exist.

*(0)You control the environment, not the character: *Prefer the Round 1 version of "The environment changes you" as it still allows me to make a controllable character. This theme just seems to be a more limiting version.

*(+1)You really shouldn't mix those: *This one can actually be kind of fun. I shouldn't mix what? Genres? Drinks? Certain types of creatures? This one is probably my favorite out of all of them.

=======

And that's another round of voting done. Thanks for reading. If you agree, disagree, whatever feel free to comment below. Otherwise have a good Tuesday!

Ok, I must be completely stupid. Didn't realize Rounds started 18 o'clock here. OK, well. Into the final Round we go before the Ultimate Stages of voting.

• *(-1)You're doing that genre wrong: *Simply a more terrible version of "You shouldn't mix those".

• *(0)Fragile: *Don't like one-word themes. This one, in particular, however, can be interpreted in a few different ways. Fragile... objects? world? people? Good Ideas from this theme just not really my thing.

• *(0)You can't save them all: *A slightly limiting theme that can, however, cause for some interesting mechanics to be created. Whether I like the fact that it suggests that you can't 'win' the game, I'm not too sure of, however.

• *(0)Three Rules: *Weird one. I would have preferred two rules as that would've made for some tighter gameplay. 3 rules sounds a bit too much though. In general, it's slightly gimmicky and can be very confusing in execution and implementation I feel.

• *(-1)The world will end in 5 minutes: *Suggests a scenario. No thank you.

• *(-1)One button 2 functions: *Doesn't allow for a whole lot of flexibility. In this case "Two Buttons" is a better theme.

• *(-1)Labyrinth: *How exactly did this theme make it through again? One word. Boring.

• *(0)Unconventional Movement: *Kind of like it. It's a decent theme to base one game around. Only issue is for people who dont want to make a game that has movement in it (card games for example), so quite a limiting theme.

• (-1)Manipulate your enemies: *Similar to "Learn from your enemies" except this is a straight up mechanic (THIS IS NOT A THEME*)

• *(-1)Tiny Machines: *Remember this one last time around too. Still hate it. Too specific. Most concepts will be out of scope. Not made for a 48-hour compo.

• *(-1)A hidden world: *What is it with themes about worlds? We already had "Small World" for LD38 stop suggesting these.

• *(-1)Automation: *Most ideas will be out of scope. Again, not a bad theme but nigh on possible in 48 hours by one person.

• *(-1)60 seconds: *Gimmick theme. "Short Rounds" or "Short Turns" would've been better

• *(-1)Combine 2 incompatible genres: *Worse than "You're doing that genre wrong" which is worse than "You shouldn't mix those", no thanks.

• *(0)You don't play as the main character: *I can see some interesting ideas from this. The only problem is that it's slightly limiting.

• *(-1)At the beginning there is nothing: *How poetic of you Sir. Slightly confusing whether "You start with nothing" still counts. As I can't trust myself or this theme it's getting a down.

Well, thanks again for reading through (if you did). The last set of themes is upon us and oh god I am terrified. Only 2 themes stuck out to me so far: "The environment changes you" and "You shouldn't mix those". If either of these themes win I will be a very, very, very happy little boy. But we'll probably get Labyrinth. Anyway see you at the starting line!

Since I've already done 3 rounds of going through all the themes (find at the bottom) I'm just going to quickly post my final round vote distribution. By far my favorite theme out of the bunch is "You really shouldn't mix those", Not a place, not a scenario, not an object, not a mechanic, just a great theme that almost asks a question in the reader: "Mix what?". When the reader has to ask a question like that THATS when the ideas start flowing in. This theme is just perfect I believe and also an inherintly better version of "Combine 2 incompatible genres".

Themes that I don't want to see? hmmm...

Keep Growing - Garbage, worse version of "Growing" (which was a previous theme)

Combine 2 incompatible genres - You know why

Floating Islands - A theme which is telling me where my game should be set, no. Also Islands was a previous theme

Otherwise, I'm very respectfully hoping we don't get any other themes which I -1'd. Anyway... have a good day!

Voting Round 1: Opinion!.

Voting Round 2: Opinion!.

Voting Round 3: Opinion!.

Ludum Dare 41 is only a few hours away, hope you're all ready for a great weekend, I know I sure.... aam? Well, there's just been a shock heatwave over here in London so now I'm probably going to have to work at 28C chugging down frozen Pepsi. The worst part is that I probably won't be able to have any Pizza now since it's going to get too damn hot!

Ugh, I hate being inside during Summer. Outside is fine but inside its just torture. When it's too warm I open my windows. When I open the windows, bloody mosquitos and moths fly in!! Buggers! Don't even get me started on sticking to your bed like a slime. I hope you beautiful people aren't going to have to spend your weekend frying to a crisp.

Also, to let my frustration flow I decided to muster a quick background that I'll use for the Dare. Hope you enjoy! Have a good Jam lads!

Good morning lads and laddies in England. I just woke up to a bombshell. The theme I constantly laughed up, bullied and kicked in the dust, has just bitten me in the ass.

No fear, I'm currently brainstorming some ideas. I found that expanding your definition of genres into things such as topics allows you to come up with a wider variety of themes.

You can also make one of your genre choices the artstyle and the other the Gameplay theme.

Otherwise I wish you luck!

I don't currently have anything fancy to show (since I'm not going to be working on the art till later today). I'm going to be working on a Card game. More specifically a Sports/ RTS/ Cards/ Sidescroller/ Platformer. Something I've never done before (as expected). Currently working on the card framework. Once I have some progress I guess I'll write some more about my game. Wish you all good luck <3.

I know it doesn't look like much. But behind the scenes over the last 5 1/2 hours I've been able to really get some work done on the framework of the enemies and the cards (which is all I need). Next I'll be working on the Art (finally) and tilling so I can start constructing some proper levels.

But first I'm taking a much needed hour long break. I've been on the site here every now and again and looks like everyone has some pretty damn interesting concepts. Wish you all the best :)

I can barely keep my eyes open. Well, might as well give a quick update before I do some quick additions and finish off for today. I just gave the game a good test run and in my eyes, if I can get some good level designs in later, the game can become very solid. There's still some features, however, that I feel the game is still lacking a decent variety of cards (currently 3 aiming for 5 or 6) and enemies (currently 2 aiming for 4). I also need to start working on some levels and a title screen.

Since I'll have around 12 hours tomorrow to work again I'm pretty damn optimistic. Anyway, good night people. Happy Dev'ing.

I feel like this game is going to be just slightly under what I expected it to be yesterday. This mainly comes down to the fact that I had very little time to add content to the game (mainly puzzle elements and more interesting tiles). My new enemy, the "Jabelin"

Looking at my schedule (which I've followed around 70% correctly) I have 4 - 5 hours now just to polish the hell out of the game. Currently I also only have 2 small-ish levels which I can hopefully bring up to 3. Phew. This is going to be a very rough home stretch, but hopefully I can get a good 8 - 10 minute experience out of this. Wish all of you other guys who are doing the compo too good luck. And the Jammers out there... you can't feel my pain.

I can't anymore. I feel like my arms are going to drop. I've made the same mistake I've made with nearly every other game I've ever made. I overscoped too much and I realized too late. At least Jump and Draw is actually a game unlike Jonny: Life of a Procrastinator which had the incredibly exciting Gameplay mechanic of MASH YOUR KEYS TO GET POINTS. Again, I've learned a lot through this whole experience like last time (for example I've fallen in absolute LOVE with enums).

Next time (There shall be a next time), I'm going to stop making games that require content to be enjoyable and just make a game that has one singular idea/ mechanic and make everything based on that. (For example, Portal, where all the gameplay is based around your portal gun)

Otherwise. I'm going to sit on my Switch for the whole of tomorrow so I can unwind and relax because this was honestly 4x more exhausting and tiring than last time around.

Anyway, can't wait to rate your games and give you guys your much-deserved feedback :)

I'm very surprised to see the response my game got amongst some of you. Much more positive than I first anticipated. I've actually decided that I wish to keep working on the game in the future so the feedback was greatly appreciated.

I also pushed out a new Update (1.1) which fixed some bugs and balanced the game. If you wish to play the game you can find it here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/jump-and-draw

It's a Card/ Sidescroller, all your attacks are dependant on the cards you play. Variety (possibly) ensured!

Good Day! I also made this in my freetime

Hello everyone! I've been kind of silent recently on the site. I've kind of burnt myself out on Game Dev and I've returned to my "I'll do it tomorrow" phase (however long that will last). However I've felt the need to write and share my views on my experience during LD41. It's a long one, so, here it goes!

Prep

While I didn't feel as hyped and crazed about this LD than my last and first one. I still was pretty damn pumped and wanted to make it as smooth of an experience at possible. Just like last time, I drew up a schedule. By the way, I recommend most people to make schedules so you don't get tunnel-visioned on one part of your game. Anyway, I noticed from the last LD that while my Saturdays went smoothly, my Sundays were hectic and I constantly ignored the schedule. So I changed up my plan a bit to give myself a bit more freedom and polish during the final hours.

Theme Voting began, I shared my views, slaughtered some themes, -1'd like 95% of the final themes aaand bedtime. Since in the UK we get the theme at 2am I'd rather wake up to the theme than kill myself in bed over it. So, to bed I went.

Saturday

I awoke and my worst nightmare came into fruition. Two Incompatible Genres. sigh, I went and began brainstorming 6am in the morning. I went through, Spy and Action, Platformer and God, Potion Platformer etc. until it hit me, a card/ sports game!!!! (even though I ended up making more a platformer/ card game :p). Just like last time I went out and bought some "supplies", donuts, toffee, pizza, pepsi... yeah, you get the point. Hey, I might as well add some flavour to the competition (pun intended). Over some epic beats from Super Paper Mario I began working on the base of the game. This is where I could instantly feel progression from my last Ludum Dare. Unlike last time I finally properly figured out the Unity UI systems, using Arrays to store and use objects and enums (I love enums). Just like last time I felt confident. By the end of the day, I felt confident, I had both of the enemies done, Had most of my tiles done and at that point (I thought) I was practically finished with the base of the game.

Sunday, where things started to go wrong

I awoke, happy and ready. I was basically done! All I have to do know is just add a few more levels and... oh, the player is sticking to that wall, well that's fine! I'll just add a physics material on it and then... oh, now he's sliding everywhere. Uhh, I'll just spend half an hour re-learning how to do friction in script (even though it's literally only one line of code).

Yeah, as you may be able to tell, this is where my lack of knowledge of platformer games caught up with me. I've never done a platformer before, let alone had to deal with the the emotional obligation of finishing one! I had little to no knowledge on:

• Tilemaps
• Jumping physics
• Friction
• Prefabs

Ouch. Something hurt me at one point... The realisation that LD40 had just repeated itself... Just like LD40 I came in confident, that I already was at the top of my game. While the theme was unexpected I still came up with a concept I was happy with in a short amount of time. It started of happy and jolly, though with some learning to do. However, as Sunday rolled in and my arch nemesis "polish" and "user friendliness" knocked on the door, I rushed, I hurried and, well, I eventually realised that I would not work on the game after the Jam. History had repeated itself.

Funnily enough, while writing this, I went back to my code and, Oh God, it's not pretty. Very few scripts are commented and many are using redundant code. Here are some examples!

Urch. Needless to say, in the last few hours were sad, depressing and thoughts of what could have been...

Now, Today!

Results came in aaand...

Right, you may be thinking, "Oh Nutty, you don't sound too proud", oh yeah?! Well look at this graph baby!! Now that's what I call progress! If I left out the Humour and Mood category (like I originally intended) the Proper Overall would've been higher but that's fine!

What Now?

Well I've been working on a new game since the LD Jam! Have a look at the current pre-pre-pre alpha! Funilly enough, it IS a platformer. It will probably be done in around 2 months but I've learnt a LOT with this game so far.

• Prefabs (thank God)
• Tilemaps
• Raycasts
• Friction
• Jump Physics

I love LD Jams, I hope Mums doesn't plan our obligatory holiday during the next Jam (I'll try and swerve the date if possible) since I WILL try and compete next time round. I always love seeing what you guys made and are doing now, it's great to see that so many people are willing to put themselves through such a gruelling and challenging task. Anyway, I'll stop writing here. This has been quiet a thing to type (think it's been an hour). Have a good day people, until next time! :)