Gotta start with baby steps. He doesn't have a name yet, but here he is!

Got needle-nose over here moving around a dungeon. Not much "gameplay" yet but I'm satisfied with how it looks. By the way how do y'all get your gifs under the upload limit?

Didn't get as far as I wanted to day due to a late start. Next two days will be busy, but I'm looking forward to it. Last thing before I call it a night is an attack animation. Isn't this guy cute? He looks like he is trying his best. I'm thinking his name will be "Nocero"

Due to the fast and furious nature of game jamming I just kinda drew whatever came to mind for my enemies. Drew them alongside the main character for reference to get the size/proportions right. Should probably get to making, you know, the actual game part now.

Watching those seconds count down sure is stressful isn't it? Might have bitten off more than I could chew with the scope of my project. We'll see what I can manage in the next 17 and a half hours! I hope I can make something fun.

This has been a fun but stressful experience. Felt good to flex my game dev muscles after not doing it for a bit. If you want to check out my game, Nocero, feel free to do so: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/45/nocero I'd suggest checking out the readme if you do - there's no in-game tutorial.

I think I bit off a bit more than I could chew with the game I wanted to make. Regrettably, it took pretty much all of my time just to get the basic mechanics put together. I didn't have nearly enough time to polish a lot of the graphics/animations, or make a proper tutorial in-game which I had planned. Even more importantly, I didn't have the time to design and balance proper levels. I planned on having several different dungeon floors with puzzles and an end boss - but fate didn't allow for that. If only I had an extra day...

Ultimately, though, despite not being completely satisfied, I'm still proud of what I finished. I might expand upon this and turn it into a full game - we'll see.

This will be my third Ludum Dare. Gonna try to post progress much more often this time. I'll be using Game Maker Studio 2 for just about everything

Let's get this show on the road.

Please help me.

This is the 1,896th time I have participated in Ludum Dare 47.

Every time I complete my game and go to bed on Sunday, I wake up in the morning and it's Friday again and I have to start all over.

What do I have to do to escape? Get first place?

So far I've come up with a concept, designed a main character, programmed some basic platforming, and animated this walk cycle. It's all I really have to show so far. Going to sleep for tonight, hope to make some solid progress tomorrow and fully implement the main mechanic I have in mind.

I'm not making progress as much as I probably should be after over 24 hours, but oh well, that's game jams for ya.

I now have the basic mechanics implemented, including the "LoopBots" that copy your movements to harvest resources (and more, to be implemented later)

A pic isn't enough to do it justice, I'd need a video/gif, but I lack the wizardry needed to make gifs within the size limit for Ludum Dare

LoopBots is a platformer where you race against the clock to collect resources. You should check it out!

There are three levels; here are my best times so far in each:

Stage 1 - 1:10

Stage 2 - 1:50

Stage 3 - 2:37

I challenge all you Game Jammers to beat my best times!

If you're up for the challenge, I've just uploaded a Post-Jam version (1.0.2) which adds some quality of life tweaks, notably the ability to restart a level by pressing R which is convenient for trying to get good times. Keep in mind that this is a Post-Jam build, though. There's a detailed changelog on the main page for the game.

Play the game here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/loopbots

Pretty excited to take another stab at the Jam. I'll be using Game Maker Studio 2 as my engine, Audacity for sound, and I'm not sure what yet for music but I'll find something (or maybe I'll find someone else to do the music?)

I've been repeating a mantra of "I will not overscope, I will not overscope, I will not overscope..." over and over for the last few days. But I will probably overscope anyway, since I never learned my lesson in the 3 LDs before this, lol.

I'm thinking of making a sort of arcade-style action game focused on surviving and getting a high score, but we'll see what I decide on after the theme is revealed. A few of the themes in the voting rounds so far really caught my interest, but the vast majority were a little uninspiring... so here's hoping we get something good.

I've already got an idea in mind, and already have my main character designed. Here's Axel the Axlotl - left is lineart and right is the final design. I think he'll be fun to animate.

Feeling good so far.

One day into the Jam and I haven't made quite as much progress as I'd hoped... But I'm only behind my expectations by a little bit. The basic early game stuff is coming together. Platforming, collectibles, switches to flip, enemies, a simple tutorial... soon I'll be done with the beginning area.

The part where the theme comes into play still isn't implemented at all yet, though in a way, that's too be expected given the nature of my idea. Still stresses me out a little, though.

Biggest challenge so far has been overcoming my own perfectionism - it's hard to say "it's good enough, I need to move on!" but I'm doing better at that than usual during this jam.

Rather than just post a screenshot of my votes or painstakingly commenting on every single one, I thought it would be more interesting to pick out a few themes that stand out to me - both for positive and negative reasons - and give a little commentary on them. These are just my opinions, of course - I'd be curious to know what other people think of these themes too.

DON'T Like: Delivery

This seems a bit too restrictive and specific to me. I imagine that a large number of games would fall into one of two categories:

• Games about delivering mail, packages, etc (only so many different ways to do this)

• Games where the theme is slapped on, i.e. the game is in whatever genre and whatever setting but the story for the game is "you have to deliver X to Y" and when you beat the game it says "congratulations you delivered X to Y"

I think the trouble is, at the end of the day "Delivery" is just going from point A to point B while taking something with you... it's tough to make a game about that without the theme feeling tacked on without outright making a game about a mailman.

DO Like: Everything Changes at Night

In one sense this is somewhat specific, but I think in practical terms there is a ton that could be done with it. Just about ANY genre of game could incorporate the passage of time and a cycle between day and night. Plus, it doesn't necessarily have to be a gameplay mechanic - it could be a story beat, too. And while the theme says everything changes at night, obviously what exactly it is that does change at night is highly variable - the environment? Your character's abilities? Maybe day and night are actually completely different types of gameplay? I think there is a ton of variety with what you could do with this theme. To give a few examples:

• A survival game where the player has to collect resources during the day and fend off monsters at night

• A metroidvania game where the environments change somewhat between day and night which impacts how you explore the game world

• A horror game where the environment seems harmless during the day but turns creepy at night

• A puzzle game where the player can freely switch between day and night which changes the behavior of some of the elements of the game which is needed to solve the puzzles

• A dating sim featuring werewolves

• A strategy RPG where the time of day changes every few turns and your characters have magical abilities that are powered up by sunlight or moonlight, so you must adapt your strategy to the day/night cycle

DON'T Like: The Environment Changes You

I have trouble coming up with a diverse array of concepts for this one. To me, it seems like it lends itself very well to one particular sort of puzzle solving mechanic - a mechanic where stepping on certain types of tiles changes your properties or abilities which you then need to take advantage of to progress. This could be quite interesting, but leading to one good idea does not a good theme make. I have a tough time brainstorming much else...

Sure, I suppose there are some cheeky ways of interpreting the theme. E.g. "the environment" as in "environmentalism" therefore "climate change" and your game could be about, I dunno, a game about a radicalized eco-fascist featuring thinly-veiled commentary on the politics of climate policy?

I feel like there are some scope-related issues here too - some of the ideas I have don't really seem practical. A game where the players abilities dynamically change depending on what sort of environment they're in is interesting, but requires much more work than simply giving the player a fixed set of abilities. A psychological, narrative driven game tackling big issues like how the social environment a person is in can influence the way that they think in all sorts of ways could be a gripping piece of art, but could a story like that be put together in a game jam timeframe?

DO Like: Strength in Numbers

This probably isn't my number one pick, but I think it has a lot of potential. It's general enough that it could be applied in a lot of ways - i.e., WHAT is numerous? - but also specific enough that it wouldn't feel like it was haphazardly slapped-on to games using it.

I think a strength of this theme is that it's open to interpretation in several dimensions. For instance, "strength in numbers" could refer to a massive army winning through sheer size, or could simply refer to a small group of people with complementary abilities. For instance, you could make:

• A puzzle game with multiple playable characters - they each have their own unique abilities, and many puzzles must be solved by cooperation; solving each puzzle requires combining their abilities smartly and sometimes rescuing trapped partners so you can add their strength to your numbers

• An idle game in a high-fantasy setting with a theme of raising bigger and bigger armies in order to conquer villages, cities, empires, continents, and then eventually the whole world as your army becomes unstoppably massive

"Numbers" can also be interpreted in a more literal way - as in, not "large quantities" but rather numbers as in numerals. I think this provides a huge opportunity for creativity - how could you make a game in which numbers are powerful? Maybe some sort of puzzle game where mathematical relationships between numbers are important somehow?

I'm not going to explicitly endorse or decry any particular themes, but I will offer my thoughts on a select few of them which happen to catch my eye:

Out of Bounds - This is an interesting theme to me. Video games often have, like, a "play area" where all of the action takes place. Normally, leaving this area is impossible - you can't go "out of bounds" of the game. But what if a game let you leave the usual play area? This is an interesting concept - however, it also feels conceptually limiting...

Ascend - This theme is interesting to me because it suggests both gameplay-related and story-related ideas. "Ascend" could be well-suited to a simple game where the player tries to jump or climb as high as possible. One could imagine a simple mobile-game platformer where the main character simply tries to jump up to higher areas. But "Ascend" also lends itself to ideas of progress, becoming stronger, etc. Basically any game where a player surpasses their earlier self could fall under this category.

Side Effect - I think this theme is interesting since it immediately invokes trade-offs. Many games feature mechanics where you get some benefit at the cost of some detriment. There are countless games which could be envisioned with some central trade-off at the center: the player gains some notable benefit, but is saddled with its corresponding "side effect" which they must deal with.

Everything has a Price - It's very common in games for actions to have a price in terms of some in-game resource. So one sense in which you could interpret this theme is this: what if in-game actions which normally do NOT have a price, actually did have one? I think this is an intriguing design question, but again a limiting one.

Ecosystem - I think this theme is interesting because "ecosystems" are complex and natural things. For a game to have an "ecosystem", it would need to have some fairly complex set of rules which already existed even before the player became involved. This could lead to all sorts of interesting rulesets... but in some ways, the idea is an antithesis to many sorts of games. In many games, the actions of the player are most important, but "ecosystem" suggests that the functions of the player's environment are perhaps more important than their own decisions...

I'd be curious to see what other people think of the various themes in this round!

"The theme always sucks" is a common thing to hear in LDs, but I'm of the opinion that this theme is uniquely terrible.

I'm thinking more likely than not I'll just completely ignore it. But I'll give it a bit to percolate. Maybe other people will have clever ideas that inspire me.

Finally got off to a proper start. Got an idea in my head and sprited the main player character:

Hopefully gonna get basic movement mechanics nailed down tonight.