Since we both could only take 12 hours for this Ludum Dare, we wanted to stick to a simple and established game principle.

Attention, it's Mr Obvious, as inspiration served us Super Mario Bros 2 digging. To save time and to simplify the game mechanic, we did not implement any jumping or climbing up. Of course this also makes sure that the player always digs "deeper and deeper", which fits the theme.

As an unintended result, the player has to think about where to dig down, and this decision has to be made under time pressure and, oh dear, there are also these aliens that fall down through the shafts to you... wargh!!!

Our 2D Platformer now turned into a "2D Puzzle thriller" (as described by @moski, thanks for your feedback btw!)

Play our game, we appreciate your feedback and we will play your game, too! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/deeper-and-deeper-9

To be honest, we spend a lot of time thinking about a title for our game, and "deep down the asteriod" was the best that we came up with.

When I realized that our toddler was wearing a shirt that said "I DIG U", we came up with the silly idea to add a romantic storyline (the spore/gooey things turn out to be flowers that are handed to your crush at the end of the game).

I doubt that would have made it better :D

Here's our game: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/deeper-and-deeper-9

Thanks for playing and rating https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/deeper-and-deeper-9 !

Unfortunately, we couldn't spend much time on this contest, so we decided from the beginning to do without music and sound effects.

There are only two of us and neither of us has much experience making music and sound effects ourselves. Of course, we could have chosen some free background music, but that wouldn't be included in the rating.

What do you think - better no sound at all, or 3rd party, or homemade (even if it's really bad)?

Here's our game "Deep down the asteroid" - with no sound at all ;) https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/deeper-and-deeper-9

Today we spontaneously decided to join as well. Better late than never? We already had a small idea for a game yesterday and started programming and graphics today. Like last Ludum Dare we won't be able to invest much time this time, I expect about 8 hours. Our main criticism with our last game was the missing musical background and sound effects, let's see if we can bring this in anyway. Here's a teaser: It's going to get wet!

Well, our specialty is not exactly picking a particularly great title for our games. Any suggestions?

Well, our specialty is not exactly picking a particularly great title for our games. Any suggestions?

In our game you have to maintain the biospheric balance of a pond. We have collected the following potential titles: - My little Pond - Balanced Biotope - Pimp my Pond - Carp catastrophe or Carp-Tastrophy - Algae Adventure - That algae-sculated quickly

We settled on the last idea!!

That algae-sculated quickly!

We could only spend a few hours yesterday to implement the game framework (none of the balancing mechanics yet) and create the first graphics. * We realized that we will not be able to finish the game. *

Probably we will just release a nice little pond where you can see fish swimming around - and we will see how far we will get beyond that.

In this jam, we again decided to participate too spontaneously and didn't allow enough time. We hope to publish at least a small video of the current state - until then there is unfortunately only a cover image and the rudimentary description of our game idea for you to see: That algae-sculated quickly

After a long absence, we finally want to participate again in this Ludum Dare 57. Our last contribution to LD 49 was more of a pitch (“That Algae-sculated quickly”, theme: “Unstable”), and our last completed contribution "Deep down the asteroid" (theme: Deeper and deeper) was three years ago, LD 48. A lot has happened since then! The baby in the picture has grown up, and there are now two kids jumping around here, but this time we came up with the brilliant idea of organizing a babysitter. Who knows, maybe we'll have a family game jam soon.

We have decided on a deep-sea setting and are currently in the process of developing gameplay and finding the graphic style. What do you think?

Wanna see some quite nervous fish and a very hungry angler fish?

We're quite happy what we've accomplished today: - we've got an angler fish as main character - two types of prey fish - all of them with (quite basic) animations - we did some sound recording ("snap!" etc.) - some drafty background images and animations - splash screen and main screen - angler fish can intensify the light thingy and fish will swim towards it - angler fish is able to eat the prey fish "snap!"

To do: - add "flight" behavior of the prey fish - add at least one predator that is also attracted by the light - add a score and countdown display - implement the end of game event and a restart button

We are almost finished with our game. Since we can't invest much more time, we had to cross a few things off our wish list and concentrate on the essentials: *no enemies (time is now your only enemy, let's see how that works!) *only two types of prey fish *we will probably leave the sound effects as they are now: nothing lasts longer than the temporary!

Now we still have to write an intro page and make screenshots and gifs, for the voting round later. This is our home page. What do you think?

We are very proud that we have finally completed another game (after two half-baked attempts in the past).

The two of us worked on it for about 2 x 8 hours this weekend - that's really not a lot and certainly not what you might expect from a game jam. I'm thinking of pizza and energy drinks, long discussion rounds, tough programming challenges with demanding gameplay ideas... late into the night.

BUT we are glad that we were able to free up some time and make a little game at all. Now we're back to the daily grind.

You can find it here: angler LD Page We're looking forward to your feedback.

I can't wait for the next weeks of rating all the games!!

Since this time we made a very short game with very simple controls (two interaction options: light up and snap), and for the first time an HTML5 game, it occurred to me, why didn't we make it mobile friendly? To get more people to vote.

On the other hand, we all (I assume) develop our games on a computer (not on a smartphone or tablet) and, while we're here, we also try out other people's games on the computer and don't mind having to install it first.

But - I sometimes write feedback on my smartphone on the go (and I wouldn't mind testing games on the go).

Where do you think the development is going?

When you test, do you have a preference in terms of platform?

The Game Jam is over, and we’re really happy we managed to carve out time to focus on something we truly enjoy. But everyday life caught up with us quickly — even though the biggest task is still ahead: Rating games.

We really want to give thoughtful, quality feedback. The Ludum Dare community stands out for being especially kind and supportive, and we love how everyone lifts each other up. After a kid-free weekend (shout out to Grandma and Grandpa!), it’s been tough to find time to dive into other entries. However we somehow archieved more then the required 20 ratings and we are very curious about how it turned out.

A big thank you to everyone who gave us feedback — and special thanks to @alvaron for even showcasing our game on his Twitch channel

Once again, we underestimated the amount of time the game jam would take - the main work comes after the jam weekend. Not just all the games from the people who rated us - thank you so much! We owe many of you feedback.

We also noticed some interesting games whose feeds we have been watching and which are on our list.

Here's a (very very short) extract of our to-to list:

• Trepth by @quail-weaver
• Deep in the folders by @Playrea
• The Chase Beneath by @Alvaron
• Cubethulu by @@flying-dog-fish
• Deep space photography by @poetphin, @aniseako and @verbante

Here's our game: Angler