Just woke up to find that the theme selected was not the one I really wanted to pick.

Was about to complain about it but then I noticed other people saying it was a terrible theme, which makes me wonder why so many voted for it if it was so bad.

Now I had an idea in mind, but I'm gonna change it slightly to fit with the theme.

Best of luck everyone!

I only had 11 hours because I spent the last 37 hours party-I MEAN PLANNING! Yes, loads of planning was totally done for this.

Enjoy: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/lifes-a-glitch

Just want to make it clear that I've made some minor fixes to the game:

• Timer should now display properly when going into minutes.
• Holding jump should now consistently let you jump much higher than tapping.
• Jumping down certain platforms should be a lot smoother, although you can still tap to aim downwards.

I have not changed any aspects that would affect gameplay or graphics as that would deviate the game too far from the original compo entry uploaded on Monday morning. The Windows build will not change for comparison sake.

Play Life's a Glitch here: https://gamepopper.itch.io/lifes-a-glitch

Some players noticed that the game would occasionally crash, and were not shy in pointing out the irony of this in a game about glitches and data corruption.

Good news is that this crash has been located and fixed! Some also found a collision bug which has now also been fixed.

Thank you to those who have played and rated Life's a Glitch so far.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/lifes-a-glitch

Life's a Glitch is two votes away from having 50+ in all categories!

Who will help me reach that milestone?

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/lifes-a-glitch

Thanks for playing Life's a Glitch if you already have.

Fairly good scores I think. It'll be interesting to see how many games got rankings for each category, I think this jam broke the record for the number of games entered.

I'm definitely surprised to get in the Top 100 for Audio this year, it's generally my worse ranking category from all my past submissions.

Either way, thanks to everyone who played and rated Life's a Glitch! Have a happy new year!

Just thought I'd list some favourites of mine from this Ludum Dare:

• Tumbleweed - This game is too high quality to be a jam entry.
• READ THE LABEL - Pretty fast and text heavy.
• Battery Panic - For me, this was the "God dammit why didn't I think of this" game concept.
• Keep It Alive - I love the style, story and atmosphere of this one.
• Efi - I really like how clean this one feels.

Feel free to vote on my game too if you have the chance.

Ludum Dare 41 starts tomorrow past midnight for me, but I'll be there. This will be my 12th jam. I'll most likely be using the same toolset that I've been using for the last three:

HaxeFlixel Photoshop LMMS (with cgMusic)

Best of luck to all the newcomers, just keep calm and develop.

I don't understand people who vote on themes, myself included.

Good thing I like about HaxeFlixel is that when combined with how high level the Haxe lang is, super easy to prototype a game. The gameplay is nearly done, so I can get onto polishing it up and assets in a few hours.

Getting it done by the end of tonight is very unlikely to happen with this kind of game. So it'll be my first Jam entry in a while.

It's really late over here and I'm too tired to carry on. There's no way I can get this game done in an hour in time for the compo. Let's see how far I can go for the Jam instead.

Sadly no audio and it's a Flash build due to technical issues, but I hope you like the concept. I'm glad I still managed to submit something at such a late hour.

https://gamepopper.itch.io/strategysphere

For the last number of Ludum Dares, I've always had something going on, making me have one less day to do stuff for the compo or jam. But not this weekend!

Now traditionally I've gone with using HaxeFlixel to make a game, but I think this time I'm going to go with my own C++ game engine. The main reason is that last time I had really inconsistent and unstable output to web builds, and outputting to Windows didn't work for some inane reason.

At least with my C++ game engine, audio will definitely work, shaders will work and I can output to Windows and Linux without any issues.

The obvious alternative is to use Unity, as it's the major supported game engine that I've had the next most experience with and another would be UE4, however, my issues with those are that I would be working around a GUI and a specific API instead of working on the game itself. MonoGame/FNA would be nice but it's been too long since I last worked on an XNA-like project, so that's likely to be a pass.

As for a theme, I've chosen to be rather specific with what I want, downvoting most themes. So far the only ones I've voted up are: Control two things at once, Safe in the dark and I have been here before. That being said regardless of what gets picked, I'm sure the majority of participants will immediately hate the results.

So the final themes are public for voting. Not too keen on most of them, I noticed a couple repeated themes like 3 rules, fragile and death is useful.

I've been brainstorming a few, and have gotten enough ideas and mechanics that I have one for each theme. That being said, I'm sure the theme that will be chosen will be the one seemingly everyone hates, so I'm sure the theme I don't want will be picked.

With around 10 minutes to spare, my arcade platformer featuring a racoon has been submitted! You can check it out here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/closing-in-on-pascal

Apologies for the rushed description, cover image and lack of screenshots. I'll see if I can get it updated tomorrow or Tuesday.

Closing in on Pascal now has a Linux build! Meaning that you can play the original jam version and enjoy the same experience as Windows users. (If you use Mac, I'm sorry but I cannot pay for a Macbook at this time).

I have also done a post-jam build! In this one, I've added some cosmetic additions like particle effects, as well as some gameplay tweaks based on the current feedback and two new levels. Thank you so much to those who have played the game at the moment, including ElysiaGriffin on Twitch for playing loads of other Ludum Dare entries as we speak!

Be sure to check out Closing in on Pascal, and let's get as many games as we can to 20 ratings!

Thank you to all those who have rated Closing in on Pascal so far! The game now has 20 votes on all categories so I'll be getting a rank. Feedback is still welcomed!

You can try Closing in on Pascal here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/closing-in-on-pascal

With LDJAM coming to a close, I thought it'd be good to talk about how the submission Closing in on Pascal came about and what I learned from it.

Plan

Ludum Dare 42 was particularly exciting for me, as it was the first LD in a long time that I had a completely free weekend. As such, I decided to plan the first day entirely for gameplay, with graphics and audio on the second day. That way I get a solid game and then plenty of time to work on making it look and sound nice, you'll find out why that plan isn't flawless as it sounds.

Theme

When it came to the theme, I was already very pessimistic that it would be a theme I'd be happy with, it's been a common trend for people to vote on the theme that no one wants. I even voted against the theme "Running Out of Space" but when it turns out to be the chosen one, I thought it was pretty good.

Idea

The concept of running out of space I had was inspired by the cartoon trap of the walls closing in on someone in a temple. I figured a game where the player has to reach an exit before the room crushes them to death.

Gameplay

Fortunately, I have a bit of experience with platformers in my game engine from a previous jam, so the tilemap, jump physics and mechanics such as wall jumping I have previously implemented.

The jump animations itself was done because I remembered the indie platformer INK having good squash & stretch. To achieve it I modify the scale so that it squashes inwards when going up and stretches outward. If I had more abilities to adjust the individual vertices I could do more fun aspects of moving like skewing.

Art

Since my idea was inspired by a temple film/TV trope, I already had the visual theme in my mind. I also thought it would be good if I had a little cartoon character who'd look like Indiana Jones. It was fun working with pixel art and animation once again, but if I was to do this again I would have done a much simpler approach. The player character is way too small for the game screen, meaning that its animations are pretty much useless. I also had a bit of issue with making the colours stand out so it doesn't feel all yellow and brown.

In the end, it took around 3 - 4 hours to work on the background environments and 5 hours to work on the player sprite and all the obstacles. If I went with a much simpler design or scrapped the temple theming and used the simple colours and shapes it would have been much clearer and easier to look at.

Sound

This was achieved with LMMS and BFXR. I like making NES-like chiptune in there but I do notice it's restrictive in areas like tones and tempo, so I couldn't get the sounds I want. It also didn't help that thanks to the graphics, I had much less time to work on sound and music so it ended up rushed.

What could have been done better.

The post-jam has most of what I would have added or done better if I had time. Particle effects, using directional keys as well as the WASD buttons, and a better title logo. I would have also worked on more levels but seeing how many levels players are willing to go through, then maybe the existing levels should have been improved slightly.

Conclusion

I'm a little worried about what the rankings will be for this one, I'm definitely glad I could take part but I feel as though I wasted too much time on the graphics when a simpler approach would have been effective. You can go check out Closing in on Pascal.

I'll be joining this Ludum Dare, it'll be the last games jam I'll do this year after doing one every month (thanks to a New Years Resolution). My aim will be the compo since I cannot do any game development on Monday.

Here are the rules I go by for these events:

1. Gameplay First - Your game might look/sound great and have a really nice menu but it won't be a well-built game if not a finished game if you leave it at the last minute. Have your game prototype ready by the end of the first day.
2. Small Scope - My general amount of scope for a games jam is one main/unique game mechanic and two optional ones. It's not worth putting so many mechanics and features in your game if you don't have the time for it.
3. Know your Tools - I plan to use my own C++ engine, as well as Photoshop and Piskell for visuals and BFXR/LMMS for audio. All of which I've used previously and know very well. While supporting many platforms including web will help, it's not worth using an engine or software because everyone else uses it and makes great stuff with it.
4. Stick Mostly with What You Know - Trying to learn at least one new thing in a project is fun, but don't try to make a game in a genre you've never tried before, or make a 3D game when you usually do 2D, when you only have 48 hours.
5. Make Your Content Easy and Noticeable - Don't feel you have to put the extra effort in how your game looks and sounds when you're at that stage, but if you do don't focus it on something the players aren't gonna notice. Sometimes big simple designs work better.
6. 621 - Six hours of sleep, Two meals and One shower per day. Don't pull all-nighters, don't skip or replace meals with energy drinks and savoury stuff and calm yourself down for a bit while being hygienic.
7. Take a Walk - A breath of fresh air will help you think of solutions to that one bug that you cannot figure out how to fix or that mechanic that doesn't feel right.
8. Find a Friend - If you're gonna go the jam route, see if you can get friends on board. If you work together it'll be more collaborative and less pressure on you. Be sure to find a decent way to thank them after it's all over.

Have fun everyone! Feel free to add on or critique my rules.