Yikes

So here's the initial progress I've made on my game. (This is a GIF, it just starts off slow).

It's a Zachtronics-inspired puzzle game where you control a series of robots that can only execute a limited, looping set of instructions. Right now the plan is that each puzzle is, in particular, figuring out how to make a limited loop work; so, it's not exactly like the free-form Zachtronics games, it just has some similar ideas.

Your robot has two functions: Motion, which lets it push stuff, and creating foam, which lets it block itself off, et cetera.

My main concern is that it might not actually be possible to create interesting levels for this game. As it is this level is kind of a weird one.

What is particularly unique about it, for me, is that I'm using vector graphics, which is a first. I simply wasn't happy with any of the pixel art I was making so I pivoted. :smile:

Anyways, I hope everybody is doing well and has a good night.

An hour into the second day, and I already have four levels that I'm happy with, while before I thought I might not be able to make interesting levels at all. Very fun.

I still will probably have to come up with a few new concepts to implement to have a full complement of levels, but wow... this game is coming along quickly.

I should probably work on making the main menu and level select UI now. :smile:

I decided it would be fun to share another GIF of my game. Here's one of the newer levels: So far my level design has followed two general patterns: one is levels, like this one, that aren't too hard once you understand the mechanics, but give you a satisfying result. The other category of levels do require a little bit of thinking, and I think most of them are pretty good too.

The geometry is a bit wonky but it's all I have time to do. Music is done, SFX are probably done, I have 15 levels, but I need to do some polish tomorrow. I would really like to make ~5 more levels but that would be tricky... I was generally trying to stick to the "content done by Saturday evening" rule.

Good night! Good luck with your games! :smile:

My Ludum Dare 47 game is finished! I think it's quite solid.

If you want to play it, you can find it here!

I just got a rating without actually getting a download on my itch.io page.

Hmmmmm......

Edit: Later the itch page updated! Hooray

So I've seen several folks posting about games that haven't quite got enough ratings yet, and generally, their authors have actually rated quite a few games! (I've seen multiple who've rated around 30!) So what gives?

Well, if you didn't know, the algorithm was changed last Ludum Dare so that giving ratings is not enough. In particular, you get no credit for any ratings you give after you've given 5 ratings. The only way to get additional publicity at that point is to get karma for feedback--which is of course only possible if you actually leave feedback.

So if you want ratings, leave feedback! If you want more ratings, leave good feedback! I got 20 ratings after only rating 10 games and I was just idly playing through games by the people that commented on my game! You can easily rack up lots of karma just by leaving good feedback.

So hopefully that helps! :smile:

So here are my scores. Shockingly similar to the scores on my last game, although I really feel like this game is by far my best ever Ludum Dare entry...

I am interested in what people consider to be a "3.5" game versus a "4" game. I personally think 3.5 is "approaching good", while 4 is "this is a good game in its current state."

So at this point I'm not really sure what I could meaningfully do to improve. :sweat_smile:

That said, 3.6 in fun is pretty good. And many of my scores are at least a little better than my last game. So I'm not toooo sad but I was hoping to get a 4. :smile: Although, I guess a 4 is really a very high score? So maybe I should be pretty happy with what I got.

I haven't really done much in terms of game dev since February, when I participated in the Godot Wild Jam... college and other things are just consuming so much time.

However, I really don't want to miss the 48th Ludum Dare, and it would be nice to do some game dev again. I'm looking forward to the compo, and making sure to plan this whole week to make sure I'll have time to participate...

Hope to see everyone there!

Finally got around to theme voting. I found that I liked a good number of the themes this round. Admittedly, I have a tentative agenda underlying most of my votes this time... ;)

🤔

I haven't had a single problem with Godot for months, and then the day of Ludum Dare...

At the very least, I think I have finished coming up with an idea. I am very excited about it, I think...

This doesn't communicate particularly much about my game so far, but it is some basic mechanics implemented. I am trying to implement a sort of kaizo Mario platforming, as you may be able to tell if you've played it before -- my goal is to implement this sort of platforming without making it too hard, as I think it's quite fun.

I've done a tiny bit of work on player animations and tile graphics. Player animations need a bit more work--I'm not going to try too hard as I'm not great at animating humans 😅

It's definitely time to go to bed, however.

Here is a final GIF for the day, showcasing a somewhat tricky technique that is possible in my game.

I've accomplished a good amount so far today. It should be possible to load multiple levels with screen transitions, and the camera is a bit better. I have also implemented some nice new mechanics for making some levels.

I'm not able to get a particularly good GIF of what I want to show, as it's just too long, but here is what I got:

The concept here is a sort of intertwined narrative with the same place being explored at two separate times. I have essentially an entire set of levels done, although they are almost certainly not all going to be beaten by anybody -- I might try to make a couple more easier ones.

Now what is left is sound, polish, title screens... most importantly, I have a concept for the end of the game that I'm hoping I can implement.

So for a long time now I've been keeping my Humor category unlocked but telling people to avoid rating it if they like. I have a silly reason for this, but it's not super important.

My question is, however, do I need 20 ratings in Humor for my game to be ranked, if I have 20 ratings in Overall? After looking at the rating section of the page I'm not sure. I am suddenly worried that I'm not going to be able to get a ranking due to my silly request.

I do not actually care about getting a ranking in the Humor category itself--but if it prevents me from getting a ranking in the other categories that is a real problem.

As usual I'm attempting to clear out most of my weekend schedule to make sure I have plenty of time for Ludum Dare. As always, I'll be participating in the Compo. I'm glad to see it wasn't removed after LD48.

The classic tool list: - Godot. I still haven't built any C base code to use, so I'm sticking with Godot. - Aseprite if I do pixel art. - Inkscape for vectors. - GIMP for misc image editing. - Blender, maybe. I've been using it for pixel art recently, it is a very interesting workflow. - Audacity for recording and sound editing. - LMMS for music. I may get Ableton one of these days, but not yet. - Git, I guess - itch.io for hosting. For a while I never bothered using it. If you don't use itch.io I recommend it for the sole reason of seeing your download number go up :smile:

Unfortunately I did not really bother to vote in the first three rounds. Maybe I'll manage to do the final round at some point.

Good luck to everybody!

It seems I like a good number of these themes. To be honest I did not really have a rational process for voting here, it's all just pure vibe.

That said, I think that "One tool, many uses," "On / Off," and "3 rules" could be very good themes. So I guess I'm hoping for one of those to win.