Not doing too badly for a first attempt I think!

Certainly enjoying the process. Didn't really have a clue what to do to begin with, but somehow managed to get to gladiatorial combat for the theme of "Keep It Alive". Hopefully it'll make sense in the end.

The time constraints definitely manifesting itself in the form of a codebase that's becoming untidy much faster than it normally does.

Really jazzed about Sammy's art, definitely couldn't have gotten as far with the code if I was trying to do art as well!

Bare bones are in place, adding some meat to it tomorrow!

I animated the thumbs.

Now I need some sleep...

I animated the thumbs.

Now I need some sleep....

Made some good progress, I think most of what I need to do tomorrow is just adding a bit of juiciness where possible!

Making some good progress, feels a bit more solid than last time.

Fingers crossed I haven't managed to tangle up my code toooooo much.

Discovering I have a very loose understanding of how circuits actually work - Electrical Engineers don't @ me!

Must remember to turn off the collider debugging renderers...

This jam went a lot smoother than in April I think. I'm tempted to do a slightly more detailed retrospective on how the April and October LD Jams went for me at some point but I think the main things I learnt were:

It's really useful to have a lot of time to actually play your game.

April's attempt suffered a lot I think because we spent so long trying to get everything as close to mechanically functional as possible, I didn't actually spend a great deal of time playing the game to get a feel for what a good level would look like.

This time enough of the game was in place to have a play around with level ideas really early on, and having a design that allowed for a bit more modularity really helped. Seeing a lot of early ideas not quite working lead me on to ideas for a few of the components used in Age of Amperes.

Preparation is important

I didn't really use the practice weekend in April - I had a quick look around for some JavaScript libraries I might be able to use but didn't really settle on one enough to focus in on and properly learn. From a code perspective I wasn't really confident enough in the way JavaScript handles things like classes and inheritance to take advantage of some time saving language features I'd have been able to use more naturally in C++ or C#.

This time though I'd started playing around with PixelBox in advance and threw together a few basic prototypes to get my head around how it works (a Frogger clone and a simple collect the coins platformer). I'd also crucially found a physics library that was more geared towards game physics than proper physics simulations - it's not really the "proper" way of doing things but doing a lot of directly setting velocities rather than using forces makes much more sense to me for game coding.

Overall I've found my second LD Jam has gone a lot smoother and I'm far happier with the game we've made this time round!

Plays and ratings much appreciated :smile: - Age of Amperes

Phew! There were a few times I thought we wouldn't quite make it, but here's mine and Sammy's LD48 game, Pearls of Wisdom.

Looking forward to trying out other folks' submissions, but it's 2am here and I really need some sleep!

So a week on from the jam (more or less) I thought it was worth putting together a post on some of the things that might have improved Pearls of Wisdom. All in all, both myself and @twilighttrinity are pretty happy with the game, and most of the feedback has been really positive!

If you haven't given it a go yet, try out Pearls of Wisdom

Starting On The Wrong Foot

One of the things I've noticed from people playing the game is that the instructions seem to be leading people to pick a random spot on the map to dive at the very beginning of the game. I'd assumed while putting things together people might be more inclined to get straight into a dive on the initial A1 tile of the map, so we'd sort of set the levels up around that assumption. To his credit, @twilighttrinity was pretty adamant we should've started people actually in a dive. I'd gotten a bit too in my head about it and decided it'd be a bit too much of a technical nightmare, but in retrospect, it probably would've been worth having a quick bash at it to see if it could be done without making too much of a mess of the code base. Our LD46 game turned into a bit of a mess of spaghetti code because I hadn't quite figured out a good way to keep track of player progress between different parts of the game, and while I think I managed a much cleaner solution this time, I was still wary that changing the way the game started up might be a bit fraught.

Diving Deeper

One thing we found quite tricky towards the end of the jam was configuring things like depths, oxygen levels and how fast your oxygen drops so the game is challenging in the right places. I'm not sure we really got this totally right as the game feels like it starts off quite hard and gradually gets easier. Balancing is definitely an aspect of game design I've not yet fully got a feel for and it's quite a tough thing to get right without a lot of time for play testing. This meant we played it a bit safe by not having any dives that went too deep in case we made those deeper dives too tricky. Another thing I'd liked to have done is add a bit more to do on the way down to the bottom, such as little caves to the sides and things like that. I can sort of see how I could have put this together, but as it wasn't absolutely top priority I didn't end up with quite enough time to add it without having to worry about breaking everything else.

It certainly might be interesting to come back to this game after a little while and add like a second map with some slightly more involved dives.

Parallax Scrolling

Getting the background colours gradually getting darker as the player got deeper and adding the fish going back and forth was something I was really keen to add in. It seemed like a very small thing that would add a lot to the feel of the game, and I do think it adds a nice level of polish that wasn't there for a lot of development against a very plain block colour background. As I was putting it together I did briefly experiment with adding in some parallax scrolling to make it just that little bit nicer. I'd written the code to render each row of tiles in the background to render at a time, so when the background was scrolling at a different speed to the player there sometimes ended up being gaps in the background which wasn't a great look! In retrospect it wouldn't have been too hard to build the whole background as 1 texture in the code and just render it all at once. Much more efficient, and no weird gaps! But sadly this was one of the later things I tried to code and my brain was deeply stricken by Jam Fog, so what seems like an obvious solution to me now just wasn't there at the time.

Spell Checking

I hadn't spotted I'd left a typo in the instructions until I watched @jupiter-hadley 's video - oops! https://youtu.be/bDsxxURqUQM

All in all, I'm pretty proud of this game!

Was a bit of a tough jam having been hit by Covid right before it kicked off, but recovered enough to get something done (with some help of course!)

Have had a bit of a play this morning and some real stand out ones to me are

Death By Balloon itch | LD

This one's got a wall jump mechanic that's really satisfying to get the hang of!

Tax Haven itch | LD

Excellent sense of humour and some great mechanics with some good bits of polish

Floodgrid itch | LD

A solid puzzle game that does a really good job of keeping the creeping inevitability of the flood waters rising at the forefront of your mind.

Lava is Deadly itch | LD

A really clever puzzle game that I'm still too tired to play properly - but it's a really cool interpretation of the theme!

And of course there's my own game -

InevitaBallistics itch | LD

I feel weird about praising my own game too much, but I'm pretty happy with it - run away from some missiles chasing you round a maze like factory as long as you can.

The Arc itch | LD

This game really captures travelling out in the dark expanses of space and does a great job of creating an atmosphere. It manages to reinforce the theme in a few ways that I'll not go into here to avoid spoilers!

Duct Tape In Space HTML5 | LD

Minimalist UI driven game again about travelling through space (I seem to be in the mood for space games this evening!). Nice sort of "keep all the plates spinning" gameplay and written in vanilla javascript! A good bit of humour in the delivery jobs every now and then as well!

Witch's End itch | LD

A cool arcadey game where you've got to keep powering up your Witch to hold back the end of the world. Really compelling gameplay loop and some lovely pixel art!

And again I've got to plug my own game!

InevitaBallistics itch | LD

And arcade game about escaping a missile that won't stop chasing you!

Got through a few more games this weekend! Some of favourites are as follows:

Untitled Arrow Game itch | LD

Really straightforward game but it's got a really nice level of polish and has an excellent ramp up of difficulty where you start getting layers of visual noise on top of a really clean art style to add a good level of complexity to a simple central mechanic.

Enlit itch | LD

Quite a thoughtful a sombre game. It's a very well put together use of a game as a medium for telling a story and conveying a particular feeling.

Sir Blocksalot itch | LD

Not really sure what genre I'd place this in (action / puzzle maybe?), but it's a lot of fun! It's difficult and quite fast paced but the way the dragons attacks are telegraphed means it never feels particularly unfair, just keeps pushing you to try and try again.

Shepherd's Island LD

Definitely a puzzle game, I can place this one! It's a really smart puzzle at that with a central mechanic that fits really nicely with the theme. Plus who doesn't like a good game about saving some cute sheep?

The Pit itch | LD

Nice and simple card battle game. Ties nicely to the theme by having your cards be an expendable resource that you can run out of, so each battle is delaying either you running out of health or cards. Lots of different things to think about strategically in this!

Stuck In Space itch | LD

Super well polished Pico-8 survival game. It is quite simple, but it's put together exceptionally well!

Isn't Land itch | LD

One of my favourite of the "delay the inevitable climate disaster / global warming" games that I've played. The way all the different building types feed resources into each other feels complex, but the game itself is quite approachable without having to fully grasp every detail to have fun.

HutHut itch | LD

HutHut is absolutely brilliant! I've had such a great time playing it. It's an excellent blend of a sort of classic arcadey "shoot down the aliens" game alongside an RTS / city builder style management game. The single colour per object art style works really well.

And of course a bit of self-promotion...

InevitaBallistics itch | LD

An action game where you have to avoid some missiles chasing you through a maze!

Hello again all! This might be my last sum up of my favourites for this jam. I might play a few more games if I can find a bit of time this week. So here's a quick run down of some games I've enjoyed this past week:

Doomed Space Quest LD | itch

This is a really cool space arcade game with a playful central mechanic - your weapon against the aliens chasing after you is clones of your own ship. There's a really cool chaotic feel to it as you have to steer multiple ships at once.

Interstellar Transport Pod LD | WebGL

A space game with a very different vibe. Does a great job of doing some story telling through quite an abstract game mechanic. Definitely worth a go!

Will The Bee Another? LD | itch

Another very tonally different game. This is a nice quick visual novel with some really gorgeous art. It being a bit shorter makes it a bit more doable to play around and have a look at all the different endings.

Don't Wake Azathoth LD | itch

A cool way of tying in a rhythm game with he Delay the Inevitable theme. I really liked the way it sort of communicated how many mistakes you could make before losing. Plus I managed to get a score of exactly 1000 XD

Dino Village LD | itch | itch post-jam

Dino Village is a solid, focused management game about trying to save the dinosaurs from an asteroid. The mechanics are put together tightly enough that you can have a few goes without sinking tons of time into it. The visual style's nice too and there's a great playful vibe to the whole thing.

Track Switching LD | itch

A really good first LD compo entry. Plus I always love a train game! Has a great feel for the increasing difficulty that manages to ramp up the tension nicely without feeling unfair.

And of course, a quick bit of self promotion - my own game:

InevitaBallistics LD | itch

We've had a lot of people praising the multiple levels, it being fun to outsmart and dodge the rockets, and some cool retro style pixel art. (And I'm very grateful to them for it!)

Hope everyone has had a good jam!

Adherence to the theme is a bit tenuous perhaps, but there are definitely things that happen every 10 seconds in the game!

Program robots to fight each other in a crumbling arena 10 seconds at a time is the premise in a nutshell!

The game page is here!

Going to call at a night there for today but will be back around tomorrow trying everyone else's games! Comment them below and I'll check them out!

Might do another one of these if I have time, but thought I'd do a quite post about some of my favourites of the games I've played so far! Check them out and rate them if you haven't already!

Maze 51 | LD Page

Simple, but really well put together. Maze 51 uses the theme extremely well. Every 10 Seconds your progress through the maze is reset - unless you are in one of the safe zones. The mazes are designed really tightly so that you're never just sitting in a safe zone waiting for the clock to run out so you're free to reach the next one - that time spend in the safe zone is valuable strategizing time! As the mazes grow in complexity it's increasingly important to think through each 10 second run to the next safe zone so you don't end up trapping yourself.

Shipanic | LD Page

I'm a sucker for any game about some sort of mode of transport - particularly trains and, crucially for this entry, boats. Shipanic's core mechanic is that you can only give directions to a particular boat once every 10 seconds. In between giving directions, each vessel's path is set - potentially on a collision course! The difficulty ramp is really nicely paced and the low-poly graphics are gorgeous.

Cubical Mayhem | LD Page

Another game that draws on a favourite genre of mine. This time it's resource management (and Rubik's Cubes, to a lesser extent). Cubical Mayhem is all about building supply chains so you can gather enough resources to build a launch pad for a rocket. The twist (haha) is that Every 10 Seconds a row or column of the cube rotates, showing the player a different face - with that face being the one where resources are gathered. Once again, there's some absolutely stellar artwork, the cartoony art style here really is lovely!

Reload | LD Page

Reload has a simple concept, but is incredibly well executed. Run as far as you can, from the left side of the screen to the right - as tradition dictates. Your path is blocked by enemies though, and whilst you can shoot them out of your way your gun will only reload Every 10 Seconds. There's a great nostalgic style to it and there's a great level of polish to it, particularly around gamepad inputs. Great fun!

And also...

I'm also going to plug my own game a bit - Robo-Clash 1999 a game about duelling robots that can only be told what to do in blocks of 10 seconds. Feedback so far is strong on the AI being a bit ropey (it's a fair cop!) so if you've got someone else to play it with, the 2 player mode is recommended!

Enjoy!

At least where I am, perfect time to play and rate some games!

Feel free to drop yours in the comments and I'll try to check it out.

Why not play my game, Rover Herd, while you're at it?

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/rover-herd

Hi folks - it's the end of a 3 day weekend, so I've put together a quick list of some of my favourites so far. In no particular order:

Space Haulers

Some extremely cool designs have gone into this game. I can't pin down exactly what it is about the ship in this game, but I'm all about it.

There's a nice balance of risk / reward with taking cargo and increasing the danger level and a good variety of weapons to try out.

Pro-tip, don't get cocky:

Postal Town

Graph / Network theory are some of my favourite areas of mathematics, and the look of this game reminds me of a lot of the diagrams you tend to get there. I'm sure one could do some clever applications of it to squeeze the most point out of this game - but it's probably more fun to just play it!

Really fun to try and figure out the best routes to send your folks on and the best strategies for getting more houses built.

Postal Hero

The graphics / animation are absolutely gorgeous in this game. There's a nice mix of like, stages of gameplay to this and the mechanics of actually requiring you to properly use a map to plan / remember routes is really good - if a little difficult after having stayed up until 2am to submit a game.

Smuggling Pirates

I got really sucked into this one and ended up playing it for ages. Similar vibes to FTL in my opinion. Great gameplay in juggling all of the tasks your pirates have got to do to keep your ship running.

*Cargo Cove *

Another pirate game! There's a really solid get cargo-trade cargo for upgrades-get more cargo loop. Good fun seeing the two different factions of CPU pirates getting into fights with each other as well. Really like the art style's blend of a sort of a 3D map / islands with paper stand up ships.

There is also my game of course, but I'm maybe a little biased on that front - feel free to check it out & rate Rover Herd

I'm hoping to do another list like this on Sunday / Monday next week if I can fit it in!

Hi folks, I'm stuck on a train for most of the afternoon, so chuck me some games to play when I get home!

Hi all,

I've finally got round to getting an offline build sorted for Rover Herd. Unfortunately it's only Windows for now - I can't quite figure out how to get Electron to build it for an OS I'm not on - if anyone knows any good tutorials then I'll give it a crack.

More plays / ratings / comments are welcome, but probably worth prioritising those in the danger zone!

Managed to get the barest bones of the core mechanics down yesterday, trying to get the graphics and UI to a sort of minimal level today. Leaving tomorrow for sounds / menus / juice where it can be fitted in. Feeling pretty happy with it so far!

My game, Hellevator is now complete! I've had a real tangle with some nasty bugs today, but I've manage to get things to a point where I can run through it without hitting any obvious bugs.

Particularly pleased with how the graphics and sound turned out with this one!

Play it here

I think I might have unintentionally made a comment about the nature of choice in video games with some of my function names...

Good or bad, stuff just gets destroyed in the end :stuckouttongue:

Check out the game here