I'm a little late getting started, but on the plus side, I'm well-prepared...

A friend of mine introduced me to the wonder that is the brigadeiro. I put a slight spin on it, replacing the chocolate sprinkles with cocoa powder and putting a malteaser at the core.

Writing those words has probably earned me a lifetime ban from Brazil.

Anyway! My idea is this: you play as an employee of a massive corporation, responsible for delivering packages to customers. You do this by loading the packages into vans... and then throwing the vans to their destination via catapult. If you overshoot, you can eject the package, which will safely float to the ground with the aid of a parachute. The van, of course, meets a fiery end either way.

This is in no way intended to be an analogy for any particular corporation or the way it treats its workers.

I'm usually a little further along than this, but I think I scoped appropriately given the late start, so I'm confident about having something to show at the end. Anyway, here's a little progress picture!

The temptation to add to the scope is real. Buyable upgrades, voice lines, extra abilities... I'm going to have enough of a job just delivering an MVP. Nonetheless, I think the core is solid. It feels like a flash game I'd have played on Miniclip, years and years ago - simple gameplay, visually funny.

We have a grand total of three minutes of gameplay! In complete silence. So, as long as I can muster the will to sort out some sound effects, music, and a tutorial screen, I think we'll be there.

This might be the first time I resort to using BFXR or one of its ilk.

The game now has music and sound effects, and I'm surprised at how much of a second wind it's given me to hear them. It's motivating to have a game that you can hear as well as see - makes it feel more complete!

Flingshot is published! I didn't have as long for this one as I usually did, but I think I scoped appropriately, and came up with something that's short, but funny. You can play it here!

The sensible thing to do now would be to go to bed, rather than trying to tack on some extra features I thought I wouldn't have time for. Hmm...

Instead of using Godot like I normally do, I've opted to make a PICO-8 game this time around. I'm only a few hours in, but here's my progress so far:

My interpretation of the theme is a game where the amount of safe space for the player becomes increasingly limited, because the cave becomes more flooded with every three steps taken.

I assure you, the code behind all this is exactly as janky as you think it is.

I'm just about at a minimum viable product already! I'm up to six levels, and hoping to expand that to at least eight for the final product. After that, it'll just be a case of topping, tailing, and polishing.

I'm calling it a little early this time, as real life demands its due, but I've really enjoyed this one. My entry this time around is a short-and-sweet puzzle game, made in PICO-8. Check it out!

I'm just sitting down at the desk now, with a concept for the game I'd like to make.

It's a fairly standard collect-'em-all game, except that there's a very short time limit, making it impossible to collect everything in one go. And the game only lets you play it once.

How is it even possible, then? By collaborating: you need to enter the password left by the last person who played the game (along with any comments they might have left to help you on your way), and at the end of your game, you can leave your own password in the LD game page comments.

A bit avantguarde? Sure. A bit ambitious? Absolutely! But I think it's something that can only really work for a jam like Ludum Dare, so I'd like to give it a go.

P.S. Any other Dropout fans here? I just heard Sam Reich's voice in my head shouting "YOU ONLY HAVE ONE SHOT!".

As I mentioned, I want my game to have a password system where each player shares the password at the end of their session in the Ludum Dare comment thread. So the password needs to be easy enough to input, while being impenetrable enough that players aren't tempted to just put in the "I win" code.

My intention was to get the core game loop done by the end of day one, so I'd have all of day two to add content. Needless to say, that didn't happen, but at least the game has some nice tilesets.

I'm going for something that's NES-ish with the visuals - three colours plus transparency for the objects, three colours plus black for the tiles. I won't be sticking rigidly to the NES' limit of eight palettes, though.

The past hour or so has gone by in a bit of a blur, to the extent that I half-expect to wake up tomorrow morning and discover that I've submitted the wrong game. (That has happened before...)

But assuming that isn't the case, Xenolith is up! It's a collectathon platformer that only allows you to play it once. Hope you enjoy it!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/58/$418238

Wow: Xenolith took second place in Innovation! Thank you so much to everyone who played, rated and commented on my game - especially those who shared their passwords and contributed to the communal experience! I think there's still plenty of mileage in the concept, so over the past couple of weeks, I've been sketching out ideas for a Steam release. If you'd like to stay in the loop about that, please feel free to follow me on Mastodon or Bluesky.