This LD I made a tetris-like base builder in space!

Sanctuary Station in action!

I made this as a Jam, because I did not have Saturday off and wanted to spend 2 days on the LD. (basicly a compo entry, with only two sound effects sourced externally.)

The Concept

This game started out slightly differently – I had prepared/pre-thought about games for most themes, but this theme combo stumped me a bit. At Sunday 1200 I finally had a concept, which was more about the guys in the pods than the pods themselves. A few hours laters I realized matching the pods to the central hub is actually the fun part!

The Bad

• Spent too much time on the lil guys in the pods & them walking about
• The pod movement is a tad klunky when you change direction or collide
• Could have added more sound FX, more appropriate music (always the last to go in)
• Only 2 levels, of which one is more a tutorial

The Good

• Pivoting when finding the fun
• The ‘clunk’ of airlocks joining
• The learning curve – the two missions have good ways of ‘starting’ fully when the player gets the mechanics
• The visuals – simple sprites, with moving light from the guys and (easy) star-field background go well together

The Result

I am very pleased with the results, and plan to make this into a proper game – I see lots and lots of ways to add depth and variety.

Please play it & provide feedback!

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope you all get & give plenty of noms, presents and/or love!

Merry Santuarious Christmas!

And when still in the Christmas spirit, why not save some souls seeking sanctuary? I will return the visit if you comment!

I’m been working on a post-compo version of my LD game Sanctuary Station, cleaning up the codebase, and adding some new controls/features.

Some improvements:

• Plan multiple moves ahead
• NPC movement orders (the grey arrows)
• NPC behaviour & hitpoints

But now that that is mostly done, I am making more missions! First one is where there are two alien races that are mortal enemies and you want to save them both.

Of course, I then tried to make them fight to the death instead… (yes all grey ones are dead bodies :D)

A real massacre…

Play my original LD entry to see the pod-puzzling part in action. (not the combat, as of yet ;))

Huzzah Everyone! I am in! :rocket: Relatively happy with the theme too. :D

My tools: - Unity3D - Inkscape / Gimp - Audacity / Beepbox

My ideas: https://i.imgur.com/njlvVo3.jpg

Realllly a pity that we cannot share images/vids on the blog. :/

You play an angel :angel: who selects heroes :bowandarrow: :dagger: :alembic: :crystal_ball: from a world for the Final Fight :imp:. #CivFarming

Progress status: Map displays, you can throw civs into the world and they will fight - I need to focus on the 'hero selection' UI & final fight UI now. :)

It is a miracle what a bit of UI tweaking, a skybox and 3D borders can do :D

This LD I made a type of game I had not done yet for an LD: a text adventure / visual novel! (I seem to make a different genre of game every LD :laughing:)

I had a real blast writing and making it, dipping into the extra day of the Jam to get some extra time.

So, please check out ...

The Dark Castle

94 screens, 18 endings, 225 choices, 4785 words

An example of the types of choices you get to make:

Have fun!

I was browsing recent photos on my mobile phone and stumbled on some of the raw photos I used to create backgrounds for my LD40 game The Dark Castle, and thought it would be a nice to talk about how to do graphics quickly, when you are just a programmer with some rough Photoshop skills and a so-so phone camera.

Example: I wanted to make a background that shows the location of my game, a dark medieval castle! Now my drawing skills are... rusty. Perhaps I could make it happen, but not in any LD timeframe.

So, photo manipulation? I had no castles around... but I did have these KLM booze bottles... and there is a moon outside, right? Time for some creative composition!

In hindsight I probably should have added a splash of color in this one to make it 'pop' more, but it is a good example of 'just combine what you have' arting + composition. :smile:

Other tips:

• Go outside, make photos of brick walls, hedges, gates... anything that would be a pain in the ass to draw
• Everyday items! Knives, belts, glasses with liquids in them (make it red/green/yellow in photoshop!)
• Avoid making pictures of things that are themselves primarily pictures, if you can (that would be more akin to using that image directly)
• Embrace one filter per game, for most images (for consistency in looks)

Hail stranger!

It looks like you are browsing the interblogses for some Ludum Dare games!

Have I got the thing for you: Godgame meets Minigolf! Does that not sound interesting? You shoot islands!

Check it out: Minigolf Gods

I am in again! And this time I am trying to make a Card game... and no card game without some snappy dragging!

Corrupting your way into the world... the core game loop is done.

Good trick to get free textures: photograph interesting textures in your home and then process them. The marbling for example is my windowsil, and the steel is the foot of my TV.

But now I should return to the gameplay again, it looks good enough for now...

But so much content still to write thooooo, grinding on...

(I always end up doing Jam as a solo person just for the extra day :P)

Day 1 was completed successfully - and got a nice concept that touches the theme in an interesting way too!

Also this Ludume Dare, for the first time, I am using Creative Commons art assets a whole lot - if feels less darey, but it allows me to focus on more gameplay. :smiley: (and it looks wayyy better than my programmer art - thanks Kenney!)

Progress