https://kaliuresis.itch.io/space-stitcher

I have released a post-jam update of my LD54 entry, Space Stitcher! It is a puzzle platformed about reconnecting and reorienting space.

I felt like the concept had a lot of potential that the jam version did not live up to. This update adds several new and redesigned levels, and is overall more polished.

original jam version: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/space-stitcher

Pretty satisfied with how well I did this time in the compo. I first joined in LD52 where I got 66th overall and 15th in innovation, and my scores have never been that good since. I was hoping to beat my previous innovation score but I'm happy I at least tied it and got a pretty good score for theme as well. Getting a better overall score will by my goal for future LD's.

I think I'll probably stick with 2d for future jams, unless I have a really good idea that needs to be 3d. I had just learned vulkan a couples weeks before the jam and set up a 3d framework using it, so I wanted to try it out. I don't think I lost too much time to doing things in 3d or with vulkan, but it could have looked a lot nicer in 2d for the same effort.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/55/name-is-the-game

But it fits the theme so I'm sharing it anyway. This is my first steam game that I coincidentally happened to release the demo for a few hours before the jam started. It's a game about building and fighting creatures made of cells. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3011360/Primordialis/ I was thinking about making a spinoff game using the same engine and similar mechanics for the jam, but it felt like it was reusing too much work to be in the spirit of ludum dare. I don't have the energy to make something completely new when I was already in crunch mode for a few days, so I sadly won't be submitting anything this time.

Good luck to everyone participating!

This will be my 5th ludum dare and I have quite an unusual setup this time.

I'm hand writing Web Assembly (in the text format), with a small javascript layer for the interface. Graphics are software rendered in wasm then drawn directly from memory to a canvas. Similarly for audio I have a ring buffer that I write to in the wasm side. I also constantly check the wasm file for changes and automatically reload it without needing to refresh the page. I made separate modules for the game data and simulation, so I can reload the simulation while the game is running without losing state. I was originally planning to make a small pre-processor to let me do things like embed binary files and use macros, but I ran out of time to do that. I'm want try doing fully programmatic graphics and audio anyway, so hopefully it's not too big of a issue to not have these things.

I decided to try this since I was getting tired of 30s long C++ compile times for my main game Primordialis. I'm definitely significantly slower writing wasm than C/C++, but it's very fun having nearly instantaneous updates after saving. It almost feels like I'm programming an old console. This LD will likely be more of a learning jam for me, but I'm still hoping I can make a good game.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/neuronic-netronics

Thank you to everyone who played my game Neuronic Netronics! I know the play experience is a bit rough to get into but despite that I ended up with my first top 10 for innovation! I think this score is mostly from the gimmick I had this LD of hand-writing everything in web assembly, although maybe the few people that got far enough also appreciated the mechanics. Next time I'll switch back to a more "normal" setup and focus more on making a game that's actually fun.