Pretty much all that's left is a help screen, health, score, ammo drops, and a game over screen.

My game is nearly finished, and it unintentionally satisfies all the requirements for the Compo. Should I submit it as a Compo entry, or just submit it for the Jam?

If I want to rate a game that doesn't fit a particular category, for example Mood for a game lacking a mood, do I ignore the category or give it 1 star? I think that giving 1 star is the correct option, since otherwise it counts as a fraction of a rating.

Here's a breakdown of every rating I've applied, and how I apply them!

I'm curious to know if this is how everyone else chooses ratings.

(Obligatory play-my-sliding-block-shooter link)

Really innovative stuff all around here! I might be in the minority, but I love these gimmicky themes. They force you to think in new directions, rather than finding an existing idea to fit an amorphous concept.

My game Line 'em Up still has 6 ratings until 20. Maybe give it a look?

Shooting things and matching colored tiles apparently go well together. Who'dve thunk it?

Here are the ones I've found so far:

• Line 'em Up by @mao (me), push, destroy, swap, and recolor blocks in 2D to create matches
• Shooting Stars by @creepyounguy, shoot or recolor blocks to clear an asteroid, a la Bubble Blast in 3D
• Claustroom by @wendel-scardua, swap cubes with their neighbors to avoid the impending ceiling
• Dyeswap by @morphine, solve puzzles by recoloring blocks in the environment
• Match Strike by @chainedlupine, shoot at a Samegame board in a flight sim
• Match Gunner by @random-thoughts, move blocks to drive back an advancing wall

Hello!

Last time, I made Line 'Em Up with Scratch (yes, Scratch), and it did fairly well! I'm thinking I'll create something in pure Javascript this time. Most of my Scratch games end up with a tick/draw loop, so hopefully it won't be too far outside my comfort zone. I'll have to divide my time between this and preparing for school, but hopefully I should be able to make something small in 48 hours.

In all seriousness though, why is there always so much complaint about the theme? It's almost as traditional as the "I'm in" posts before the competition. Remember that even seemingly restrictive themes can have a lot of leeway in their interpretation.

Take, for example, "Shelter": Is the shelter physical, emotional, or something else entirely? Is the shelter one specific thing, or are there multiple? How effective is the shelter? Does it change over time? Are there multiple things that need sheltering? Are there any drawbacks to utilizing the shelter?

Or, "Floating Islands": All that the theme implies is that there should be "islands" and they should be "floating". What are the islands made of? What is on the islands? Why are they floating? What are they floating on? How difficult is it to get between them? Is the floating a problem, or is it desirable? What separates the islands? Do they interact with each other?

Remember that there are "theme" and "innovation" categories for a reason. If the theme seems to point to one specific kind of game, get a little creative with your interpretation. If it doesn't, then what's the problem? You can make your game as abstract or emotional, as intense or relaxing, and as simple or intricate as you want. The theme is just the flavor of the competition, and how you use it is entirely up to you.

With school coming up, I've had an extremely late start, and I'm still not sure I'll be able to submit anything. I'm also using the most generic interpretation of the theme possible, tiling a grid with polyominoes. Even so, I've created a neat little piece shift animation...

It's been an hour and a half since my last post, and now I've finished the core mechanics. Even by LD standards, this is blazingly fast.

Still need: Title screen, game over screen, instructions. This is shaping up to be my nicest-looking LD game yet.

It's playable right now, although it's not quite finished and I haven't written any instructions.

It's right around finals (like always), so not sure if I'll be able to spare the time.

As a warmup, I made a demake of my previous game, Polypack, on the PICO-8, which I called Picopack. I'll probably use the PICO-8 for this jam, just to try out its capabilities.

"Sacrifices must be made," huh.

Well, I'm gonna be using PICO-8 this time around. It only has six buttons for input, so the controls will have to be fairly simple. If I want to map more than six functions to player input, then some will have to be sacrificed...

...Ooh, I think I might have an idea for what to make!

I've never done pixel art before, but I bet I can make it look decent.

Also, this is like all I have. Haven't really had very much time so far...

While looking through the feed, I'm making bookmarks of games that look interesting to make sure to try them later. I should probably work on my own game, though...

I had a super busy weekend, and I was not able to finish the game I was making. It would've taken a while, requiring specialized UI, pixel art, and level design (none of which are my strong suit), but I was not able to devote very much time to it. It's an interesting idea, and I would like to keep working on it, but I'll take it much slower.

Paging @pov - There's a bug with the game list!

If you try to view the list of unfinished games at https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/games/smart/unfinished , the site will instead serve you a game page titled "unfinished". This means you can't view the unfinished game list.

I opened an issue on Github about this.

Economcs-themed shooter game?

More LD! I wasn't able to participate last time, but my semester is a little lighter now, so we'll see how it goes.

I was thinking it would be cool to make a game designed especially for the Launchpad. It's basically an 8x8 grid of buttons and lights that can be controlled by MIDI. You might have seen song covers and lightshows using it (or its close cousin, the Midi Fighter) on Youtube. I am well aware that very few people have such a device, so if I do use it for Ludum Dare, there will also be either a keyboard/mouse or touchscreen port of my game.