Hi jammers!

I’m hanging around, eagerly waiting for my partner in crime to wake up so we can start jamming. Really stoked with the theme and dead keen to make something weird and fun for people to play with!

This will be my second time participating in Ludum Dare. Last time I joined forces with my friends Ryan and Jason to create an interstellar dating sim called Star Crossed Lovers. Had the best time doing it and I was really happy with how the game was received.

This time around, I’m teaming up with a  super friend called Richard Pieterse. We previously worked together on jamming a multiplayer basketbally sort of game involving South African monster and slam-dunking children into pots. It was heaps of fun and I’m stoked to be teaming up with him again.

As for what we’re going to make, that remains to be seen. It may involve hot-tubs attached to hot-air balloons, frantic button mashing, absurd dialogue or rock and roll. Then again, it may not. Only time will tell…

Tags: Cool Your Jets, Free Lives, South Africa

I’ve been doing a totally crap job of posting about the process of our jam, but Richard, Jason and I have been participating in the most excellent jam, here at Free Lives HQ in sunny Cape Town, South Africa. We’re planning to do some after-the-fact posts on the jam itself, but we’ve basically been very hard at work on a cyberpunk customer service game!

We’re tearing through these last moments getting “Bionic Bliss” as excellent as we can before the deadline. So looking forward to sharing this bizarre creation with the rest of the world!

Tags: MGSA, South Africa

It was a great joy catching up on the results today! Here’s how Bionic Bliss did!

Audio(Jam) 4.53 Coolness 73% #6 Humor(Jam) 4.31 #9 Overall(Jam) 4.24 #11 Theme(Jam) 4.47 #14 Mood(Jam) 4.22 #41 Fun(Jam) 3.92 #46 Graphics(Jam) 4.45 #50 Innovation(Jam) 3.99

Right from the start Richard and I said we weren’t particularly fussed about making something that would be highly rated, but rather just wanted to have fun. We did say that that if we had to do well in anything, we would hope it would be humour. And so, we’re understandably very happy that we placed 6th in that category!

Beyond that, I’m blown away that we got a spot in the top 10 overall! And so happy for Jaysong that his sonic wizardry won the silver medal for audio!

Thanks to Dizzy, Anja and Kyle for lending their vocal chords to our cause. Thanks to Ben (of Raptor Polo fame) for proof reading our mountains of dialogue. Thanks Evan and the Free Lives gang for hosting the jam and special thanks to all the MGSA friends who’s high fives and sparkling company made for the most excellent game-making environment!

Thanks so much to everyone in the LD community that played, rated and commented on our game! Your feedback was massively encouraging. Discovering that you threw so many stars our way was as a huge honour. It’s fantastic to be able to participate in a uni

Extra special thanks to the rest of Team Lazerbeam. Richard and Jason, you boys were the greatest jam buddies a dude could ever ask for. Can’t wait to make more magic with you both soon!

Tags: alright!, Bionic Bliss, Make Games South Africa, Team Lazerbeam, uh huh!, woo, yeah!

Hello Ludum Dare community! This is Team Lazerbeam, signing on from Cape Town, South Africa!

The three of us are assembled and super excited about knocking out another weird, playful video game experience. Ludum Dare 34 marks the 1 year anniversary of the three of us creating Bionic Bliss, which was the first game we made as Team Lazerbeam.

We’re really stoked to be back on a project together, and are all really happy with the themes for Ludum Dare 34. Our concept is one that follows the journey of an adventurer, going from humble beginnings through grand quests, into their final retirement. The whole game plays out across a series of contemplative moments, favouring those over the fighting, looting, shopping and talking that typically dominates most RPG experiences. Player interaction comes in the form of guiding the hero by choosing one of two courses of action (visualized by the hero in thought bubbles). Jumping forward in the story, music, audio and visuals will then change to reflect the impact of the player’s decision.

As usual, we’re being ambitious as hell. That said, we trust that even in a very scaled down form, we think this concept will make for a pretty awesome, moving experience. Here’s a wee video of us explaining the concept!

Okay, I better get down to drawing! We’ll check in soon with more news! We hope everyone’s having an awesome jam so far!

Yo!

Please could you spare a few minutes to play and rate Plubertium, our intergalactic exchange student simulator.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/plubertium-glactic-exchange-student-simulator

It's been a frantic time on this side and I've hard been able to play or rate any games. Would still love to see our jam entry get rated, as we're all exceptionally proud of what we made. Fingers crossed that we can make it happen!

Thanks in advance to anyone who saves the day!