Only just remembered about LD, luckily I got here in time to prepare. I'm still hoping everything will work out time wise, but I'm 99% sure I'm in...

Since the last LD, I've learned at lot more about game design, played many games, and entered two more game jams, the GMTK Game Jam 2020, and Brackeys Jam 2020.2.

The GMTK jam was almost a complete failure, partially due to the idea I chose, but mostly it was because of the lack of time I had resulting in only being able to use about 10 of the 48 hours available. The game can be found here if you're interested at all.

With a week to make a game, and a theme I had a perfect idea for, the Brackeys jam went much better, and resulted in what I would say is my best and most complete game so far, Chronoclone:

You can find and play the game here, or just click the image above :wink:

Another thing I did was I finally got around to compiling Aesprite from the source code, which meant I could finally add it to my toolkit for making games (which I will be sharing in a separate post).

Now I just need to hope ~~for a good theme~~ that I think of a good idea for the theme...

I decided to go into a bit more detail about the software I currently use to make games, not just the main ones used to create them, but also the software I use to put it all together. I've listed everything roughly in order of importance, starting of course with...

Godot - Game engine

I could list many reasons why I use Godot, and why I dropped Unity after using it for so long, but put simply, it's because Godot just makes it so easy to make the games that I want to make, where Unity has too much complexity I'm not going to use.

Aesprite - Pixel art

Don't really have to say much about this, it's just the best free (if you compile it yourself) pixel art software out there, hands down.

Audacity - Audio editing

I've been using Audacity since before I started making games, it's easy to use, while also having tons of functionality, I've never needed anything more, and I doubt I ever will.

GIMP - Image editing

Much like Audacity, GIMP has been my go-to image editor ever since I found out about it, while I know many others exist, I've never needed anything that GIMP couldn't do, so I never needed to try any of them.

ImageMagick - Icon creation

This command line tool serves a very specific purpose for me, and that is the creation of .ico icon files for the Windows builds of my games. While I could easily use GIMP to do this, ImageMagick is far quicker and easier to use for this simple task.

ScreenToGif - GIFs and screenshots

This is an awesome piece of software that I wish I'd found sooner; not only is it the best GIF creation software I've used, but it also has an excellent screen recorder built in, and also doubles as a screenshot tool because it can save individual frames of the recording.

LMMS - Music

While I am yet to actually make my own music for games, I have used it for other purposes, and found it very flexible and easy to use, even more so than Bosca Ceoil, which is another common choice.

OBS - Video recording

Though I don't use it regularly (ScreenToGif covers the majority of my needs), I've tried countless other screen recorders, and OBS was the only one that didn't produce significant FPS drops while recording games, which is why I thought I should include it on this list.

And that's it, while I do use other software occasionally, such as Blender, Inkscape, GreenShot, and Bfxr, I don't use them enough to consider them part of my regular toolkit, so I didn't include them here either.

Time got the better of me, I didn't settle on an idea until just before the end of the first day, and figuring out how to program it used up most of my time on the second day, which left me nowhere near enough time to do everything else...

So I might have failed for now, but I think its probably for the better anyway, now I can finish it without the pressure of a deadline, which I hopefully will be doing sometime this week if everything goes to plan.

If you are at all interested in seeing whatever I end up with, you can follow me on itch, but for now here is a screenshot of what I have so far: (yes it's very minimalist, that's why it needs extra work to make it better)

Congrats to everyone that did make a game, I will still try to play a few of them even though I can't rate them :wink:

This will be my 5th Ludum Dare, and hopefully my 4th Ludum Dare game, after my previous "failure".

Most of the themes seem good, with a few nice ones, I'm just hoping my creative juices will be flowing with the final theme!

Now all I need is motivation to make a game, instead of just playing them... :)

https://xkcd.com/2154/

It seems like there is no wallpaper thread for LD48 yet, but I wanted a wallpaper now, so I made my own!

Little fun fact: I made the background color #484848 :wink:

EDIT: Because I should, I hereby license the above wallpaper under the CC0 License! (free for all to use)

EDIT 2: I hope that license is okay to use when I used the Ludum Dairy font... :thinking:

EDIT 3: See comments for portrait version (also CC0)

Deeper and deeper - Mining game with some unique mechanic.

Leave something behind - Rougelite/Dungeon crawler where you can only hold a small number of items, so must leave some behind to pick others up.

Parasite - You play as a parasite that must latch on to other creatures and mind-control them to progress.

Shelter - You're a vampire that must carry a shelter wherever you go to protect yourself from the sun. - The zombie apocalypse has come, but your home is falling apart, you must keep repairing it to survive.

Expansion - Demolition game where you must make space for an expansion for your house. (ok, I might have got that idea from Teardown...) - Everything you touch starts slowly expanding/growing, and you must escape before you get trapped and squashed.

Hidden world - Platformer where you reveal hidden platforms with your mouse.

Delivery - Get X from A to B using some strange control mechanic.

You are the power source - Puzzle game where you power/activate certain things by standing next to them. - Shooter game with a weapon that draws it's power from the player's health.

Generations - Some evolution game? (really I can't think of anything for this one...)

One tool, many uses - You have some magic goo that can be shaped into anything you can think of, use it to overcome obstacles, as a key to a puzzle, or as a weapon.

Automation - You work in a automated factory, and need to program the robots to complete their tasks.

Lost signal - Your internet stopped working and you must find a way to fix it.

One time use - Shooter where every gun can only be used once before it falls apart.

Containment - Game where you herd animals/creatures into some particular area. - You must contain a corrosive liquid in a container by patching um the holes it creates.

Split in two - Puzzle game where you duplicate things by clicking them. - You control two identical characters at the same time, but in different places, you need to make sure both can get to the end without getting hurt.

Summoning - You play as a wizard and can summon monsters to fight for you. (yeah, not much creativity here...)

I literally only wrote 12 lines of code for this:

And yeah, I'm just making a digging/mining game, but it's better than being stuck at the drawing board...

What I got done: - The idea (the most important part) - Destructible terrain - Procedural generation of that terrain (with ores) - Basic player controller (just copied from my game Chronoclone)

What I still need to do: - Lighting effects (to limit what can be seen) - All the rest of the game mechanics - Better player controller and player texture (not a cube, probably...) - Sound effects and probably music - Digging animations/effects (I'm thinking something like Astroneer's digging tool) - Menu/UI stuff, game loop stuff, etc...

It took a little longer than I would have liked, but I think it was worth it...

Not as much progress as I would have liked, but still good :)

What I got done: - Lighting (this helped the look of the game a lot) - Digging/building effects - Player texture and improved controller - Started on sound effects

What I still need to do: - Ore pickup system and inventory (yep...) - Ore selling and upgrades menu (might not do the upgrades) - Textures and UI for those ^ - Basic start and replay screens - Add more sound effects - Decide if I'm going to add some ambient music - Online scoreboard using dreamlo (hopefully, if I have time)

I think I've decided on a name too: Diggillion

Anyone had this problem with Godot, or might know why it's happening? I've spent over half an hour trying to sort this out... :/

BTW, it's only this project, making a new project with a TileMap works fine when exported.

Play it here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/diggillion

Then you might like my game, Diggillion: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/diggillion

Also, I just released a minor update to fix a performance bug, so it should be even better now :smile:

Disclaimer: I'm not in need of ratings, just feedback, so feel free to skip my game and give some ratings to those who need them :)

Going for a sokoban game, with an unstable floor. Nothing functional yet, but it's always nice to have something to look at while working on the gameplay :wink:

I think this is the first time I've got all the key mechanics working on the first day...

More like a title screen than a menu... but also the first level... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This is probably the most complete game I've ever made for Ludum Dare, so I'm excited for your ratings and feedback :smiley:

Play Breakoban

Because who wants to find a new wallpaper every jam :D

The inspiration for using elements came from @niterich's wallpaper, which seemed to be going for a similar style.

This little earth will soon meet a terrible fate...