First time doing Ludum Dare. Been a lurker since LD 26 but finally competent enough at programming to give this a go.

Me and @Pegasys are working together on our second joint Ludum Dare game. Have some good ideas for several themes (please don't let it be shelter).

Engine: Unity

IDE: Visual Studio

2D Assets: Photoshop

Audio: Audacity and Sfxr

Doors. Doors. Doors! Doors? Do-ors. Doors. Smoores. Doors. More doors. Four doors. The door to my soul. The door for my mole. Doors are cool. Doors are small. I like doors. Cats have four paws. Always check your indemnity clause.

In all seriousness though Doors #1 theme, only beaten by harvest. God I loved that theme. Any of you window lovers please go away and think about your life choices.

!> If you're confused check todays date

We're in. This will be Ruslana and I's 10th Game Jam. The team has expanded since last time. We have a new artist, @ruslana, she's very talented and already come up with some great ideas for the final themes. Returning from last time is @theoconfidor, our composer. His music in Checkmite was great and I'm very much looking forward to what he can create this time. @Pegasys and I will be doing the programming again but he now has a released game under his belt. All these achievements are giving me a bit of imposter syndrome.

The final themes look interesting and this might be the first time in a long time we don't have one of Folklore, floating islands, Strange Machines or the like.

Our tools are as follows

Game Engine: Unity 6

Art and Textures: Photoshop

Modelling: Maya

Audio Editing: FL Studio, Audacity

Audio Instruments and Tools: Focusrite Scarlett, East-West Sounds Composer Cloud, Toontrack Drums

Hey, hope everyone has had fun rating eachothers games and has 20 ratings by now. I had a question on the results. Last time I remember someone sharing a website that used the API to show the results and also graphs of your ratings and results over time and for different categories. It was a really useful tool for comparing all the dares we’ve done. Does anyone know if that website still exists and if so have the link to it?

I just want to preface this by saying I don't hate this theme. But I wanted to give my views on why I think it is a weak theme and also to hear from some Folklore fans to understand why you think it is a strong theme.

So firstly the reason why I don't hate it, it's not too limiting. The absolute worst themes are the ones that limit everyone to very similar games, either genre or gameplay-wise. Something like Harvest is a perfect example of this. 90% of the games were farming related and the other 9% were organ harvesting. Only very few games here were truly unique. This mostly comes down to that theme being far too limiting.

Folklore by contrast is not limiting. You can interpret it as ancient folklore like myths and legends, medieval folklore like fairy tales or modern folklore like urban legends.

But here is where the problem arises. It's almost too open ended. It gives basically no direction for what sort of game to make. And so people may just force fit their favourite idea into it with a splash of folklore paint. That isn't the most inspiring or imaginative take. In my opinion the best themes are ones where they guide you to certain types of gameplay or elements but without being so limiting that everyone does the exact same type.

The next point is it being too story heavy rather than gameplay. Folklore is as it says folk lore. By it's very nature it is story focused. This may force more narrative heavy games at the consequence of mechanics. I prefer themes that can limit both to some degree. I do like story driven games but I don't believe they are ideal fits for game jams. Where time is limited in order to make a compelling story you have to sacrifice gameplay. I feel like fundamentally gameplay is the most important part of a game.

The last critique I have is the lack of originality. This one I could be proven wrong on but I would expect a lot of people to stick to more traditional folklore such as fairy tales or Greek myths. It's harder to take risks when you are limited in setting and narrative.

I'll get off my soap box now. But I would love to hear from others what they think.

We decided on a stock market crash card game for Delay the inevitable. Me and @Pegasys have the basic functionality of the card game implemented, tomorrow we plan to flesh out the card mechanics and start adding visual polish.

All of the card mechanics are now in and working, until part of the code decided to just disappear. Assuming we can fix that we will be doing mostly visual polish and creating the final cards tomorrow.

Hey everyone. Hope you've had a fun time rating and we wish everyone good luck with the results. We've really enjoyed making Checkmite and are really happy with what we managed to achieve. So we wanted to keep working on it. The post dare version is currently in the early stages.

I've added an inventory system and we're fleshing out a new unit type - The fire ant. This one burns enemies which leaves them defenceless. All attacks do extra damage while a unit is burned.

We'd love to hear any suggestions you have for what to work on next. New units, special attacks or features.

We will be releasing a post dare version soon. In the meantime you can try the original version in the browser here: Checkmite

Thank you everyone for rating and the kind comments. We're really happy with our results this time. PBs in 5 categories (Overall, Fun, Graphics, Audio and Mood). @stolvann and @TheoConfidor did an amazing job and really helped raise the bar and improve the consistency of our game. We're still working on the post dare version and will post an update soon.

See you all in April!

Some interesting themes. I'm relieved not to see Strange Machines and folklore here although I love that someone further down really wants it. The duality of man I suppose.

Few themes I really like. Anchor, beyond the obvious nautical theme there are several other interesting interpretations. Emotional Anchor, a TV anchor and so on.

Fragile has me wanting to remake or make a sequel of our top entry Packing Heat.

Side effects has appeared several times now and never one and we have some great ideas for it and finally overflow tickles the programmer in me hence its +1.

Looking forward to seeing what comes tomorrow and in the final round.

I knew it was too good to be true. Finally folklore appears. But honestly some quite good themes this round. Even the ones I put in red I don't hate. There isn't a single theme here that is on the level of say Harvest. So regardless I'm looking forward to the winning theme and hopefully making something awesome.

Four years after my first dare, me and @Pegasys are working together on our third joint Ludum Dare game. Once again I am asking you to not let shelter win.

We have a little extra help this time. With my girlfriend providing music and artwork and my housemate helping us with code.

Hopefully we can all make some great games and have fun!

Engine: Unity

IDE: Visual Studio

2D Assets: Photoshop and Aesprite

Audio: Audacity and Sfxr

Me and @Pegasys decided on an arcade filled with various minigames selected at random every 10 seconds. We have 3 games implemented and the basic functionality done.

We added several more minigames and started working on some of the final art. It's finally coming together. Day 3 will be a lot of art, music and polish.

Me and @Pegasys are in for our fourth joint Ludum Dare (my sixth ludum dare). Would love to make another card game but I don't think the themes will allow it. Still, glad to see some really great themes this time.

We'll be using mostly the same tools as last time with a few new additions.

Engine: Unity

Art: Aseprite and Photoshop

Audio: Audacity and FL Studio

Me and @Pegasys spent today implementing most of the gameplay mechanics. We plan on adding farming related bosses tomorrow and a farmers shop. Hopefully replacing some of these placeholder assets with final art aswell.

Me and @Pegasys spent today implementing more weapons, a farm shop as well as our first boss.

Everyone meet Evil Carrot (with gun) and our as yet unnamed farm girl.

Me and @Pegasys are in for our fifth joint Ludum Dare. I feel like we need to make something big to celebrate 🎉. Would love to make another card game or maybe something in 3D this time. Some really great themes this time but please for the love of God don't let shelter win. Every dare it appears.

We’ll be using mostly the same tools as last time unless we decide to make a game in 3D

Engine: Unity

Art: Aseprite and Photoshop

Audio: Audacity and FL Studio

We've made solid progress today on our Lorry Delivery Game. It consists of two screens. The top is a top-down view of the road where you have to avoid obstacles. The bottom is the back of your lorry where you have to place the packages, and use items to prevent them moving. Hitting obstacles on the top causes the packages to go flying and damages them.

Tomorrow we plan to implement the items to secure the packages in place, different package types and also link the two sections of the game together.