First time competing in the Ludum Dare and I feel great.

• Awesome topic
• awesome ideas
• awesome experience!

Of course, uploading was a pain on every account (I’m sorry if the links weren’t properly submitted after all that), but at the end of the day I definitely feel accomplished. Only twice have I even attempted to create a game in two days, both were in preparation for this weekend, and both were pretty awful. The first was just a complete failure and the second wasn’t anything worth mentioning either. Looking at the competition I highly doubt this one will even get a mention, but I feel good about it and I’ll probably continue working on the idea regardless.

Here’s the link to my submission: Stan’s Happy Thoughts

Try it at your own risk.

Well, I just royally screwed myself over in Unity 3D (note to self: don’t try to download the newest version of a software during a competition) so now I’m using Scratch. Haven’t used that since freshman year in high school. Not much has changed in 5 years. I can make this work. I’m already back to where I was in the screen recording from last night.

They will have their story.

This ship will be there too.

I can breathe again!

Now, time to relax and play some games.

Got a long plane ride ahead. Lot’s of pictures to take. Lot’s of stories to tell. It’s been too long since I last got to participate in Ludum Dare. Hopefully my skills have improved a little while I’ve been away at college.

It's funny, this jam's theme fit with a side project I had in mind for a mobile game. I've decided this'll be the perfect opportunity to start it. I'm gonna be uploading it to the jam this time rather than the compo. Couldn't upload this last night, but this was about 6-7 hours of work. I'm kinda liking the hyper-casual aesthetic. I may decide to just go with it.

Looking forward to this upcoming Ludum Jam. I've participated in a few other Ludum Dares in the past, roughly 5-7. Out of those I've only finished about 3-4 (we won't talk about the last one I submitted).

Thankfully, after taking a break for a bit to sort out some tech stuff and existential stuff I'm back. This time I'm happy to say, for the first time, I'll be uploading a game made with some friends of mine, and using Game Maker Studio 2 instead of Unity.

Big changes. Big hype. Let's have fun everyone!

After working on :smirkcat: Untitled Cat Game :smirkcat: with my friends @tinybitofheaven, @microfoil, and @eryk last Dare I think the plan this time around is to make games separately this time (and I guess compete against ourselves maybe? idk :shrug: ). We haven't really discussed much since then, but that seemed to be the consensus when we disbanded. I've at least got an idea in mind that I hope I can build on. I've been working on a project in Game Maker that I hope to finish around the summer, and I'd like to hopefully give a taste of that with similar style/mechanics in the compo (theme permitting). I'm mainly looking out for themes that I can really work with. Obviously the characters, audio, etc will get a heavy makeover or be created from scratch. As far as mechanics, I'm thinking either an endless version of one of the levels or a spinoff game of sorts. Here's a teaser:

Let's make this one a good one! :smile:

Everyone else: I hope I can make a fun farming sim.

Me: Time to harvest some organs! :laughing:

Honestly, I was hoping to get way more done in the last half a day, but I'm still proud of what I have accomplished. My editor started giving me problems with simple things that I've done so many times before. I had some trouble setting up, but I've got a core game loop and I'm still able to showcase the mechanics I wanted to. Next is levels, sound effects, music, better art, instructions (probably) :laughing:.

Here's a screenshot. I did a screen recording too but I'm not sure how everyone else is uploading theirs.

I'm back again. Not entirely sure if I'll be submitting a game this time. I have another project fighting for my attention and I have to work Sunday night. I guess I'll tune in for the topic and base my decision from there.

Probably using GameMaker Studio 2 for the engine cause it's fun and easy to use

paint.net for art

FL studio for music

Audacity for sfx

We'll see what happens. Hope everyone has a good time! :heart:

Well, I would've liked to have been further along than this, but here's an update. I have some cards that combine to make chess pieces. After a sleep, I'll work on getting the pieces on the board. Kinda got inspired by the "press your luck" idea, along with the other themes, so I'm combining multiple ideas. It's not Balatro, but it's a start. :sweat_smile:

Even knowing I had to work Sunday evening from the start, I decided to work on a game that is probably going to take me way longer than the jam to just get to a playable state. What was that they did last time where you can post up to two weeks after the start of the jam? If that's still a thing I may see if I can enter that just for feedback.

I learned a lot about my art making abilities. I made most of a deck of cards and an entire set of chess pieces from scratch. I also have some fitting ambient music that took me literally minutes. On the other hand, I can't seem to get my code off the ground, which is a bit off the mark for me. Usually I have the opposite problem where my art looks like garbage and the code is the "easy" part.

Anyway, I may be calling it quits for this jam. Here's my progress pick. Definitely gonna keep working on this since it's actually got me excited, but I've got a busy life as is and I can't really put too much more time into working on it this weekend. Maybe if I have time on Monday morning I'll dump all the art into a fresh project and see if anything changes code wise.

Good luck everyone! Happy Jamming! :heart:

I saw this was happening the other day and got really excited. Then today while at work I realized I already agreed to work a wedding next weekend, and I need to film a reshoot for my other project the following day. 🤧😭 Good luck all you jammers! If the theme is good, I may give my thoughts for someone else to iterate on if they want, lol. Or maybe I'll get inspired to start something new in my free time.