Hi there!

As this was my first time joining Ludum Dare solo, and this was a weekend where I didn't have much time available as I had to travel to my inlaw's, so I went with the VN route and with a Jam entry because I really can't do art at all. This is not only my first solo game but also my first Ren'Py game, so there's obviously some issues, like lack of diverse SFX, but I did what I could and had fun doing it!

Play It Gazes Back!

In "It Gazes Back" lay as Quinn, a common technician working inside the crew of the Stellaris spaceship. An unknown entity has entered the ship, and Quinn's only hope for survival lies in his willingness to overcome his claustrophobia and make use of the limited space inside ventilation shafts to reach the docks and escape the ship. Be careful of what you see though, some minds are not made for the secrets of space.

*TRIGGER WARNING: Depictions of enclosed spaces, gore. *

Someone asked "What if we made a +30 people team for LDJam?" and well, we did!

We’re aiming to build an awesome Narrative RPG for the Jam, and really trying our bestd to get away from scope creep because it's pretty hard to do when you have a team this size 😂

We'll post updates soon(ish).

Here's More!

What you see over here is the work of our awesome concept artist Sejuti Bala.

And the mystical and soothing tunes are the concept music created by our very own Annette Wong.

We're truly grateful to have them lay the groundwork for our future Narrative RPG created by the Indie Game Academy community.

Can we show these amazing human beings some love for their work?

Keep an eye out for future updates as we transition from concept to fully-fledged art and music.

Check out what our teams from the Indie Game Academy have been up to. 🎵 All while listening to the concept music our very own Jamie Whitmarsh came up with 🎵

Music people be musicking. Engineering people be engineering. Level designer people be level designing.

And marketing people be sneaking around to see what they're up to and providing you with these sneak peeks.

Take a sneak peek below at what our amazing Rodrigo Petunio and Sejuti Bala have been up to.

All while listening to our refined concept music from Annette Wong 😌

If you're watching the video version, stick until the end for an exclusive sneak peek of our cutscene concept from Bruce Dellinger 👀

Click here to see the video

We present to you the premiere boy band that will rock (pun intended) the international scene: The Backstreet Boulders

The enemies in our Narrative RPG got bored of all this development thingy. So they decided to take it upon themselves to entertain y'all. And that's how Backstreet Boulders took shape. That and a bit of help from our Tech Artist, Connie McGinnis 😌

MJ Rock is ready to moonwalk. Johnny Phillips doing magic with his hips. Willem Berk will mesmerize you with his twerk.

Together they'll storm all the billboards and assert dominance over the music industry. Or just crumble (very intended pun) before they reach any success.

More updates on their journey to the big screens coming soon.

I decided to go for a management game where you play the guildmaster of an Adventuring Guild and somehow tie that into the theme (Yeah I know it is kind of a stretch but this is already an idea that I wanted to develop so I just went with it).

For a game that's 90% UI, getting the basic logic and structure of the UI is a nice milestone, still gotta add a ton more of stuff like notification logic, basic AI for adventurers to make the player want to beat the crap out of them or remember them forever, etc.

Main goal is to have a game feel similar to Crusader Kings (one of my favorites ever) if you were just to enjoy the simulation of the background world and some basic resource management. Adventurer AI is using around 20 variables to simulate "realistic"-ish behavior over time.

I'm doing the Jam because I'm absolutely not doing graphics and audio from scratch besides everything else, and I'm positive I'll continue working on this after LD, I'm having a blast coding this thing.

Just uploaded my entry for the Jam:

Guildmaster Simulator game about managing an adventurers' guild in a medieval fantasy world.

After the defeat of the ancient god Xartanogg, it's gargantuan body sank into the earth, birthing the corrupted Sunken Womb, a land where monster-filled dungeons appear. If unchecked, these creatures threaten to overrun the surface. Thus, the god's shadow persists, demanding heroes to explore the Sunken Womb.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/the-guildmaster

The game is super barebones though, but I had a massive amount of fun doing it so it was totally worth it and I'm seriously thinking of continue developing it.

As per tradition, for our "We're in" post: We are back!

For this next LD we are back with the Megajams, where we make a team of dozens of people to simulate what's close to an AA studio, gain a lot of experience and release a game for LD. We missed the last Ludum Dare but here we are again. And we are doing a Last Call (just 24 hours left) looking for a few positions to fill out spots!

Our last MEGAJAM team built: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3348650/StrangeNewTides/

For the first time we are doing 2 teams for the Megajam, with +30 people on each team already, and we are looking to fill out some positions, especifically: Artists, Audio, Coders, QA and Marketing.

Here's the application link: https://forms.gle/MZqXh2kxk9iS6yRi8

A disclaimer though: We are doing everything we can to make sure the teams succeed (Each time has an Executive team that was interviewed, and each department has a Lead with industry experience) but not responsible for the outcome of the teams, we can't possible manage every single one of y'all. We'll be offering support with team building and live-streamed events to guide where your teams should be, but if your team falls apart, that's on you!. So do your best to join for fun and experience, and be kind, patient, and celebratory with each other! ✨

You'll play as ESCAPE_OS, the newest state of the art Panic Protocol Artificial Intelligence for spaceships travelling to the dangerous bits of the galaxy. Your job is to make sure the corporations that made you keep a positive profit when an unfortunate accident happens and aliens attack the ship, so prioritize the company assets by saving the CEO's nephew and the engineers! Saving the occasional janitor is fine, but if you can make the social media manager dissapear then...

Things going great so far, managed to get a solid core loop with a LOT of fixes and balancing for the gameplay.

It is playable!

Which is a massive achievement for me as this is my first Compo and it looks like I'll be able to deliver something decent.

Going to sleep now, tomorrow I'll work on some final touches for additional game feel, implement audio, whatever polish I can fit in before the deadline (ideally some performance improvements) and then I'm done.

See ya tomorrow, take care of yourselves, drink water.

Had some issues with exporting but everything's been sorted now, so ESCAPE_OS is live here and on Itch!

Play ESCAPE_OS

You are a ship's AI and you need to make sure the passengers inside the ship survive the attack of carnivorous aliens by herding them to the escape pods using the ship doors, airlocks, and using the ship's broadcast to signal the dumb humans to move, run, wait, or even lure the aliens to the nearby airlock.

Share your high-scores to see if you are the superior AI (no online highscores though).

Absolutely not balanced but it plays to the chaos of the game. I had a lot of fun building this, hope y'all have fun playing it for a while

After a whole lot of issues with exporting from Godot to web, it's finally available (with working sound!) to play here on the LD site.

Play ESCAPE_OS

Unbalanced, chaotic, and hard AF (If anyone asks, nothing is a bug, everything is a feature)

You are a ship's AI and you need to make sure the passengers inside the ship survive the attack of carnivorous aliens by herding them to the escape pods using the ship doors, airlocks, and using the ship's broadcast to signal the dumb humans to move, run, wait, or even lure the aliens to the nearby airlock.

Share your high-scores to see if you are the superior AI (no online highscores though).