Hey all, this is my first Ludum Dare (or game jam for that matter). :) Decided to go with something along the lines of "the more dimensions you have, the worse (harder) it is".

http://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/one-matter/

Hi all! With half of the play+rate period over, I thought i'd share the games I've enjoyed most here (in no order). I plan to play many more, so please send recommendations!

Permanence http://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/permanence

Bits http://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/bits

Hungry Kraken http://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/hungry-kraken

Foundation http://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/foundation

Ominos http://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/ominos

Money is Everything http://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/money-is-everything

BLOK'D http://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/blokd

Coins http://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/coins

Escape Key http://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/escape-key

Cardhoard http://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/cardhoard

The More You Make http://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/the-more-you-make

This was my first game jam and I feel like I almost died but I guess that's part of the fun. Definitely won't be my last. :)

Thanks to everyone who played!

Very pleased that Permanence got 1st overall, that would've been my pick. <3

Follow me on https://twitter.com/mytoboggan if you like, my first commercial release is coming out January 19th (a much warmer puzzle game than this one) and you can get updates about it there.

Lastly, I'll push an update for One Matter sometime in the new year with more polish and improved controls, so keep an eye out for that too! xo C

Hi all! I did some more work on my LD40 submission (One Matter):

v1.1 https://toboggan.itch.io/one-matter

• Progress is now saved
• Added very basic controller support
• Minor level adjustments
• UI changes (added a toggle for sound, added a controls display screen, other minor edits)
• Endgame now shows your current time along with your best time

Movement control remains awkward. I might work on it more eventually but for now I'd rather move on to a new project.

In other shameless self-promo news, my first commercial game, Pipe Push Paradise, is now available on my itch page as well as Steam. It's a cute and relaxing but also hard and serious puzzle game. :)

I'm not nailing the theme or making an especially good game, but i'm having fun.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/midinight-run/

Done! I got pretty stumped by the theme and decided I’d try to make an unconventional rhythm game and see where it goes. What I ended up with is a game where you have to avoid obstacles that are generated by the note/instrument sequence of any given MIDI file (I’ve included some samples).

Most layouts aren’t terribly exciting or interesting, but it works and I had a lot of fun making it. :)

Or maybe its about couch forts, i'm not sure yet :)

I made it! Feel like i just scratched the surface of this game, but i'll probably add more chapters to it in a post-jam update. Hope you like it. :)

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/hiding-spot

Hi! I'm Corey and this is a post-mortem for "Hiding Spot", which you can find it here:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/hiding-spot

...

I decided to make a puzzle game where the objective is to run out of space, to view the theme as the goal rather than a threat. That led to the idea of making it about actually isolating yourself, something I have a problem with (and that I imagine is relatable in this community in general). I thought it would be more interesting if you had to somehow close yourself off from above as well, to box yourself in from all 6 sides.

For the sake of working quickly and for lack of modelling skills, I decided to model the player using MagicaVoxel. Again to save time, I decided there would only be 4 states (standing, standing while pulling, crouching, crouching while pulling) and no real animation. I would just randomly tweak the rotation values while the character was moving to give it some personality.

Initially, I wanted to represent the levels as bedrooms, where you're pulling common large bedroom items (beds, dressers, chairs) towards yourself. This presented two problems. One - time spent modelling was time not spent programming or thinking about puzzles. Two - this was a game where the player would often be behind or under objects, so maybe making them opaque was impractical. I could show the player's silhouette when they were obscured, but it would be much simpler to just represent the objects as glass boxes. It was quick, practical and acceptable. At the same time, I decided an orthographic angled/not quite isometric perspective would be helpful for reading the level, while still being clear as to which directions were up/down/left/right.

...

...

I made an ambitious 3D tile-based puzzle game last year, so programming this would be straightforward and familiar. At first, pulling a box meant any boxes stacked on it would move also. I decided that since this was a game about pulling more than pushing, maybe jenga-like behaviour would be more interesting. I think it was the right decision.

I made a simple text-based editor for making the puzzles. It's very crude and limited, but it works.

In my limited jam experience, Saturday night is when I feel the most burned out and creatively brain-dead, so this is a good time to deal with menus/UI/etc, so I did that. I also used this time to record some ambient synth music along with a few simple sounds.

I spent most of the second day making puzzles. The more puzzles I made, the more I realized that there was no way I could come close to exploring the possibility space in this time frame. I made as many as I could and, unfortunately, some trivial solutions squeezed through. I intended to try many object shapes and sizes and perhaps other mechanics, but ended up feeling like I just scratched the surface limiting it to just two shapes (1x1x1 and 1x2x1).

Phew. Anyway, that's about it. Thanks for reading! There will be more of this game, this is just the start. :)

Hi all :) Just wanted to let folks know that I ended up expanding my Ludum Dare 42 submission, Hiding Spot, into a full game and it's available now for PC & Mac!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8Lmmdye-AY

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/950140/Hiding_Spot/

Itch: https://toboggan.itch.io/hiding-spot

If you enjoyed the jam version, I think you'll have a nice time with it. It's a pretty small game but dirt cheap and even cheaper if you own Pipe Push Paradise.

Ok that's all, hope you like it!

Finished in time! Oof. This is kind of a spiritual successor to my last LD game, Hiding Spot. I'm content with it, but like last time, i feel like I still have a long way to go to wrap my head around what else can be done with this game's system. Anyway, hope you enjoy it!

Gonna play some games tonight and am looking for recs - what's the best game(s) you've played so far this LD?

You can suggest your own game, but it would be cooler of you to recommend someone else's :)