Okay so I’m a first timer looking to enter the Jam with my two brothers in LD34– I see that you’re allowed to use pre-made assets that belong to you, and we’re also allowed to use any “base code” we’ve come up with beforehand. I was just wondering what this means? I mean obviously you cant come in with a game you’ve been working on for 4 years prior and just polish it up and submit it, but where do we draw the line as to what counts as base code?

Greetings from Heart Lamp– This was our very first LD entry and we’re … mildly proud of it.

The Idea: Create a metroidvania-style platforming game where manipulating your size determines which of many branching paths will be open to you– A mindblowing journey into your circuit board.

The Process:

-Friday Night-

1 member of our development team recovers from a hang over while re-watching Venture Brothers, 1 member prepares to hog tie professional Santa Clauses (or whatever the hell they do at ‘Running of the Santas’), and 1 team member bowls a 156 (a personal best). However, texts about the theme are shared. We go with “Grow”.

-Saturday-

 Main Character Design and base code for a platformer are completed. Sprites for blocks and trees completed.

-Sunday-

Pools and pipes are tested and implemented. Some old music we did for other projects is shoved in there too.

-Monday-

Furious level building (because we have basically nothing playable) along with enemies, bullets, keys, obstacles, and doors.

The “Final Product”: A level. Like, one very difficult level… that we think is a lot of fun.

Here’s everything we mostly succeeded to cram in…

Purple goo makes you big, yellow goo shrinks you. The pipes were supposed to refill the pools but now they’re just decoration.

One falls, one breaks.

Get ’em.

They all do the same thing: make you big when they hit you. The difference is: one crawls, one flies, and one gives your the business with bullets. Or just freaks out. One or the other.

.

While we may not have accomplished all we set out to do, we had alot of fun. In it’s current form NanoBit is a game about staying small. Originally we wanted there to be some advantage to being big (stepping on enemes, breaking blocks when hitting them from below) but these were lofty aspirations. If you give it a play please stick with it. If you don’t want to stick with it (because the verdict so far has been that it is VERY hard) then check out our Post-Ludum Update for a version with checkpoints; It will be much more fun for cowards like you.

Thanks for all the feedback and constructive criticism and we hope to have you playing with us again in the future. If you are at all interested in seeing a bug-free full version of NanoBit released, let us know! We would love to develop something closer to the original idea and even add a two-player mode if enough people are interested.

Our submission is a side scrolling puzzle platformers meets old school point and click adventure game. Plus, it’s got a talking demon head!

There was alot more environmental story telling stuff in here but due to some trouble merging versions it’s pretty much just the puzzles themselves. We believe they are tough but fair. If you think you’re clever enough to embark on this adventure CLICK HERE! If your eye and mind are sharp enough you can finish this thing in under 10 minutes easy.

Also, I wish we had metrics on how many people are beating our little prototype here, so if you manage beat it please brag about it in a comment!

-Team Heartlamp-

Tags: adventure, dungeon, fantasy, puzzle

HeartLamp’s Top Lists.

Cool Concept (not in order)

Paperchase:   For best excuse for main character to shapeshift/character design.

Rain contact:   OH FUCK this idea is awesome, just… this is awesome– what the fuck is happening? … awesome.

Agent Shift:  Because complicated mechanics and a high concept are awesome sometimes.

Duality: When I first realized what was going on I was like OH SHIT! That’s pretty cool. A more viable Fez-ish mechanic for side-scrollers and platformers.

Friendshift Madness: I think this game might be art.

Shāp SHift: Coming in 2016 to treat people with OCD.

Best Execution/Our Top 5 (in order.)

5. Sub-Dragon     Great.

Sub Dragon.

4. Theseus            Most fun puzzles.

3. Subject 26         Best atmosphere to mechanics relationship.

1/2. Biological Warfare   Best iteration of a concept of ppl were trying this LD. Just nailed it in the ‘theme’ category.

1/2. WindowFrame.     Just awesome.

(Granted we only got to play like around 4% of total entries… but of the ones we played these were awesome. Thanks for playing and making!)

Honorable Mention:
Our game (cuz we made it)

Come play as an intrepid space survivor trying to grow a tiny seed from his home planet. Experience a relationship between man, plant, and machine.

This game does something we’ve been meaning to do for a while: it incorporates procedurally generated content into the puzzles.

It was originally meant to have an FTL-like meta layer on top of it but we only had half our team to do this one (one of our coders came in after the fact for bug fixes and optimization but over the weekend it was just one programmer and one artist)

It’s a bit challenging but if you are clever and quick witted enough you should have no problem beating it.

If you like

-Narrative

-Puzzles

-Procedural Generation

-Sentient AI

…Square Roots might be up your alley.

So unfortunately for all this time our Itch.io version of the game has not been running correctly. The issue should be fixed now if you’d like to play our game.

P.S. Unfortunately I won’t be able to rate as many games as usual this Ludum because of life getting in the way. I like to really give games a fair shake and try to leave thoughtful comments… so as busy as I am right now its just a bit too difficult. However– I promise you this: if you leave a thoughtful comment / constructive criticism of our game I will do my very very best rate yours and leave a constructive comment by the end of this two weeks.

That being said: if you haven’t done it yet check this thing out. Damn. Also this one is pretty dang satisfying.

This was our alternate idea for the last Ludum Dare. I kinda wish we’d gone with this one, but without the rest of my team I didn’t think I could do it in time.

THEN one of our programmers pitched an idea that started with the name of the game and it all kind of flowed from there… we came up with this prototype. If you feel like trying a 5 minute puzzle give it a whirl and let us know what you think on our twitter (@HeartLampGames)

Who says there are no Punch-Out-meets-Octo-Dad-likes?

Come Play: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/radioactive-rumble

We really want to get someone Let's Play or streaming Radioactive Rumble if possible-- it's hard to learn about how people play your game when the only person you've actually seen play it is you and your girlfriend (and her opinions are biased).

Anyone know how to make that happen? I feel like there used to be a section on the old site where you could submit your game for consideration to Youtubers and Let's Players.

If anyone is interested, reach out... or just come play and reach out after.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/radioactive-rumble

If you've ever thought "why don't they make any Punch-Out!-likes?" and also "What if punch out got married to Octodad?" well... you my friend have incredibly specific tastes, and your day has come. There are 19 hours left to play and rate Radioactive Rumble.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/radioactive-rumble

Seriously, thank you to everyone who played and rated for all the feedback-- I feel like we get a little faster at this each time we do it. Thanks to the LD folks for the new layout (adding the ability to upload pics and videos in the comments was an AWESOME addition). A very very special thanks to people who posted videos or played on Twitch; that kind of stuff is invaluable in seeing exactly how people approach playing our games.

Anyway, I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday and as always we are very happy to be a part of this awesome community of artists. To one more year of making games!

So we got to play a total of 27 or so games this LD and we wanted to just give a quick run down of our favorite games and concepts.

3. Close Friends

(https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/close-friends)

This game is bizarre in so many ways and yet I've never played a LD game that had me more interested in reading nonsensical dialogue.

2. CalligraTree

(https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/calligratree)

This concept could be used in so many interesting ways. Win all the zen!

1. Famous Knight

(https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/famous-knight)

AND

1. Super Cop Hero

(https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/super-cop-hero)

These games went for kinda the same thing and have alot in common-- one would probably be my clear favorite if it was a little less punishing, but ultimately I could not decide which to leave off this list because they are both top notch. Great pixel art, funny, very fitting for the theme. Seriously, the compliments I would could give each game are eerily similar but it was great to see two different takes on the same satirical notion.

Hi friends, I'm going to be playing some Ludum Dare 45 games over on twitch and streaming it starting around 9:30 EST. If you are interested or you want me to play your game just leave the link in the chat.

mixer.com/HeartLamp

twitch.tv/heartlamp

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/45/i-wait-for-your-word

Take pity on me: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/45/i-wait-for-your-word

Hi all, I haven't rated any games yet unfortunately (due to being an 'essential worker') but I'll be looking at some on my channel here: www.twitch.tv/heartlamp

Leave your links in the chat if you want me to take a look at yours. Thanks!

Hi all, Our LD46 game needs 7 more ratings to be scored at the end. Any takers?

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/inanny

If so, just leave a comment on our page and I'll try my very best to play/rate your game as well. Thanks!

If anyone is interested, I recorded the entire discussion me and my team had while brainstorming ideas for "Keep it Alive"

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/604840277

So... if you're interested in hearing a bunch of bad ideas maybe check it out?

Most Ambitious:

Time Agent: Protect the VIP

Most Innovative Mechanic:

Waver

Most Interesting:

Lamps

Our Favorite Use of Theme:

Rude Bear Gotchi

Our Personal Favorite:

Life

Also, if you don't have time to play any of these excellent games, here you can find a playlist of our first play through for each of these game on our twitch channel:

https://www.twitch.tv/collections/EXzF8fVhDhZB_A

If anyone is interested I'll be streaming LD games on twitch for about an hour:

https://www.twitch.tv/heartlamp

https://www.twitch.tv/heartlamp