The first step is done and the game looks AWESOME I really need to sleep
It’s coming along, time to think about actual gameplay.
What might the players objectives be?
I will write a making of entry later on, but for now I want to recapitulate how this Ludum Dare went for me.
Overall I’m content with the process and result, but there’s still room for improvement.
I believe that my initial idea and the base mechanic of Litterlings (creating and destroying terrain in a point gravity setup, with creatures living on that terrain) has great potential for interesting games. And even though I like the way the game turned out, I don’t feel that it really exploits the possibilities I created with this basic setup.
What went well:
+ I didn’t take on too much with my goals, therefore I got to do sound, particle effects and polishing, which adds a lot to the experience.
+ Probably my best entry so far regarding fun and completeness.
+ A lot of fun in the development process and also a great learning experience (especially the pixel based terrain and collision).
+ I created a nice base system to further experiment on in the future.
Where I see room for improvement:
– I don’t feel like Litterlings makes the most out of the promising start concept.
– I got too little sleep (~6 hours) and completely wrecked my sleep schedule. Also I ate as unhealthy as possible. Felt kind of sick afterwards.
– I didn’t flesh out my concept, resulting in a second brainstorming and ideation phase halfway through the development.
What I plan for the future of Litterlings:
– add a lose condition (dropping your Litterling count to < 20% of the highest score)
– create an android version with start menu, highscore table and optimized layout
– add the possibility to zoom in to and follow your spaceship with the camera, important especially in the later stages of the game
– more polishing, balancing and tweaking
– experiment with the base setups and different objectives, like an approach of combat and destruction or a strategy game
You can now lose at Litterlings – yay!
I also added some stats to the Game Over Screen.
Play it here!
Check out these wonderful creatures that were created by players of The Creatures of Pflaumotopia! 
Hey people, The Creatures of Pflaumotopia got a Post Compo version!
Since my original submission felt like only half a game to me, but had lots of potential, I worked a lot on it since LD35.
The biggest new features are a) a DNA & Mutation system, where you need to mate with other creatures to get new bodyparts and b) the possibility to collect other creatures and view them in a gallery. The best thing about this is that you can collect any creature anybody created, and they may encounter yours as well.
This, as well as many other improvements gives a lot more long-term motivation to play.
I’m looking forward to your creations and feedback on the new features
After more of you played TCoP, as well as many friends of mine, I have new favorite creatures
It’s the best thing for me to see how creative people are with the game I made ^_^
Add your creatures to the game and find out what others created!
Hi everybody! Thanks a lot for all the great feedback for our submission Dorfromantik.
The main issue most people had was the difficulty being too easy, especially in the late game. So we made a post jam version with increased difficulty. Also we added UI displaying the progress of your quest completion.
Please give it a try if you like this kind of game or maybe give it another try if you played already and found it too easy :)
Hello everybody, thanks a lot for all the ratings and feedback for our game Dorfromantik!
(Play Dorfromantik here if you haven't already!)
We're happy with our results, especially the Overall and Graphics score :)
We're currently collecting feedback to decide in which direction we want to head :) For anyone who played the game already or is interested in this type of game - we would be glad to receive your feedback! We prepared a Google Form to collect specific feedback on the game!
Thank you to everyone who helps us with their contribution! You will definetely hear from us ;)
Last year in April I participated at Ludum Dare #46, together with my friends Luca, Sandro and Zwi. It was my personal 10th time joining Ludum Dare and we created the first prototype for our relaxing village building game Dorfromantik.
The theme was "keep it alive" - after our ideation phase we decided on the idea of keeping an ecosystem alive by balancing nature and civilisation. We wanted the game to be really simple at its core while still being easily scalable in the future and came up with the tile laying mechanic to build landscapes, as well as quests rewarding certain landscape formations.
And this is what our entry looked like in the end:
https://youtu.be/yGqdeMoUPFs
All four of us are currently studying for our Game Design Master at HTW Berlin and were planning to found an indie studio and document the development cycle of our first game as our Master thesis, so Dorfromantik was one potential prototype to pursue as our first commercial project. Your initial reception was super positive and supportive which encouraged us a lot to develop Dorfromantik into a full game! So after evaluating all our prototypes and the feedback we received, we settled on it. We would commit on working on Dorfromantik for 12 months to release it as our first commercial title!
After some more planning (as well as applying for funding and founding our company Toukana Interactive) we began redesigning and reworking our core system and ended up with our minimum viable product in June 2020.
Originally we had the plan to work together at an office space provided by the DE:HIVE institute, but the Covid pandemic forced us to work remote for almost the whole development period. However, we found a good way to make remote collaboration work for us and embraced occupying our minds with developing this peaceful game while staying home during the extensive lockdowns.
So with several months of high productivity, we improved all aspects of the game and managed to build up a community in the process. Since we felt confident about our progress, we also decided to release Dorfromantik earlier than originally planned as an Early Access title.
And so, on March 25th we released Dorfromantik on Steam and GOG! 🎉🎉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nrfmZ5CpI4
We're super proud of how it turned out, but also absolutely overwhelmed by the amazing reception Dorfromantik received from the players! Now we're looking forward to continue working on it, improving and extending it and maybe bringing it to other platforms as well!
Thank you so much everyone for being an amazing creative community! Dorfromantik wouldn't be here without Ludum Dare and I'm so glad that my first successful title has its origins in my favorite game jam!
Also we have to give a huge thanks to our professors at DE:HIVE for supporting us along the whole development and the Medienboard for granting us funding, enabling us to work on Dorfromantik full time!
If you're interested, you can check out Dorfromantik on Steam or GOG and help us out by leaving a positive review!
