My previous Ludum Dare entries have mostly felt contained and "safe".

For this jam, I decided to make a roguelike that focuses on being FUN where good decisions reward you and make you feel overpowered by utilizing additive and multiplicative scaling, embracing exponentials. Similar to games like Balatro, Peglin and Nubby's Number Factory. There are definitely some scaling issues, but it allows for some really fun outcomes.

A run in Crabs in a Bucket usually starts off very normal, like this:

A few smart relic & item pickups later:

Then it can start going crazy:

Bonkers, even:

I managed to absolutely break it as well:

If you want to try it out, here is my entry: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/crabs-in-a-bucket

Would also love to hear about your experiences, in dev or otherwise!