I present my personal Top 5 games of LD 29 in no particular order, their titles redesigned in the style of my entry: DIVE

I have rated 116 games now, liked a lot of them, but these are 5 that really stood out to me.

UPSTREAM by Viza

This one is probably the one that impressed me the most from a gameplay perspective. You rarely see a puzzler this well put together in a LD-competition. The mechanics work flawlessly and, as an outstanding feature, it has an undo-mechanic, which completely eliminates the frustration of restarting a level when you made a mistake. You just rewind a bit, correct your actions, and move on. Viza also hit the difficulty of the levels just right: Hard enough to feel like a proper puzzle, but never frustrating or ridiculous. Really loved this one. Check it out.

OUR GOD LIVES UNDERGROUND by Andrew Shouldice

While this certainly is lacking in gameplay, it has absolutely stunning graphical design. The downscaled, pixely top-down 3D graphics make it one of the moodiest games of the competition. When walking through the underground tunnels, the shadows and cleverly put assets near the camera give it  a really cool feel. Some added gameplay, a top-down shooter seems pretty obvious, would make this a really promising game. You gotta check it out just for the mood it sets, though.

FRIEND OF THE FISHERMAN by rubna

The best pixel-art in the competition. Period.

This game has its beauty in the movement. Everything moves, everything moves somewhat physically correct, while perfectly blending into the highly pixelized look of it. Very carefully and well put together entry, this really deserves praise for its visuals while also having quite fun gameplay.

KALAHARI BABYSITTER by TijmenTio

Juicy as hell. When talking about the “feel” of the gameplay, this one takes the cake. It feels fast, it feels responsive, it has wonderful arcade gameplay. Part of that are the amazingly animated graphics. This guy knows exactly what he’s doing. Definitely give this a shot, it is really fun.

THE GATHERING by oatsbarley

A city-builder. As a LD-entry. Haven’t seen that before.

I had some troubles with this one at first, as i did not quite understand the Hunger-mechanic, but once you figure it out, this works really well.  With a cool day-night cicle dominating the gameplay-mechanics, your village grows bigger every day, smaller every night, and finally strong enough to defend against the monsters coming out of the forest.  This combined with the really beautiful low-poly graphics (that day-night cycle looks amazing) makes this one of the entries i have spent the most time on.

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Looking forward to the results, now that there are only hours, not days, left on the clock. Found a lot of enjoyable games this LD, and my scepticism towards the theme seems unreasonable now, as i really liked some games it inspired. Good job everyone.