First things first, please, no “Mac vs PC” debates. Ludum Dare might be the only gaming community where I haven’t endured a “PC Master Race” flame war, it’d be nice if we could keep it that way.

Now that that is out of the way, I wanted to bring up a reoccurring issue that Mac-using participants have had to deal with in the past few Ludum Dares, the dreaded and cryptic "The Application can't be opened" error.

This was an issue with macOS Catalina that I believe is still present in macOS Big Sur. The actual cause is the app become corrupt when it's uploaded/downloaded in a .zip file, particularly from itch.io

I know the cause, a fix for players that download apps with this error, and preventative measures uploads can take before distributing.

If you're a developer sharing your game, be sure to place your .app file inside a .dmg file before uploading. Even if the .dmg is inside a .zip file, the .app file will still be protected. Your players should not have any issues.

For Mac users who’ve downloaded an already-corrupted .app, you’ll need to do a bit of Terminal maintenance. Right-click the .app, navigate to /Contents/MacOS, and find the single Unix executable file. Open a terminal window and type in “chmod +x “, then drag in the Unix executable. You should wind up something that looks like this: chmod +x /Users/UserName/Downloads/GameName.app/Contents/MacOS/GameName Hit enter, you should see the icon change, and your .app should be good to go!

I can't even remember how many times I've participated in LD. Anyways, I'm in. Not sure yet about the tech I'll use.

Oh, btw, I suggested the theme "Guardian" which was Ludum Dare no. 1 (not no. 0, which was a thing too). I think it would be kinda sick if it won.

Hi, I don´t know what, when and where I need to do something to choose the compo or the jam.

I kind of want to make a strategy game because they need some love in game jams, they are rarely found in game jams since RTS or building games, or games alike are pretty hard to make, so it may be a critical factor when choosing a type of game to make for a game jam, but I am not loosing hope :)

So yeah, themes are something like a great fit for a strategy genre, but I think they are not limiting anything.

Nothing much to say, just I'm in. One more thing, here are my themes: 1. Sound is deadly: Well, pretty self-explanatory 2. Choices matter. Or do they?: Well, Do choices really matter? Or is everything decreed by fate? 3. Modern problems, ancient solutions: Well, sometimes, modern problems require ancient solutions. And I didn't make this post after watching Veritasium's video on origami. Also, can someone teach me how to spell modern? I always get it wrong for some reason.

A while ago, I published a blog post here in the channel if anyone was interested in a Code Review and I have now created the third and last Let’s Code Review video for LD 47. Its the game Round Out from @foolmoron. I thought it would be a different format than only playing the games. What do you say, should I do another review in LD 48?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=639ktHkd1GI

Hi guys!

Last year I decided to joined one game jam each month as a personal challenge. Here's a video I made where I tell a little story about each of those 12 game jams (including two Ludum Dare).

Hope you'll find it interesting! Cheers!

https://youtu.be/4alBku2lkiw

See also: "You are the weapon", "2 button controls", and "Start with Nothing"

I forget who originally posted this compilation, but it perfectly encapsulates the problem with these kinds of themes.

Hey all,

I started a podcast about game jams! If you're interested in game design you should check it out, but if not, would you mind sharing one or two of your theme ideas? There's a theme submission box on my website:

Https://www.jammerspodcast.com

A theme is picked at random for every episode and we talk through the game design using it.

Thanks in advance!

     .

I can't believe I didn't see this reference before.

Hello everyone from Ludum Dare!

Here is a new update on my game Phil Alone - The game I develop in Ludum Dare 47! Well, not a game update but a page theme update to be connected more with the game! I hope you guys enjoy it and see the post on the itch.io page! By the way, I am doing a Support The Game Campaign, and you can see more about it there, it's like a Kickstarter so go check it out! :D https://gabrieldevbr.itch.io/phil-alone/devlog/232782/theme-update

Hi everyone. I'll be working with a small team to try and make something cool next month. We're new to game creation and to Ludum! What's the best advice you have for us so we can prepare? Thanks!

I've noticed that as we all rush to get our games done, we tend to overlook some basic quailty-of-life inclusions.

Nearly every game I play has no way to pause the game, or to quit it (without resulting to OS-specific keyboard shortcuts).

I put together a quick little package that adds this functionality, and should work easily with any Unity game. Just import my package, and players can push ESC to pause/unpause or hold it to close the application. In the case of WebGL builds, pause will still work even though quitting does not.

You can download it HERE for free.

Check my collections, I also have a base project that includes this pause/quit functionality, but also sound management, a title screen, player prefs management, and more (I plan on updating that soon, hopefully before this LD)

Helo there, I've made a tool with many basic features for unity so if anybody would like to use it then you can

https://github.com/DockFrankenstein/qASIC/releases/tag/0.0.8

Here are some features

Customizable settings

A settings system with saving and room for expandability. You can easily add your own by using the qASIC.Options.OptionsSetting attribute. Toggles and sliders are easy to setup, but dropdowns require coding, so keep that in mind. There is a example scene with it working, so if you don't know what to do, you can just copy the menu from there for simple resolution, framerate and fullscreen options. IMPORTANT: to get rid of lag, add the options load script!

In game console

Although many people think consoles aren't that important in small games, they still can be very useful if you use it properly. There are already some build in commands such as: scene, input, options, help, clear and echo. You can also make your own by interfering from qASIC.Console.Commands.GameConsoleCommand. You can also quite easily log something by using qASIC.qDebug.Log. You can add a console to your scene from the Game Console prefab.

Global audio manager

Sound effects and music is something every game needs. In 3d games you are probably placing audio sources around the scene, but mostly for 2d games you probably need an audio manager. You can play, stop, assign audio channel and mixer and save user preferences (if you add some sort of audio options).

Saving manager

Most of the time you don't really need saving and if you need it you most likely are using player prefs, so not sure how useful this thing is to you

There are also some other nifty tools such as simple bool string or int unityevents and custom vector string conversion for cleaner way of displaying information. In the future there will be also an info block (showing framerate, hardware, playtime, exception and warning count etc) and more customization. There are also probably going to be templates for clean scripts, so you will no longer have to delete the same functions before writing something.

Hello, Ludum Darers!

This is a bit of self-promotion, but hopefully not too off-topic*. I'm a developer who made his first game in Ludum Dare nearly a decade ago (and have made quite a few games since then here) and I set out last year to make a game of a larger scope (though not based on a jam game) - and am starting to get near where I hope to release it publicly. I've always been impressed with the quality of feedback I get on jam games from this community, so I thought I'd reach out here to see if anyone would be interested in testing my game prior to any public release of it. A trailer for the game follows, showing sped up gameplay:

https://youtu.be/ZiOrIll8mUk

The game is called Warp Factory and is an automation puzzle game in which the player must build factories to produce various shapes and patterns, as well as to perform more dynamic tasks. It features a system of portals that allow one to cut apart and reconnect space in paradoxical - and productive - ways.

Anyone interested in testing can sign up at this link: https://themilobrandt.com/warpfactory/subscribe.html

I'm planning various improvements before I release the game as a public beta in a month or two - particularly to graphics** and to improve some aspects of user experience, as well as to support modding - but I'm not sure how the gameplay holds up for someone who hasn't been acclimating to the puzzle for the last year, especially since I plan to create more puzzles, but don't know exactly where players would value these most - so feedback would be much valued and likely to be reflected in the game's development.

(*I propose that we just pretend this is for the October Challenge, setting aside that the October Challenge is on hiatus and that it is nearly as far from October as it's possible to be)

(**I'm afraid that, after developing this game for a year, I have conclusively proven that my usual struggle with graphics during these competitions is not, in fact, due to time constraints. That said, I hope to participate again in the April LD and will surely blame time constraints for the inevitably bad graphics nonetheless :) )

This will be my 6th ludum dare in a row. Gosh the years have really flown by. I am a programmer looking to get a team setup again for this year. Hope ever one has fun with this ludum dare.