Below The Ocean's second update is here! Return to the ocean's deepest depths in search of "The Nobleman's Crest"!

It's been longer than expected since the last update. It turns out, trying to work through vacation, and weekend pool parties can kind of slow things down. At any rate, I managed to string together some new mechanics and rooms to run through for the new chapter.

Upside-Down Tank: Flipping gravity is an easy mechanic to implement into a 2D Platformer, and almost obligatory. I added a little extra functionality and allowed the player freely float, as well as build momentum capable of breaking weak walls.

Claw Machine: I had an idea for a type of automated grapple hook, this is what it turned into. The Claw Machines open up the range of each air-tank, and they also just look cool.

PLUS MORE: There's a few more new things too, but yall should just play the game to see them!

In the works:

Chapter 4: TBD (September 2021) I have a few new mechanics already built out, but saved them for Chapter 4.

Unlockables: I'm STILL planning on adding unlockable treasures, starting with player skins. Probably color palettes too. You'll be able to find some treasures hidden in the levels, as well as unlock them through challenges/achievements. This is already partially implemented, but requires me to build out some more supplemental systems (Achievements) before I can let yall have it.

Fast Travel System: fast travel across save points. Good for treasure hunting!

Steam Release: This is a major goal for me. I have most of the Steam page set up, but juggling EVERYTHING is not easy. Steam is also a somewhat intimidating platform. My plan is to release the FULL game on Steam.

On my mind:

Diamond Doors: I've had this idea for challenge areas that only unlock if you've found X amount of Diamonds. These areas would keep treasures hidden away, but also provide MORE challenges. I probably wont add these in until AFTER Chapter 4 is released.

I'll have a new little trailer on the way for Chapter 3, and after that we'll deep dive right into Chapter 4 and keep this party rocking!

As always, thanks for your continued support!

PLAY ON ITCH.IO : https://ismaelrodriguez.itch.io/below-the-ocean

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ishyrodriguez

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA1CRCU98iHXfMrn1Bsd48Q

I came up with these in 5min total. warn me if they are shit?

:wink: :wink:

2759 slaughtered (a lot of plot twisters)

265 kept (good experimental concepts!)

12 Flagged (murica trumpists blergh)

My suggestions:

*Two countries separated by the sea connected by a magical avenue

*Birds as familiars

*Monuments and statues surrounded by clouds or mist

We remade our Ludum Dare 43 game Deadline of the Dead into a full game and it's out now!

Even better: It's FREE for the first 24 hours! 🥳

Claim it while you can: https://hastilyassembled.itch.io/zombie-admin

Follow us on Twitter on YouTube on Itch.io

I already got the game idea, game name, concept, and I started slicing the art and making the prototype with Godot.

A point and click game.

I'm obsessed about Van Gogh, especially by his letters. I know all of his timeline with historic accuracy, because I've read and studied his letters (and probably I've already read all books about him) - but regardless of that, I won't make the game with historical accuracy, otherwise I wouldn't be able to use some of the paintings due to the period that they were painted.

So, as soon as I saw the theme "Unstable", I immediately said: "I CAN FINALLY MAKE A GAME ABOUT VAN GOGH" (if you don't know, Van Gogh wasn't stable, mentally speaking, but I won't get into details now, let's get back to work!).

We tried to reveal the topic in a small space adventure of not the most correct guy, a small first-person quest with humor: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/space-alconaut

Will be glad to hear your opinion!

Spoilery: A little philosophical, my game is about being born poor and from an unstable background then meeting a person who helps you change and finally giving back to those whose hearts you tore.

A little rough. But I guess it's alright

Will you be able to give the mentally unstable witches their meds before they destroy the world and/or crash the game?

Try Volatile Witchcraft!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_SZvewksW0

...Also while you're at it, maybe make a new speedrun record to the Hall of Fame

I was not sure, but since there's a new casual Ludum Dare it means I'll have time to finish something, so why not.

I don't know which tools I'll use to create the game this year. Besides Ren'Py, Allegro and my very own game engine I've been experimenting with GameMaker and Unity lately. I've also discovered QB64 so I have plenty of options. I'll try to decide this night before the jam starts.

Everything's done!

This is the first time we've released the game not in a couple of minutes before the end of the jam. Proud of our success!

Looking forward to receiving feedback ^^

• Game page

• itch.io

For all the sock lovers, the game is now playable in browser.

You'll find everything here. :arrow_down:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/great-escape

I can now write pages on the importance of consistent style when working with a big team and how much time it'll save you...

Early on in the jam, we made a simple mistake that would end up being costly, and were inconsistent in our folder naming scheme. It got changed around on various peoples system across multiple operating systems, and no change ever fully stuck.

Fast forward to today and it turns out our big crash was caused by SOME systems being unable to find a packed resource because the folder names weren't being treated properly. /Tilesets/MyTileset.tres vs /tilesets/MyTileset.tres. Our filesystems and github repository could never agree on what we were doing with that. This bug cost us HOURS during the jam and came back to bite us again in embarrassing crashes for some user. Hopefully we can lay that one down to rest once and for all, though I wish I knew why it worked for so many, and burned for others. We thankfully got in contact with someone for whom the game crashed nearly every time. With his help we were finally able to get the information we needed. Thanks Doug!

The windows 11 non-start bug... this capital letter induced crash bug... can't wait to see what other horrible bug is going to keep me up at night. So give Sominpathy a play, and see if you can't break it again!

Any Team out there using Unreal Engine 4?

Hello, fellow game jammers! I'm a long-time Ludum Dare participant with over 10 years of experience. One of my most recent LD entries has turned into a successful mobile game gaining 100k installs.

Also I'm a Regional Coordinator of Global Game Jam, and a Chair of International Scientific Conference on Game Jams.

I hope I've got your attention :) There is something important I want to tell you.

Ludum Dare and Global Game Jam are very popular events among the Ukrainian game development community. As you know, Ukraine is now defending against a full-scale Russian invasion. Today is the 427th day of the invasion. Many game developers, just like the other citizens of Ukraine, had to move out of their homes, others have joined the army or work as volunteers providing the needed with resources.

If some of us have a luxury to keep making games and even participate in game jams, it is only thanks to the Ukrainian defense forces and the help we are receiving from our friends worldwide. And we keep telling the world of what is going on, as it is important to be aware.

This is what I said to the Global Game Jam at the Theme announcement event in January: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zC6DxiBbgo

This message is still relevant now, as the invasion still goes on.

Therefore I ask you, our game development friends and colleagues, to keep supporting Ukraine, keep talking about Ukrainian noble struggle, or, maybe, you'd like to highlight Ukrainian culture motifs in your Ludum Dare entry?

Also please consider donating to the Ukrainian funds, for example, the Game Dev under Bombs fund, which is run by game development conference organizers: https://globalgamejam.org/news/supporting-global-game-jam-community-and-people-ukraine

Or to the President's initiative UNITED24, where you can select what to support: defense and demining, medical aid or rebuilding of Ukraine: https://u24.gov.ua/

And please read the Global Game Jam's interviews of Ukrainian game developers: https://ggconference.com/en/conference/games-gathering-gamedev-under-bombs/

We really appreciate your help and support! Wishing you successful and peaceful jam!

Got the web build working. I suggest you play the web version on itch because the one on the ludum dare page has some weird scrolling bars.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/satellite-delivery

Enjoy!

To celebrate my first jam in three years I did a Pang clone 😄. It was supposed to differentiate a bit more, but the first day I got stuck trying to fix the balls' motion (still not where I wanted) and it dragged the schedule down. While I couldn't make it to the compo as I had originally intended to, and although every pixel I look at now makes me want to change everything I'm very happy with the effort and, more importantly, that I found the motivation to participate again.

Play it and rate it here!

These are the controls:

Keyboard

• A, D or ⬅️➡️ keys - Move Left or right
• Z, X or Space - Shoot

Gamepad

• Left Stick - Move
• A on XBox, X on a PS controller...

And a few screenshots:

I might write a post-mortem in a few days.

In the meantime, :sparkles: :sparkles: congrats to everyone and good luck!! :sparkles: :sparkles:

First of all, the game:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/59/respect

Usually I work with a team. I have friends and acquaintance with interest in making games but lacking the programming/development skills to do them alone. This time I knew that I did not have the full weekend, both days had something going on, so I didn't want to be the bottleneck for a team and went for it alone.

All I knew beforehand is that due to the extra-limited time, I had to do something short. I also had decided that I wanted to try something with asynchronous multiplayer, like an auto-battler. This ended up being a leaderboard and player ghost-data in a some sort of racing game.

The time ended up being more of an issue than I thought. I originally planned to join the compo but I was way behind, so I ended up extending my time to the jam. This time issue seems to be an everpresent issue for me in the jams. The scope balloons if I can manage the time off or have a team, which means that I always end up scrounging the game together at the final hour. Biggest fallback from this, is that I rarely have the time to play test the game, especially design-wise, and this time was no different. I'm not happy with the map, and the wall-collision is very unfriendly and sometimes a bit confusing.

The roll mechanic ended up being more polarizing than I thought. I rarely build games with a system that rewards mechanical ability directly, but for racing I felt it was almost needed. The comments do seem to appreciate the learning curve, but the fail state is probably a bit too harsh. Something that would have been fine tuned if I had the time to test more.

Another thing I'm not happy with, but realized too late was the scoring system. Due to the signal theme, I needed some randomization for the runs that you actually had to use it every single time. Total randomness would invalidate most of the ghost data, so I ended up creating handful of "levels" and just putting the player in one, preferring the ones where they could improve the most. However, since the scoring is a black box, and the "levels" are slightly hidden, I think that leaderboard can seem demoralizing. Even the best runs generate around a thousand points and the leaderboard scores are way above that. You cannot really know if you just need to play more, or if your run was somehow insufficient. Since game jam games receive very short attention, a different scoring system would probably have been better.

Overall, I'm still happy with what I managed to create. I do still hope that before the rating phase is over, someone manages to take the top spot from me :P