We love Settlers 2, so we made a related variant for LD50. I'm actually surprised we pulled it off, considering the scope and complexity. If you also wonder how - i recorded the last day here, 19 hours of straight orble development. The same dedication filled the whole team, so it was really fun to make.

You essentially build up an economy capable of defending your settlement from the ever encroaching purants.

So, what do you think of Settlers 2 mechanics? Underused for sure, but rightly so or not? Personally, I think there is more to be found in that space (otherwise Orbles wouldn't exist, i guess). Anyway, check Orbles out if you like: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/orbles

I couldn't participate in the compo during the weekend ( :sob: ) I decided to try the new format.

But seeing that every entry is getting rated, lots of them are already 20+, and there is like only one Extra submission per day...

I'm a bit scared that by the time my entry is finished the site will be nearly empty and it will be impossible to get ratings.

What do you think?

Part of the secret to creating detailed pixel art quickly is using all kinds of tricks and techniques, weaponizing the full potential of your creative tools. And oh boy, does Photoshop have a massive hidden potential.

I've adopted and developed dozens of techniques for pixel art over the years. Use layer styles to create live pixel-perfect outlines. Load my MacBook's touch bar with shortcuts and gestures for animation and brush controls. Write a custom script that reads directives from layer names and exports sprites and animation sheets with a single button-press.

But one of my all-time favorites is Dan Fessler's HD Index Painting technique published back in 2014. Back when I first stumbled upon it, I played around with it for a while in an empty document, drew some scribbles, said “huh, cool” and moved on — and I know other artists who did the same. Back then I'd been mostly doing tiny pixel art assets at the scale of 16×16 pixels, and the potential of the technique went completely over my head. But then the style of my projects shifted, and everything changed.

This trick can't create art for you, it's not magic. But I swear, tricks don't get much closer to magic than this. With the right set-up it might take you an hour to create something that would normally take days.

There's so much to talk about here, so many sub-tricks and use cases, I could write a book just on using HD Index Painting. The idea is delightfully simple and insanely powerful. If you're using Photoshop for pixel art, do yourself a favor and check out this king of time-savers (here's the link again!).

And in the mean time, check out our LD50 entry that makes heavy use of the technique.

Hey y'all!

This is our first time participating in LDJam and we are more than happy to announce that we have surpassed 50 ratings two days in! We are blown away by the positive comments and reception we got so far and we're extremely grateful to those who played and especially to those who managed to put up with the rougher parts of the game!

If you haven't played it yet, Darko is an eerie, fast paced first person platformer where the name of the game is using your enemies as a method of traversal by slicing through them and making your way throughout randomly generated levels!

Darko is available for Windows and is also playable in your browser! You can find it here. Have fun!

Have you ever played mini metro and just wanted to ride around on one of the trains instead of stressing out about the efficiency of your transport system?

Well now you can! Whilst trying to save civilians from a bomber.. (or not, i'm not here to tell you how to play my game)

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/all-lines-lead-to-boom

Fair warning, it takes a bit of time to figure out the control scheme, but it's definitely worth it

---

Post jam stuff

I've gone back to the game and smoothed over some of the rougher visual edges it had, so if you want to try the game but it's hard to see where things are, give the post jam version a try, so far the extra stuff is just visual accessibility polish.

Here's what it looks like now (fully zoomed out) with some of the accessibility settings on:

https://youtu.be/4gzHFRfd4iE

During the jam i would've sworn implementing this would take 5 hours, it took me 1 hour plus the time needed to take screenshots for the in-game manual now. oh well.

Wanna play a great little roguelike where you're always on fire? Because you can!

Go play!

OVERTIME

Defend the objective!

Deploy and position your heroes strategically to stall the longest time for a chance to win! Unfortunately it's 2CP...

Play here!

Any similarity to actual heroes or actual video games, is purely coincidental?

I asked to submit WebGL games but struggling to get through all of them myself - there are some awesome games here in the comments, please have a look!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/wither/i-want-to-play-your-webgl-games

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/nightwaker

The games takes place in a very dark mood, our character evolves in a world where the forces of darkness can take possession of the body of people who fall asleep. The objective? don’t fall asleep, and try to delay the inevitable!

We tried to integrate innovative mechanics, where you will have to smash two buttons representing your eyes, or you will struggle to keep them open, while facing a system of writing on keyboard to pass the different stages of the game.

Come and enjoy the graphics and the atmosphere of the game, and above all give us your feedback which will make us extremely happy !

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/games/zero/jam

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/games/danger/jam

as always, it would be great for as many games to get ratings at the end as possible. Yes, you should get more ratings as you rate, but as with every time, there will be teams that have given more than enough ratings to only receive barely enough, if that, as well as games that have barely given any but get well above the minimum (not saying that they are bad, or that their ratings are undeserved), so to balance it out, anything helps. Try to keep this from becoming the usual popularity contest. Who knows, maybe there is a hidden gem that would otherwise have stayed hidden.

and to those games in those categories, keep rating games yourselves because it should help. It also helps to post, I know it feels dirty, but at this point, you almost have to. Just don't do it incessantly, and try to post about more than begging.

Speaking of which (sorry), our game is currently at about half of what it needs to get ratings. If you would like to play it, it can be found here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/the-longest-commute

Hey Folks,

Do you want to ride the perfect wave and show off some sick tricks?

Then try out our game Wipeout! (Web-Version available)

~zolar~

Hello!

Did you know our voting methods are, well, not very good?

And yes, I know we're not from the same place. And yet, my point still stands!

Why? Come and help Arrow discover the (quite nerving) truth about voting systems worldwide!

Can you finish all 18 levels and become an expert politician?

Can you put yourself into the perspective of an Orble, the egg shaped cuties being busy here?

You work on your farm, growing Opples in the idyllic little village you grew up in, always in a happy mood. When you turn your gaze towards the horizon, sometimes only an Opple throw away, you see these purply bloated, menaciangly insane giants eager to crush you and all you know. Right now they are just standing over there, still, staring like mad. You know it will only be an hour, until they collectively take a step towards you, bringing your people one step closer to extinction.

You then see your mate Jacob, whom you've known since your childhood, all dressed up in Gemmstone armor. He trots past you, marching directly into the menace. You hear his battle cry as he fells the first Purant. Immediately he sets off, deeper into their ranks. You hear him cry out again. More and more Purants fall, until finally, silence settles in. You've seen this scene countless times. You look down again, tending to your opples, as they are the basis of the villages survival in this inevitable threat.

So basically, Orbles is hardcore.

Check it out here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/orbles

Thanks to Extra, I could still participate!

I'm making First Contact, a timeloop puzzle/adventure game inspired by Outer Wilds and Carl Sagan's Contact! :smile:

There's still a lot to do but here's the first week's progress! Hopefully I will finish by next weekend and I can still get a few ratings! :)

Cheers!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbzD99MTjqI

Had a wonderful stream once again today, with awesome people and great games in there.
You can check it out here: https://youtu.be/n5c0GndY1SY

Games in this video: Super Mowser Bros by @jrevel, @clement-feanor, @michael-assing and @guilloteam - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/super-mowser-bros
Board to DEATH by @andre-sadie and @nsadie - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/board-to-death
The Inevitable Dominion by @ebrietas and @kupnu4 - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/innevitable-dominion
Somnipathy by @mtbvibe, @pickyburrito49, @vixenmink, @zakahrum, @whiskeybadger, @pnutbutterprincess and @cyzaine - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/somnipathy

Next one is tomorrow at 6pm / 18 CEST, looking forward to it!
To submit your game fill out this survey: https://forms.gle/XwC8zZZG6FCgfkjw7
Join the stream for an astronomically higher chance of getting featured :)

https://ldjam.com/games/danger/all

Please list your game in the comments if, 1. You have rated enough games to have a checkmark by the number and 2. your game hasn’t received enough ratings to get the checkmark there as well

If you don’t fall into BOTH categories, please do not post your game; I don’t care if you only have one rating if you haven’t rated anything yourself, nor do I care if you have 50 ratings. Let’s get as many games over that line that we can, please.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/halberd

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/sn002e

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/flood-runner

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/herdey-vr-only

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/just-run

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/attack-of-the-yellow-things

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/untitled-lobster-game

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/malevich-in-budapest

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/a-card-game

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/peace-council

close enough (they technically haven't rated enough, but have rated more than the number of ratings they need):

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/hydra

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/a-void

POST YOUR GAMES HERE. I WILL RATE THEM WITHIN 24 HOURS!

DLAY wants to play your games and give meaningful feedback to all of them. LD and game jams are great for exploring new ideas and concepts, allowing to try new things. I appreciate the feedback and time given to my game and now is my time to say thanks.

Now some shameless self-promotion

DLAY The Inevitable

Gamepad and Keyboard Supported

Play and Rate: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/dlays-buffet

Story

You are the Shaman of the Island Kalani.

DLAY, The Inevitable, is almost waking up from his sleep. His hunger has no match, no matter how much you feed it. The time to face him and release the island from this curse is near.

Grab and throw sacrifices at him to defeat him and avoid his attacks.

Fun for the whole family! This game is largely connected to music and impending DOOOOOM. Let the game do the shooting for you while you evade damage.

We will play any game in our comments. P.S. I highly recommend our shield upgrade

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/quadratorum

I just finished the time lapse for my game Nighty Night, Nosferatu! Check it out here:

(edit: seems like youtube links might be broken? I had to set up a redirect on my site :sweat_smile:)