Trust me. Doors is a great theme. Doors are primal. We've had doors and entrances since we've had shelter, which is longer than we've had some other pretty primal things, like planting seeds for example. You probably live on seeds as food, but many of us can go a few days without seeing a whole one. The fact you're reading this lets me know 100% you're in the same room as a door, or you can see a door across the road, or you're in a car with four of them. The idea of door has a ton of words in various languages and it's lent its meaning to everything from abstracts like life paths and opportunities to weird tech nonsense like networking. It can take any verb you like and to door can be a verb too. It's simultaneously the least constricting yet most directed theme in the lot.

Doors is a great theme.

Please vote doors.

I've been following LD for a really long time, I've not participated or not completed, or not sent a lot of my final entries before. Heck, I even have another username in this site that I forgot completely.

I don't know why, but this time I feel like I'll be able to come up with a game that is playable and share my love for ludum dare and have a solid entry.

Let's see how it'll goes :smirk:

Haven't found the time to participate recently, but this time I have incorporated Ludum Dare into the schedule by making it a part of a thing I do have to do: I'm writing my master's thesis about making a game engine (prototype), and whatever I make in this Dare will serve as a demonstration of using it. Incredible synergy, I know. Now, onto the tools:

• The game engine I cooked up during the last few months. (Calling it a game engine is pretty generous. It doesn't have many features at all.)
• Aseprite or Krita for art, depending on the style I end up going with.
• Bitwig Studio for audio, and hardware-wise, maybe my Strega synthesizer. Lovely drone machine.

I'll definitely be making a 2D game this time, because the engine only has a simple 2D renderer. And there's a distinct possibility the game won't feature physics, as the engine doesn't have such a system. Very classic from-scratch compo vibes this time.

After nearly seven years — and a very long parenting break — I finally got the official go-ahead from my wife and two daughters to participate in a multi-day solo activity. So here I am, jumping headfirst into Ludum Dare: completely unprepared and burdened with massive future payback duties.

I'm beyond excited and looking forward to a few sleepless, junk food-fueled days surrounded by other crazy (but loveable) minds.

Let the games never end… or something like that.

i love game dev :)))))))

bluey is the best show frrr fire fire

ahehehehehhh noooooo noooooooooo stoooopp je like chunks

oodles ammmes with me

Haven't participated in quite a while. Depending on the theme and if I can come up with an idea I'm interested in, I'll be participating.

Tools:

Game Framework: Macroquad

Art: Aseprite

Audio: Fl Studio, Audacity

choco is my do dad is by dad from bluey right guys

[major Alan Wake 2 and Control spoilers here]

So I played Alan Wake 2 pretty recently and LOVED it. I've been devouring lore videos about the Remedyverse and listening to the 13-minute version of Herald of Darkness basically nonstop. And with that, this set of themes is speaking to me...

* Planting the Seed? Try the coffee... * Decay? Oh, you mean entropy, the thing that Ahti constantly battles and you help with in Control as his assistant? * Recharge? Those big energy blocks that power everything, anyone? * Depths? How about you go into the depths of the ashtray maze... * Salvage? You've got to salvage the story to escape the dark place! * Doors? MR. DOOR, anyone??? * Send Signals? Do you mean like The Board, or how Saga and Alan Wake speak with one another, or how the clicker sends signals from art to the world? * Keep It Together? That's all Alan tries to do! * Out of Order? Like Coffee World, or like exploring in Time Breaker? There's probably an out of order sign object of power somewhere, too... * Wild Magic? Speaking of all of those objects of power, they're all pretty wild... Oh, and "this is the ritual to lead you on" says hello. * Side Effects? Seriously, try the coffee. Or jump in a lake that's actually an ocean, see what that does to ya... * Garden? Okay yeah I'm not sure how this connects, other than the grand scheme of things where you reap what you sow, certainly easy to connect to creating art in the dark place, or what happened to the Marmonts in The Lake House... * Trade? You trade between Saga and Alan, sure, but Alan also traded himself for Alice * Waves? What do you think the lake that's an ocean does, just sit there? * Bottomless? That spiral could be bottomless... As is the hopelessness that the darkness has for people. Or just the bottomless darkness itself. Or that bottomless cup of coffee that you should try, really... And poor Pat Main whose memory loss becomes bottomless... * Companion? You mean how Alex Casey is a companion to both Alan and Saga? Or how Control and both Alan Wake games have an awesome Old Gods of Asgard song to accompany them (or more than one)? * Layers? Oh come on, these games are layers upon layers upon layers of meaning throughout all of this. * Anchor? You literally battle the anchor in Control!

Please tell me I'm not the only one who sees that all of this has actually been done by Alan Wake, written into existence to help him escape his spiral in the dark place.

I seem to recall a post saying AI use rules were TBD, but I can't seem to find it now...

It's been a while since my last Ludum Dare, did this land some place?

I'd really like to use AI tools in this jam, just to see what I'm capable of with it, but I don't want to go outside the rules of the compo.

Thanks!

It's been 5 years since my last jam. Just out of the aether I remembered of the ludum dare, and thankfully I was able to get in last week. Now I'm here deciding on my tools and the guardrails needed so I just don't outscope myself into oblivion. And so, I've decided on the following.

Tools

• "Engine:" To give me a challenge I ditched the engine and decided to go a little bit lower level without having to go all the way down. That's why I chose Raylib.
• Platform: Just make it as easy as possible, the only right answer is html5.
• Graphics: Don't make it complex and adjust as needed: Aseprite, Krita and/or Blender (depending on the flow).
• Audio: Long ago I was a musician so I'll use an old bass, a piezo mic and Audacity.

Guard Rails

1. Unless necessary don't go looking for optimal or exact solutions.
2. Don't try to use high level concepts (like classes) if a low level one (a function with a pointer) can do the job.
3. Keep your design high, but your expectations low. You only have 48 hours to do this.
4. Try using some sort of version control and CI/CD. If something fails you want to catch it ASAP by either debugging or reverting.
5. Awesome per second: Try to make just a minute of pure fun instead of 10 minutes of just ok.
6. You are your resource. Take breaks, eat, and sleep to keep your edge.
7. Think of a tale, not a novel: Once again time is limited, and there is no time for epic stories with interweaving plots. Or in our case, awesome designs with multiple interacting systems.
8. Iterate and follow the fun. If something catches your eye and is funnier than your original design go for it.
9. Misery loves company, but so do joy and wonder. Share what you're working on, and invite people into your process.
10. Enjoy the ride.

And now with less than 24 hours to begin, I'll just go ahead and get into a good headspace.

Can I know some of the trending themes cuz im clueless on what the theme could be. Its also my first LD so I DONT KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT

doors and bottomless sound good dont you think. I think there used to be a theme called deeper and deeper

I was also inspired to make a wallpaper, hope you enjoy!