I crossed finger but didnt believed that this time it could happen - so i am glad that it will happen and can now start preparing for Ludum Dare 58!

Thank you mike that you can make this happen in this hard times.

Something to build around but not restricting in design

I don't usually post this, but let's test out something.

Remember... the more versatile - the better.

The same as i always do:

Hey folks!

My apologies for the radio silence. I'll get into why and what's going on a bit, but yes, we will run an event as originally scheduled, though I will have limited availability so fingers crossed we don't run into issues. :fingers_crossed:

If you're new and need to create an account, use the following code:

adeliciouspumpkinjamincoming

IMPORTANT: New user posts wont show up until your account is approved! This is a manual process that requires me to review *something* you've posted, to confirm you're a human and not a bot. To speed up this process, post something about yourself on your profile page, or make a post. I'll be reviewing batches of users/posts every day or two.

Feel free to send me an email, or poke me on Bluesky if this takes more than a day. Again, my script wont find you if you don't say or share anything!

What to expect

Due to my previous unavailability, seeing how the event is less than 2 weeks away, we'll be accepting Theme suggestions until about Tuesday before kicking off the Theme Slaughter. After that, things will run as usual: multiple rounds of voting, theme announcement, jam + compo + extra. I will be skipping the posting of results to social media, as that's a large time commitment for me.

What's up?

My failure to find work after LD57 left me miffed and jarred. I went from multiple interviews in May/June, confident I'd shown extensive experience and enthusiasm for the roles, to rejection followed by months of silence over the summer. Understandably folks take summer vacations, but as September hit I was expecting to hear something...anything, but :shrug:.

Before and after a Silksong break earlier in the month, I continued seeking and sending more resumes and cover letters, but aside from some next-day rejections it's been crickets. To add insult to injury, earlier this week my laptop started refusing to charge. I've since found a way to prop up the computer using a very specific charger and cable that does work, but this Thinkpad's days are numbered.

Sooo yeah, not knowing how I was going to pay my bills, I've been at a loss for what to do about Ludum Dare 58. I shared some of the above on my socials, which lead to some extremely generous donations this past week (:purple_heart:). My job hunt situation isn't solved, but your contributions did help alleviate my panic, so as I wait to hear something I'm going to do my best to ensure the event runs.

(PROGRESS: I did *finally* get a non-automated response on Thursday, but I know from several late rejections to not to get my hopes up. Still, :fingers_crossed:).

What's next?

Uh, well, I sincerely expected I'd find work doing something web or browser related, or Linux/embedded/graphics/performance related by now. Between some work with Wayland/Mir, WebKit/Chromium/Firefox, tracking down a bug in AMD's RADV/libdrm Linux graphics driver code, to adding native support for ActivityPub (Mastodon) to Bluesky's PDS server (also ESM support and several other improvements), I thought I'd get someone to acknowledge my applications, but alas. :shrug:

While I can't currently afford to spin-up any new servers, due to the many stupid human rights and free speech violations going on in the world, its extremely important to me that we move our data and services outside of the US. The attacks against Steam, Itch, and others have also raise many concerns, and I want to be sure we ourselves can't be taken offline if one of our creators has "anatomy" in their game.

I haven't talked much about this, but I've been looking to rework/rewrite Ludum Dare's backend services in Go, and finish my TypeScript port/upgrade of the frontend. My work with the AtProto and ActivityPub protocols were extremely enlightening. There are many little interoperability things I'd like to toy with, just they're not exactly practical with our LAMP-like stack. I started building the current software nearly a decade ago, and soooo much has changed in how web applications are built since then (for the better).

Well, that was the plan; Find work so I can stop worrying about bills/debt, then find a rhythm where I can fix stuff.

Alas. :shrug:

So currently I'm at the mercy of potential employers. Not to mention, the game industry itself is in an extremely bizarre place. While I'm extremely grateful of everyone for their support (:purple_heart:), but even if I was better at running a business, I have doubts about the sustainability of game jams... unless we were to "sell out" to the latest trends (crypto, AI, etc), but nah.

I'm happy to keep things like Ludum Dare running, but for my livelihood, it's vitally important I find something to sustain myself. So until that's sorted, my sincerest apologies for my lack of focus here.

Returning to the LD Jam from I guess 6 years of absence since last entry! Glad LD58 will happen!

Hey, my name is Michael and I'm a university student looking to get into game development. Excited for LD58! (I'm not a bot, I swear 😭)

In what will be our 17th Ludum Dare (starting with Ludum Dare 30 in 2014), my team and I are looking forward to another good jam with everyone!

I'm not feeling super creative with my theme suggestions this time, so I went with some spacial ones.

My brother attended multiple ones, now finally my time has come as well. Happy to be on this journey together with all of you.

haven't participated in an LD since... i want to say LD28? it'll be a lot of fun 🌸

also posting to make sure my account is approved :)

Been keeping an eye on Ludum Dare since probably 2013, figured it's finally time I throw my hat in the ring!

Good luck all! Can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!

This will be my 35th ludumdare in a row. xD i started at LD24, hi. I’ll be using these this time:

IDE: Eclipse - Eclipse Foundation

Engine: LibGdx - Open Source, originally written by Mario Zechner

Graphics: aseprite/paint.net -david capello/Rick Brewster; Tiled - Thorbjørn Lindeijer; TexturePacker - main guy: Metaphore, also: tommyettinger, devjn, terafog, thefacecore, hangman and voidburn.

Fonts: FontForge - George Williams and the FontForge Project contributors

Sound: Audacity - Dominic Mazzoni and Roger Dannenberg

Music: Cakewalk by BandLab

Timelapse: Chronolapse - keeyai

Another great event with gen con at the same time. That means my game will be more art than code! haha. My Goal this time is to not get too frustrated and not get toooo stressed this time. :D

Going to use Godot 4.5 this time around, no SDL3 Framework so I can easily export to WebGL soon to be WebGPU.

Graphics will probably come from Kenney or Kit.

Music and Sound from Freesound probably

Im back for LD58 can anyone make a concept art of turbo-powered cow milker 0.1

Right after LD57 ended, I decided to further develop my boilerplate code, so other people can use it. I already got lots of feedback for that project, you can add some if you'd like. The plan was to release it right around now. However, life got in the way and I think I bit off more then I can chew. It's in a half broken state now.

The plan is to torture myself by developing it further while programming the LD58 entry. What could go wrong? Anyways, it will be released for testing and fiddling (either in alpha or beta) later this year :-)

~~Also I'm in~~