I am not sure if this is allowed but I wanted to share an online pixel tool I created incase someone wanted to use it for the Jam. It is heavily inspired by Aseprite. You can export animated gifs, pngs, and sprite sheets with a JSON descriptor. I am probably not going to get to use it to make a game this time but feel free to use it if you want! It is available at PixelChomper Github pages PixelChomper
It's the signal, what was I thinking it was about. Of course, it was going to turn out to be evil. I should have known...
Needs work but it will have to do, just need some animations and we are good.
The Ludum dare has begun, and the theme is signs. I've come up with a very simple idea, where the objective of the game is to scan space using a computer from the 70s/80s to earn discovery points to make further improvements to your computer and improve its space scanning.
Back after a long break! We were waiting to see if the theme will be interesting enough, and "Signal" is not the worst at the very least.
Gonna use Solar2D and Photoshop + Spine, maybe Tiled depending on the game concept we settle on.
Good luck to everyone participating!
It base on Conway's Game of Life.
I think it's a good idea!
spent an hour coming up with my idea (which is an improvement over the recent past of trying to participate lol), then an hour mentally refining it while getting my mind ready for bed, half an hour doodling a sketch of it with notes, and now it is time to rest because i have had SO much sleep debt and medical problems this week lol.
here's hoping i wake up with the energy and/or fortitude to actually get crackin on it! good luck people who are still awake!
Got my first sprites!
Cant wait to see a ton of them running around!
LD59's entry is coming along nicely so far. Here's the character you play as:
(Sorry it's not aligned correctly, this is an animated sprite sheet, but I haven't done the other frame yet)
You may be wondering, why a skeleton? Before the theme was announced, my idea for the "Falling Apart" theme was a skeleton who had to prevent itself from falling apart. Since the character doesn't contradict the theme, I thought I'd go with it anyway.
In this game, you have lost connection with some currently unnamed supernatural world, and you must increase your "signal strength" by defeating waves of slimes to regain it. You become stronger and gain powers as your signal strength increases, but at the same time, the difficulty gets progressively harder.
I'm thinking of also making the signal strength your health. If it goes down to a certain point, you lose powers and the difficulty drops back down. That way, there's no "game over", you just need to get your strength back up.
We've got an idea and a plan, and we think have a manageable scope this time! I'll keep posting updates as we progress. In the meantime, here is a temporary background image!
That just reminded me of the recent news about Voyager 1 , I'm thinking of making this part of game's lore
Spent extra time planning this jam, and I'm hoping it will pay off. It's time to get prototyping I think. My game is a semaphore inspired RPG-style turn-based combat game where you signal your battle party to do actions and learn the code/language of actions as you go. A streamer I chatted with briefly said Helldivers has a system like this? Got a mini GDD filled out, and a MoSCoW board set up (image attached!). I need to keep art minimal as illustration and art isn't my strength, though I think I do okay at graphic design. Here's to a great jam! Good luck everyone!
When I'm not needlesly inflicting crunch on myself for pain and glory, I work in Godot on a data heavy caravan sim game. My regular project is a really Resource intensive project, and I'm pretty well practiced at data structures in Godot, plus my art isn't phenomenal- this seemed like the best use of my resources.
The idea is that you're playing a Mage Lord commanding units to build arcane relays that you can use to cast your magic in battle, using the concept of "Signal" from those relays to dictate where you can and cannot cast your magic, and power your buildings. The end goal is to spread your signal to your opponent's Mage Tower, and destroy it.
I am fairly certain I can make a hot seat multiplayer version of the game relatively quickly. As a modest stretch goal, I'd like to get computer driven players in the game.
Originally, I had this idea that the wizard could cast an Avatar spell and actually show up in the combat as a unit, and turn it in to a top down action brawler, but I realized that just the strategy game context was probably going to take all weekend to get right, so for the first time in my personal Ludum Dare history....
I'm not overscoping my project.
....
As much as I could be.
Hope your project is going well. Sorry for the lack of pictures, but I think a lot of my game is going to be data structures before I have anything really visible.
Wish me luck ^^;
We're trying a different stack this time - Haskell now has WebAssembly support (proof), so we are gonna make a web game instead of our usual Windows games.
Hello everyone, I'm in once again! It is a shame to hear that Ludum Dare will be winding down in terms of scheduled events, but I am glad we at least have another 2 years. I'm happy to be here again and I wish everyone all the best!
My Toolbox:
Engine - Clickteam Fusion 2.5
Art - Aseprite & Paint.NET
Sound - Audacity & Sfxr
Capture Tool - Chronolapse
Just woke up to see the theme. Signal huh? Interesting! My personal challenge is to improve with UI so let's see if I can find some ways to combine these two...
@lizz and I had the agreement to look at the theme at around 4:30AM (theme would have been announced for 1,5 hours by then). But she accidentally saw a discord push notification at 3AM; SIGNAL She woke me up to tell me at 3AM and I was like... Hmm... That can literally be anything, and decided to continue sleep as my mind wasn't racing instantly. A classical case of choice paralysis I guess.
However, in my dream I had a vision! This game would become :sparkles:Where's Waldo with extra steps:sparkles:. I won't tell yet how SIGNAL is implemented yet. We just finished brainstorming, as she's making a game too. We had a fun idea to overlap some little details if time allows us to
First a big ol' cup o' joe and then I'll start prototyping :coffee: Have fun everyone!
I saw @flaterectomy and @guardaro post some cool wallpapers here, so I thought I'd throw my hat into the ring and whipped this up in Cinema 4D! Hope you guys enjoy!
The wallpaper is available in 1080p and in 2 other angles here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1oYuPiO6nXzlxhjXZfeSqt1Crz5r_aZn-?usp=sharing
I have my main grid. I'm gonna try to make a match-3 puzzle game
Time is limited so i might not get much farther, but my general concept is around 18th century signaling of naval ships with flags (ref: "The Signal-book for the Ships of War" - 1799, although i am sure to alter what the flags actually do for gameplay purposes) .. working a bit in Godot at least i have a ship and buttons with flags (although the buttons are very much 21st century actions for now). Might get something more tomorrow ¯_(ツ)_/¯
yay ludumdare time! Going to try something a little different, using TIC-80 with Wren, so far it's been a bit confusing to set everything up but it's starting to make sense.
I have a pretty good idea, my game will be called "Numbers Station", it's about running spies during the cold war, with the main (and sometimes only) channel of communication being the signal from your Numbers Station.
Excited to see how this goes!
I'm going to try using Phaser this time, but it's new to me and progress has been slow getting a character controller up and running. Classic bad idea to try new tech live in the jam?
Me and @sputnix0 will be creating a zombie survival game, set in an office, where you have to send out a distress signal in order to be rescued. Good Luck Everyone!
Wow, it's been a while since I did one of these... Last time I did this was just after starting high school and now I'm supposed to be a functional adult!
Anyway, was kind of thinking of some ideas on a whim and was thinking of making some sort of shooter about remote-controlling a mech / robot to protect the giant ocean internet cable (or something to that effect...)
Trying to protect internet signal and it would affect things like your health and ingame "latency" since it's supposed to be a remote-controlling situation... I'm still thinking.
How exactly I'm going to fit that in or even finish this since I'm horribly rusty now... is a great question, I'm not sure yet!
Happy crafting everyone and good luck with your ideas / games as well!
https://youtube.com/live/Pso7CTyjXkc?feature=share
Got our design figured out and a solid development plan put together. Here is a screenshot of one of our planning images. haha
08:00 : Brainstorm
10:00 : Denial
12:00 : Anger
14:00 : Bargaining
16:00 : Depression
18:00 : Acceptance
20:00 : Start implementing Match-3
(Ignore the lack of textures on the rover and the lack of... much else lol)
I really don't like the theme 'Signal'. But, as experience shows, that means the game jam will go very well!
Spoilers of our team idea hehehehe
Hello LD! European people wakeup.
OMG signal 😮 I'm in.
Good luck everybody 😉
I have the base for the match-3, so i have (maybe) a 50% of the gameplay
It's time to co-co-code!
So I just now saw the theme since I am european and I am quite happy with it. I want to make a game based on the sputnik satellites, but I have no idea how the gameplay could look like. Anyone got some ideas?
I was inspired by flag semaphores.
Good morning!
I woke up around 8:30 german time, already did some stretching, a quick run, and had breakfast. Time to start out!
I'm doing double jam. Trying to make one game that will fit both LD59 and gamedev.js jam 2026. The themes are very compatible, Signal and Machines, so I already have a somehow solid idea. It's a tower-defense-style puzzle game where your "pawns" in battle (which are machines) actually receive signals from an emitter. But the emitter will always send the same commands, it's up to the player to turn the machines on and off in the correct time to destroy the enemy.
Ok, maybe it's not that solid yet. Let's see when I actually get stuff working.
I'll do it in Javascript and Three.js. Mostly because I want to be part of gamedev.js jam as well. :)
Anyway, have a good jam everyone!
Peak concept art done. Let's get started!
My concept for the 'Signal' theme: You play as a waiter, and customers signal you whenever they need something or are missing an item (a fork, their meal, etc.).
In the last LDs my main goal was to learn something new. AI is a divisive subject, as I noticed with my previous AI projects. However, as a professional software engineer, I use AI a lot to accelerate my work. It's the biggest technical breakthrough since the compiler, and cannot even afford to ignore it. And if it helps me create better games faster, I think I should definitely learn how to use it better, even if it means delegating work to something that's not entirely under my control. In the last LDs I did things like:
create my own image GenAI (it sucked, it was my first GenAI, but eventually I turned it into a walking character generator.
training AIs in the browser as part of the gameplay
use LLMs to let the player create entire games according to a particular structural framework. I got significant hate from that, but I eventually developed this into a new AI toolkit, which I now use professionally.
I am dabbling with the idea of having the player create the game as they are playing it (other than text adventures, which has been done), and with accelerating game development by prompting game components other than images and sound (like generated maps and entities).
I might use AI generated images, but not in the regular way. An interesting challenge would be to create the entire dataset and train the AI within the LD time frame, or train it from user input.
Tools I may use:
Happy jamming everyone!
We are in
Together with @akronsus we are doing traffic signal shenanigans
Hi everyone,
This is my first time participating in Ludum Dare.
I’m an artist who loves making games.
Programming: GDevelop Art: Clip Studio/Aseprite Music: FL Studio
No AI here
I’ll keep you updated on my progress!
P.S. The GIF shows my old game (it took me a month to make it); and a few old example sprites
what
When the theme was announced, I wasn't sure what to do. A game about a literal "pirate radio" ship where you send signals with flags? An "RTS" style take on that? A morse code puzzle game? And, I wasn't feeling well (allergies) and then I fell asleep.
When I woke up, I knew exactly what to make! A flag-based-communication strategy puzzle game hybrid!!!
Now it's time to quickly, QUICKLY make the game's mechanics so I can pour love into making it feel amazing and complete. I am considering low-resolution 'hand'-drawn (mouse) graphics this time
I think I finally have a concept I like enough not to throw it out again! First, a short overview of the three ideas I have thrown out because they are too complicated for one person in 48 hours or because I realized I didn't actually like them:
The player was to be on a rotating mining station where the whole mining and refining process only works correctly by following the rhythm from the central processing stations signal beam. But the dish gets knocked askew and instead catches some other signal and all the machinery now runs wildly forward and back based on the new (wrong) signal. You'd have to navigate to the other side of the station to realign the radio dish.
Too many interlocking systems for one person
You shoot everyone in town who turns or changes lanes without using their turn signal with a giant laser canon to blow them up.
Simple, but not worth more than a short chuckle. Not enough substance
What it says on the tin.
Doable, but too much work in generating the actual rhythm parts for a genre I don't like all that much.
For my fourth and final idea, the idea is to put the player into a labyrinth that constantly shifts, and they can only find out where the way out is by using a signal strength reader that hones in on the shortest path to the signal source back on the surface. The complications would then come from having to find ways to get around closed iron grates and collapsed bridges that are the shortest path for the signal, but not the player.
I've settled on zig and raylib. It's everything I loved in pygame when I first started, except it also makes getting started on 3D extremely easy if you want/need it.
I just hope all the basic scaffolding I've already written saves me at least some of my lost time. If this doesn't work out, I can always pick up #2 again later, that one should be quick.
Hi everyone,this is my first ever jam and i am excited to see how it goes, also, does anyone know those spiderman 2018 mini-games where you have to match a sine wave ? i think i might use that for this game
It's my 2nd time participating. Trying something with one more dimension this time around. I've got a concept I feel good about, and some of the assets created. Time to sleep. :)
Bummer. I'm brainstorming a lot and I have a few ideas, just nothing that sparks any excitement. I can't find something I would actually like to make. 😕
I'm done with the first functioning prototype for The Hunt for Red April.
I was originally envisioning a submarine vs submarine game, but I think the pathfinding and related logic would be too time consuming and difficult to get right that I'm pivoting to a submarine hunting an aircraft carrier, while avoiding enemy destroyers. That way, I don't have to worry about pathfinding, collisions, etc. for AI ships. :sweat_smile:
Here's mine:
Not the prettiest but it'll get better (I Hope) :P
https://youtube.com/live/Pso7CTyjXkc?feature=share
The plan for the Signal theme is complete, starting my project in Godot! I am super new to coding tbh so I am really nervous but aiming for COMPO this time. Hopefully I can make it happen! Not even sure how to share script for compo yet but we'll get there ig. The concept is to create people's dreams ^^ I'll do my best and maybe share some progress here :)
Decided to keep it low-key this jam. Just a light, 2D-friendly engine with minimal overhead
Slept, did a workout and came up with an idea. I'll be making a compo game about the struggle of navigating a group of friends to a destination. Think human golf. How is everyone else doing?
Decided to keep it low-key this jam. Just a light, 2D-friendly engine with minimal overhead
I don't know if I ever told y'all, but for most gamejams now I released nightly builds in between development when I think I hit a milestone or when Pizza arrives :grin:
You can check out this page during the weekend to see the latest developments
https://www.wouter52.com/PROJECTS/LD59/NIGHTLY_BUILDS/
At the moment of writing this, there is one build with not much to see. But hey, there is progress! This lil man is waiting for you
We have made the first basic sketch of our game idea!
Quite the opposite actually... there's a building-wide power outage 😐
Stay tuned!
Three or more flags in a row get sent up the flag pole to guide your captain's ship! This is a similar control/placement scheme to my LD55 entry. You can also swap the position of the flags.
So my first thought was, "Hey, how about a cryptographic puzzle game where you decode incoming messages?" And then I threw this together in about an hour and honestly, this is looking amazing already:
I don't know if there's a way to forcibly enable TIC-80's CRT filter (and it doesn't show up in gif recordings), but trust me, this looks even cooler with the filter enabled.
I feel like I'm on a bit of a puzzle kick - this will my third Ludum Dare entry in a row that could be described as a puzzle game - but it's at least different, and has scope to include a plot of some kind that I'm still mulling over. For now, I'm gonna see if I can get started on the Vigenere decipherer, because that feels like it'll be much more of a pain to implement. (And yes, there will be puzzles where you'll have to use a Caesar and Vigenere cipher in combination, and possibly even a third cipher type, because I'm evil.)
You will have buddies to your left and right with bombs! You can use these to clear the board of flags you don't want (not in yet...) and they will also hold onto flags for a little while. It's kind of like a combination hold/mistake-fix mechanic
Hey there!
After quite some time spent on doing life stuff and brainstorming ideas, I finally got an idea that I feel comfortable with doing. And I feel it may work! So fingers crossed 😅.
Good luck to you all! I can't wait to check out what you thought of this LD!
It’s wonderful to have a girlfriend who supports you during these crazy sprints!
Wishing everyone a great mood!
making a game I wanted to make for a long time https://twitch.tv/alexrosegames
I've done a little bit. Only really have the player moving and a working gun script, and designs for 3 enemies. The plot for my game is an alien race has sent a signal to Earth threatening war, and after failed peace talks and miscommunication, send alien warriors down to fight. A top ranking soldier is sent to kill the aliens that have been sent down. This is the first jam where I've thought of a good idea, and my first 2D game, so I'll see how it goes.
Only thing left is to turn this into a game
We've decided already but your help will be welcoming!
Night Sky and Basic Lighting Done
I've been occasionally fooling around with software-defined radios (SDR).
Considering the theme I thought I'd provide a few useful links for anyone willing to try out perhaps for inspiration or general interest. :signal_strength: :radio:
http://rx.linkfanel.net/
http://KiwiSDR.com
https://ve3sun.com/
If you comes across some catchy oriental tunes or clandestine governmental intel, act accordingly!
Here's another fun tidbit.
It just happens that yesterday you could read from the news that my country's air-force conscripts were expressing themselves in quite a creative way.
I don't know whether to construe this as as a signal of distress or delight! These works of art could be observed in Flightradar24.
It's quite amazing that nowadays even ordinary folk can observe almost all aircraft going about. The other day I was looking into the standardized tech which makes it possible. Fascinating stuff!
When looking into the underlying definitions of SIGNALS, I bumped into this schematic in Wikipedia's article about signal processing.
I can't quite articulate why I'm inspired by it. But I might try to cook up something surreal but slightly going along these lines... Another angle I like would be to focus on biological or "organic" signals found all over the natural world.
Since I'm quite low on energy there's a real chance that I might have to settle with only devising ideas and concepts. But I'll try to come up with something really simple for the COMPO.
I was reminded of this doodle I made four years ago and managed to dig it up.
Might be I'll use it as a starting point, or might be that I won't!
But yeah. I'll end my collection of thoughts with an appropriate album I haven't listened to in a long time!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FalTc0E-sfk
Prepare your transmitters for full operation!
SIGTERM
,
Hi everyone! Here in Omsk (Siberia) we are gathering to make games for Ludum Dare 59.
Results: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/59/wild-magic-dice/omsk-ludum-gathering-results
In the morning 17 teams pitched their ideas, and hopefully even more will show their games tomorrow so each team could rate the others across categories like gameplay, visuals, music, and "What's is that?" ha-ha.
We always encourage teams to submit to the main jam on the Ludum Dare website, and some have even ranked in the top — we're really proud of them.
Huge thanks to Mike for Ludum Dare! Here in Omsk, we are doing it since the 2012, thus pretty much everyone in the IT community knows about Ludum Dare, because they took part in it back when they were students!
Signals received :smile:
Hello! I have two ideas for this jam 🙂
I’ll go with the first one since it’s simpler, but I think the second has strong potential for later.
First idea:
A goblin keeps bothering us by stealing our flags. The goal is to hold onto your flag until the end of the turn so the command is sent to the army :D
Second idea:
A similar concept, but with 4 players: 2 goblins and 2 flag commanders. The goblins try to steal the enemy’s flags, while the players must defend them.
Time to code it with Pico-8 :-)
Honestly, I think the hardest part is going to be coming up with a way to clue the player in to what the keyword is without telling them outright, so they still have to think of the right one but they're not just guessing blindly. (I've restricted the keyword length to a maximum of eight letters, just to cut down the possibilities a bit.) I did have the idea that there's a voice on the radio guiding you on how to decrypt the messages, so I can sprinkle hints into their dialogue.
I'm gonna break for lunch and have a think about any other cipher methods I could incorporate into the game, because at the pace I'm going I can definitely incorporate more than two.
LOL
I am very happy with how things are coming along! The brown crates interfere with your flag signals, but if you line up 5 in a row they go away!
It's hard to come up with any good ideas this time. But after a few random attempts I finally came up with this. Thinking about some kind of arcade game with air defense? :smile:
Actually, I only made things that break things and the basics
Character design is officially wrapped!!Really happy with how it turned out. Now, time to bring it to life with some animations. Let’s go!
It took me about 6 hours to build the skeleton of the game. This is the first time I feel like I might actually finish a game in 48 hours.
Still a lot of work ahead — pressure, UI, music, SFX, and models.
