I haven't participated since a while now Hoping to have time to actually enjoy the jam :D

It's nice to take a break from work once in a while and enjoy collaborating with different people!

First ludum dare jam - looking forward!!

We got echo twice in round 1, and now déjà vu twice for round 2.

They've got to be doing this on purpose, lol.

Hello everyone. My first LudumDare event had been the 27th - so eleven years ago. Since this LD, I am always with you - two or three times by year. However, for the first time, I will far from home - something like 3000 kilometers from Luxembourg. So I was searching a good place near my hotel because I would like to participate again - as usual. I guess that I found a little spot on the beach - a quiet tavern. I have my old computer, an internet connection (not the best which I have hever seen, but not the least), my own template on GitHub and fresh cocktails. So I can say with confidence that I'm in! I wish you the best. Stay safe and enjoy the next LudumDare. See you later, my dear friends. Bye ++

Hello all

Man have I missed this feeling of excitement and wanted to make something! I think it is 4-5 years ago now since I last made anything for a Ludum Dare due to having no excess energi to do side project, stress and mental issues. But at lass this time I felt a bit more energized. It is just such a shame I was hit with Covid last weekend and now I am seriously doubting in my self again as all I want is sleep every 4 hours, such a shame it had to hit when i did, but hopefully come Friday I'll feel renewed!

If anyone have some great tricks or miracle cures against covid I'd be happy to hear them.

I'm back after a 6 years hiatus, my last one was Ludum Dare 43 in 2018. Have managed to always either be double booked or just remembering that its coming up about a week after the jam. But now me an two buddies are in, and I'm super excited to finally be back in a game jam.

Would be nice to make something about a pig on a salvaged ship, and pig aren't supposed to be there, and at first it consumes, but then transcends and can directly absorb food to fight limited energy caused by some pig parasite...

Greetings!

I really wanna make a boss, along with my usual story tomfoolery, not sure I can get it done in the 48 hours compo (really can't afford to go into Jam this time) but I'm really hopeful!

Now for some engagement have you guys made any bosses for a LD? how did it turn out?

I can't believe this will be my 8th Ludum Dare! Every edition is a challenge (3 failed attempts so far: LD 33, LD 36, LD 50) and a blast, and I’m feeling super excited to dive in again. Although, I’ll admit—I feel a bit rusty after some time off. To prepare, I’ve been revisiting my old entries and cleaning up everything to make sure they’re still playable and ready for anyone who wants to try them out.

For those interested, I am in the process of creating my website, and for the first content I’ve made a dedicated page for each of my previous Ludum Dare games. If you have a moment, I’d love for you to check them out! Play them again, leave feedback, and maybe even star the repositories if you liked them! 🌟 (Ok, I am fishing for stars)

Since I’m also a researcher, I decided to take the extra step of making my projects citable (adding a CITATION.cff to the repositories, and creating a DOI)—just a fun experiment in making software more referencable!. Feedback on the site and games would be super appreciated since it’s brand new.

Can’t wait to see what we all create this time, the review phase is one of my favorite part of Ludum Dare (drop your name if you plan to make game that I can play on a Macbook (web-based mostly))!

Good Jam Everyone! 🎮👾

I'm itching to get started. Missed April by a few days. Last year I came pretty close to getting something published, but decided it ultimately wasn't very fun. I want to give it another go, and so far I'm liking the possibilities in these themes.

I've entered 30 Ludum Dares so far (my first was 24, I skipped 25-26, and have been part of every LD from 27 onward). The problem is, I recently started a YouTube series called Dice Dev, and I'm working on finishing up the 2nd episode currently. With how busy things are, I'm trying to decide if maybe 30 LD's are enough and I'm done with LD now, or if I should still try to enter another one.

Alternatively, if anyone needs a composer/game designer to join their team, I could still participate that way. (Preference to teams that have had some LD experience in the past.)

I'm super pumped to be diving back into Ludum Dare with my two awesome friends! We’ve really hit our stride working together—team synergy, anyone? The time zones are aligning nicely so we can have someone coding and crushing it practically around the clock! We tried this approach last time, and it worked out amazing—total game dev magic.

Last Ludum Dare pushed me out of my comfort zone a bit (okay, a lot), but the end result was something I was incredibly proud of. It just goes to show that pushing boundaries is where the real growth happens!

This will be my fourth Ludum Dare. So far, I’ve made “asteroids with a twist,” “space—err, seagull invaders,” and a visual novel with multiple endings! I'm equal parts nervous and hyped to see what we’ll bring to life in 72 hours of Godot magic this time around!

Now, let’s hear from the amazing team members who are jumping back in to share this adventure!

First up, a word from our Graphics & Sound Wizard:

Wise words from Bizzybee! Employing the KISS principle I have found to be very helpful as well.

Next we will have words from fellow programmer, Ludum Dare veteran and best friend of NamedMoose:

We’re steering away from visual novels and text-based games this time. Time to explore a whole new side of Godot!

So here we are, a diverse, multinational team ready to create something unforgettable and, of course, to play through all of your incredible creations too!

Good luck, everyone! Let’s make this Ludum Dare legendary!

Reposting

Hey All :wave:

Please for the Love of all that is fun, please won't you vote for Orbiting please please please

I have a special attachment to this theme - A, I think I suggested it and B, I've written two Space Based games with Orbital mechanics in previous LD events (See my games, Orbitum Scaterum)

1. https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/orbitum-scaterum
2. https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/this-will-be-awesome

I would love, love love love to have another try at Orbitum Scaterum

Since the last LD I invested time in learning Web Assembly, more math, more art and generally just more skills. And I feel like I'm so close to being able to make a really good Orbital game.

If you don't like space, but are still willing to vote for the theme, here are some ideas how the word can relate to other systems:

Orbiting Themes

• Chemistry - Atoms have orbitals
• Social networking - People have following Orbiting them
• Jump games, can you get to Orbit?
• Platformers - Can you get to the center of an orbiting puzzle (Map rotates around a central point)
• Cars - Have orbiting defenses that can attack or block other vehicles
• Eating - Can you feed the bunny until it gets so big and heavy that it becomes a black hole?

I know it's a stretch to ask people to vote for a theme, but please :pray:

Will be doing the compo as usual, using my custom engine, GLOV.js, and probably 1BITDRAGON for audio again.

Also, did I mention I've got some big news! A full and expanded version of my LD54 entry is coming to Steam as QuantumPulse 2A. If you didn't get a chance to play it during the jam (or did, and want more content!), add it to your wishlist now!

(then forget u were gonna post about it until 0123412)

We're only two days away from the jam... 1day 21hrs, but it's Wednesday here so 2 days, and I'm starting to get excited, I've spent the past 2 years developing my first releasable game, and it all started with Ludum Dare, I had an idea and started working on it but really had no where to go with it, so i took a break from tutorials and trials and worked on my first jam game "rain, sleet, Zombies" the theme was delivery, you had to take a cure for a zombie virus to the other side of town as a mail carrier.

after that things really started to develop for my game, I was able to do more and understood how the engine worked, how animations worked, texturing was still beyond me lol, when the next jam came about I dove head first, spent the day before completely clearing my desk, nuked my "office" clean and ensured I had my generic scripts set up, audio manager, and movement controller.

What came out of that is actually a very solid base for it's own game that I will eventually get back to and finish, but after that things were on fire I had more than a prototype working the game was finally starting to feel like a playable game, bugs galore however and I ended up taking a 6 month break due to not understanding saving to Json or any other system.

weirdly enough my team at work has these "action weeks" where you can do whatever you want so long as it develops a skill you use in work, or improves a system for work, being a game company I set out to treat it like a jam, spent 3 of the 5 days studying tutorials and learning all I could from Udemy, and then spent 2 days making a game, at this point im 1 1/2 years if not a bit more into actually developing my own game so my confidence was pretty high, i burnt out a prototype in a couple hours then started working on the actual game, threw in a giant floating eye ball enemy with particle effects and animation and 3D sounds so you can hear them coming, it was super cool.

my team was pretty impressed that I was able to make something like that in such a short time, and i realized then just how far I had come from "Rain Sleet, Zombies", I figured out Json saving not long after and have been developing nonstop on my main game.

and here we are again, another Ludum Dare, another Jam for me to learn and develop my skills, I'm getting very excited to see what I can come up with and what everyone else will be able to create.

so let's get excited, we're only 2 days out from the jam.

We are back! Woo woo! :train:

Also, happy spooky month! We're finally doing an October event in October! :ghost:

Please excuse the mess, any little glitches you may notice here and on https://ludumdare.com. :sweat:

Final Round Theme Voting

Is that an echo I hear? Perhaps I'm having deja vu?

Final Round Theme Voting has kicked off! Cast your votes here:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/theme

Invitation code

If you're new and you don't yet have an account, use the activation code Welcome2LD56 during sign-up. Join us! :smile:

Upcoming events

Dates for Ludum Dare 57 (April 2025) and 58 (October 2025) to be announced soon. :trophy:

Hey Mike! What's up? How's it going?

Hi uh, hello! :sweat_smile:

As some folks know I started a company a couple years back (Interactive Snacks Limited), then pivoted that company into something focused on supporting Ludum Dare, all in an attempt to make running things a bit more sustainable. This was during the early COVID-19 lockdowns, some months after I left my previous job at "Tiny Titan Studios". At the time I'd intended to "get out" of video game development, but when all of my work leads started drying up due to impending lockdowns, it made sense to me to just "do my own thing" in lieu of finding a stable paycheck.

Reaching a point where we would officially accept sponsorships was so incredibly nerve wracking, we'd gone nearly 20 years without it, keeping the lights on via the generous support from my Patreon backers and Paypal donors. Special nod to Tom Fulp and Markus for their especially generous contributions. :heart:

Nerves be damned, we finally did it! Ludum Dare accepted its first sponsors for the October 2022 event! :fireworks:

Lifestyle wise this was a big deal, as the company could now offer my wife and I (my fiance at the time) health benefits. Not to bore you with politics, but in Canada, while it's true we have "universal healthcare", dental and many medications do still need to be paid for out of pocket. There's often talk about widening the benefits offered to Canadians, but these things move at the speed of politics, so the average Canadian is in a better place with additional health coverage (AKA benefits).

Now that I was effectively paying for benefits (well, the company was paying for them), I felt obligated to use them. Most importantly my wife pushed me to seek treatment for my ADHD, among other things. In hindsight, I only regret not doing it sooner. :sweat_smile:

How am I doing? Mental health wise today, really great, but that's an even longer story. :slight_smile:

What's not doing well however is the company, and honestly that's okay.

Frankly I'm awful at asking for money. Despite it being obvious to some, I struggle to see what I do here as "worth paying to sponsor", so I feel super uncomfortable reaching out to companies. Of course I've done it a few times, successfully I might add, but I die a little inside every time I do it. I tell myself that once I fix items X, Y, and Z from the infinite todo-list, that I'll feel better about it, but I forgot about item "W" and I need to drop everything and focus on that. :sweat:

I make stuff, and I'm happiest when I'm making. If you're a regular, you're probably the same. Doing paperwork and networking is the last thing most of want to spend our time doing.

So earlier in the year, the company ran out of money. This wasn't the fault of anyone but my own. I was extremely unhappy playing the "beg for money game", so I let it happen. I'd never tried it, but funny thing, if you stop paying your bills, things stop working. :sweat_smile:

While I've resolved most of the issues, if you're curious why the Twitch streaming widget in the sidebar is broken, that's why: CloudFlare nuked our DNS configuration once the domain defaulted. Similarly, Ludum Dare's Mastodon server went dark when the credit card payments started bouncing. :sweat:

Luckily, without ever mentioning things with the company were in trouble, GameMaker swooped in and offered us a really easy sponsorship. Not only did I love that they were shaking up their business model, that deal gave us more than enough to pay off the companies outstanding debts. All that's left is to properly shutter the company, gut the mentions and references from the Ludum Dare websites, and to decide what I do next.

Weirdly, there's not really any reason for me to stop running events, so yes Ludum Dare will continue into 2025! I have some tentative dates for our April and October events, but I need to double/triple check them first, and I'm juggling a few different things right now.

One of those things is finding work for myself.

As mentioned I've been looking to "get away" from game development, but to clarify I'm looking to find work outside of the trenches building games. Working in tools/middleware is something I'd be happy to do. That's actually my professional niche anyway: Low level, system and workflow/toolchain development, Linux stuff, etc. Hearing the news that the Godot foundation was hiring, I'll admit that was something we pursued. Alas, it was a tricky situation, as even though I'm interested I'm almost disgustingly overqualified. They honestly do have a fair budget to hire someone, but I'm an elder in these spaces at 44 (sorry for the call-out fellow olds), having jumped from risky venture to risky venture without a financial win, having burned through my savings, that frankly I do need to choose gigs that pay well enough I can save for retirement (buying a house is out of the question now, thanks a lot Ford).

At the moment I'm doing a small graphic design gig for a friend :slight_smile:, one I'm hoping to wrap-up next week so I can get back to applying for interesting jobs as a weirdo overqualified systems nerd. :yum:

So that's where I'm at, why things are a little messy here. :slight_smile:

The fact that so many of you keep coming back, keep sharing your stories and successes warms my heart. It's a thrill and my honour to continue to keep this olde bucket kicking, even if all it does is kick. :blush:

Thanks for reading, and indulging the writer in me once again. :smile:

If you haven't done so already, go vote in the Final Round Theme Vote!! :ballot_box:

PS: My sincerest apologies for the mentions of things like "See Twitter for announcements" and invitation codes spread across the website. The Brazil thing happened a bit too recently, but if you need an invite code code, read above!