This is going to be a bit of a funny Ludum Dare for me. January 6th, when it kicks off, is also my birthday, and suffice it to say I don't really feel that enthusiastic about game jamming on my birthday. I've also been struggling with various personal problems recently, that have left me a little burned out and prevented me from doing as much game dev work as I'd like to.

On the other hand, with the festive period over, this could be a perfect opportunity to shake the rust off and get back into the swing of things. So I have signed myself up, I will spend Friday evening planning, and I will try to produce something over the following weekend, but I can make no promises this time round.

If I do release something, then as always, I'll be using either PICO-8 or TIC-80. Good luck to everyone!

I know this is just my opinion and I respect everyone's choice..

but damn, I didn't expect most of these themes to make it to the final round, while almost all the ones that I though had great potential are just.. gone, really not satisfied with the results

I'll be joining this one for sure!

It's gonna be the first time using pico-8 so we'll see how this goes.

Hope to see some great games out there...

Go make a game!

Hey All,

Red Owl Games is back again for LDJAM! We are a husband and wife team who love to make co-op games together to play together. Checkout some of our previous co-op works here - https://redowlgames.com/projects/

We are really looking forward to this January jam and hope you all are too! As usual, here is our LD splash screen (using the wonderful font from @pov - https://github.com/mikekasprzak/font-ludum-dairy) which you can use for your games too. We look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with and hope you will checkout what co-op game we come up with this time.

Hi, I'm in for the compo. Tried a few times, didn't make it to the finish line, but as always going to do my best. Jumped ship from GameMaker to Godot using C#, good luck to all participating!

I'm not particularly musically inclined, however I also am too stubborn to accept adding artwork I have not made into my game.

What is your process? What sort of tools do you use and how long does it take you? If you opt for adding free music, or no music, do tell me how you make it work for your projects!

... besides the usual repeat themes.

🔥Themes I voted for: Salvage Companion Connections Delivery 🤙 Limited visibility❤️

🔥In the present Ludum Dare I really want to do something based on Okinawan (Ryukyuan) culture.

@pikapikachiburu wasdtest.com

This is my second Ludum Dare (first one was 51) and I'm excited to give it another go! I'll be using Unity as my game engine, Aseprite for pixel art, and LMMS for audio.

Here's another LD52 background for ya!

Alright, the obligatory "I'm in" post

Every LD, I just copy my "I'm in" post and post them, no exception this year. I'm not lazy, just reusing "code".

Setup

• Haxe/Heaps
• Base Library / Template
• Aseprite for graphics
• ChipTone for sound effects.
• Beepbox for music ???

Tips/Advice

As usual, tips for new jammers.

1. You have 48 hours (72 for Jam), but in reality you only have about 20 hours.
2. Despite having only 20 hours, spend 1 to 2 hours planning and thinking out what you want to do. It is worse when you realised your idea is a bad one a few hours into development.
3. Plan out your scope and cut it by half. At the end of the first day, cut whatever is left by half again. (If are new, you might want to cut it by 75%).
4. Identify your MVP, and beeline to a it ASAP. It is more satisfying to add to something playable, than to just blindly stare at code. Ideally by the end of the first day, you should have the core loop finished; core loop being menu -> game -> gameover/victory.
5. Spend your last 2-3 hours playing the game, fixing bugs and balancing instead of adding more features.
6. Don't make your game too hard. Most people will give up after 5 minutes.
7. If you can, have a browser build. It is easier for people to try your game, and it will have less issues.

My Plan

This time round I have a few ideas that I want to try, and I hope to at least try one of them in this LD. LD is really the best place for me to build new things outside of my current project so I do hope to get one of the themes that fits some of those ideas :).

Shameless Plug

I launched my first game "Dice Tribes: Ambitions" last year and it is now on sale (as of this writing). If you like dice-worker placement, I think you will like the game :). You can also just try it out for free on my itch page or on Steam while waiting for the jam.

I really hope to finish this one. Already missed the 2 of the 3 previous jams.

Coding

• Unity 2017. I'm transitioning away from Unity in favor of bespoke tech, but for a jam this doesn't really make sense at the moment since my tools aren't nearly in a usable state. I considered Bevy but I'm still too slow when coding with an ECS because of the mindset change. 2017 because newer versions are unusably slow.
• Rider. Still my favorite IDE.

Graphics

• Gimp.
• Blender.
• Inkscape.

Audio

• Reaper. This is new for me as I was using Mixcraft for ~2 years now. I really like Mixcraft's UI and workflow but it is painfully slow and unstable so I'm trying an alternative this time around.

Design/writing

• Obsidian.
• I might ask ChatGPT for help. Not for it to give my ideas, but to help me refine my own.

I would love to see what others voted on as well

Last time it was for "one room" which I kind of cheated on, but this time around, whatever the theme is, I'm going to stick with it! Looking forward to seeing what we all come up with!

but I'm just not meshing with some of these themes. Harvest? Please god no, I don't wanna play 30 farming sims :upside_down:

I do have some good thoughts for a few of these, but if it's something else I'm gonna have a rough start to the jam...

Haven't done a jam in a reeeeally long time. Can't wait for this one :D

• Game-engine: Unity
• Music: Nanostudio2
• Art: Either Blender3d or Pixel Edit (depending on 2D or 3D)
• Code: Visual Studio - C#
• SFX: Tsugi-Studio suite

Cheers, all! :)

I did not attend the LD since LD36!

This WE I'll try a lazy project, around 8h of coding.

C# + Monogame I think.

Definitely joining this time again!

Using Typescript + Phaser and this template for it: https://github.com/mjviljan/phaser-template

But is this really starting earlier than before?

It's showing that there's just 1 day and ~13 hours until the event starts? That's a Friday! It used to be on Saturday very early morning (like 4AM or something) in Finland preiously.

Hi all

I'm going to play & rate your games On YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb1ZRHXYgMRJ9pCQD4gv3lQ

I doesn't happen often that the final themes are actually good. Naturally, I still downvoted some of them, but in general, there wasn't a single theme I hated.

Usually, in most Jams there is at least one technically specific theme like "you live only 10 seconds" or "action platformer" that is too strict and as a developer of story-driven games, I just hate those.