Graphics: 308th (4.052 average from 60 ratings) :gift_heart:

Thanks all for the great feedback and ratings. :fourleafclover:

From Ludum Dare 44 to 54 > ( I can't get my old pre ldjam.com data from LD #26 - my first compo was 2013 )

I might actually do an actual release of this one, as I had a ton more ideas I didn't implement that I'd like to.

We put a lot of work in this game, and we want to thank you all for playing and giving feedback. Based on the raintgs and the feedback, we will change thing to launch on Steam, it will need more work, but we hope that we can make a good game, that makes people happy to play!

Here's the difference between the old and new version:

Thank you for all the feedback

I'm quite pleased with the result, but more so with all of the quality feedback I have in the comments.

I'm continuing development of the game and am grateful that Ludum Dare helped facilitate the creation of so many great games!

Cheers,

🎮 Lab Job 🎮

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/the-box-1

The results

Grats all on completing another LD event! We were very pleased with the feedback we got on our game, thanks to all who gave it a go! As always, it feels great if you've hit the top results - but don't dispair if you didn't score as well as you hoped. The rating system can sometimes be skewed or feel unfair, so try to focus on the written feedback if the results have left you disappointed.

The usual

As usual, the community carries LD - and its been a pleasure to see the games of fellow jammers and friends made during the jam! The incentivisation to leave written feedback on games, along with the willingness of the community to do so really makes this jam stand out. Thanks everyone!

A less-fortunate common occurance comes in the form of organisational mishaps. This LD, again, we saw the a few hiccups: lack of pre-jam announcements; untimely voting rounds; results event timing issues. Whilst on the surface they might seem small issues, for those who've been active over the past few years here on LD, its unfortunately the same issues repeating time after time.

I was regretabily blunt in expressing my frustration this time, replying to Mike's tweet saying "the excuses are wearing thin, you're lucky the community is so patient". I've since been blocked by Mike, which is fair enough as he doesn't have to put up with people giving him shit on his personal social media. However, I wanted to at least give a little context so it can be seen that for the last few years I've actually tried giving constructive feedback to improve the jam in a less blunt manner.

LD49 - Results Event Announced - I initally pointed out that it'd be really important to be punctual with things like this, as content-creators would plan/schedule around the event.

LD50 - Discussing Results Event - Positive discussion in comments with replies from Mike regarding ways to improve.

LD51 - Tried to arrange a community keynote - Since they are a tradition of LD but Mike wasn't able to arrange one this time around, tried banding together to provide something for the community. Didn't hear anything from Mike in response to this.

LD51 - Offered help organising - Asked Mike if he needed any help organising the Results event or coordinating things with streamers, but got no response.

LD51 - Large detailed post outlining ongoing issues - I wrote a large amount of feedback regarding the result event and the future of LD events, with a large response from the community but 0 response from Mike.

LD52 - Suggesting a Community Manager - tried drawing attention again to the benefits of having someone help with the organisational side of things.

LD52 - Suggested short-term mods to help with spam - On an announcement post, giving ideas and volunteer to help moderate the spam posts, but no response from Mike.

LD53 - Suggestions for Community Manager/Mod help - I actually got a really good response from Mike for the first part of this, but then no response to my follow up reply which left a lot still unanswered.

So I am not sure I'd say my tweet was warranted, but perhaps people can see how my patience with the organisational side of this jam has worn thin. For more context, This post from last year gives decent summary of the main issues. This LD, we pretty much saw many of the same issues.

The end?

Since my first jam in LD40, the community has really been what drives this jam to be different. I would love to see @pov focus on the COMMUNITY going forward. Things that I think it'd be great for the LD organisers to focus on: - Continue keynotes, reach out to previous winners from the community - Promote community lead projects: The LD Discord, Streamers, Score Chasers competiton - Actively respond and engage with the community via the LD website when they post or comment - Improve punctuality and communication to respect the time and effort of those getting involved

Last LD I was close to quitting, though Mike's explanation in the comments here convinced me to give it another chance. However, I've realised at a certain point the responsibility is on me; I am causing my own frustration if I continue to hope and be disappointed time after time.

As it stands, I don't think I'll be about for next Ludum Dare. I've enjoyed meeting many great folks over the past 6 years though. Perhaps some of us will kick off a bit of a community jam sometime next year if there's an appetite for it - so keep in touch <3 My handle is HonestDanGames on most social media platforms.

Hey I'm streaming the top rated games, I'm excited to have fun with some innovative mechanics, analyse what went right / wrong and also have fun (I mentioned that, right?) I'm late for the LD results stream, but I guess this is kinda like that, see you there!

https://www.twitch.tv/justcamh

*Finished now, see you next LD! :v: *

I'd first like to thank everyone who played and rated my game, seriously really enjoyed reading all the feedback and it's genuinely fun to see people experiment and try to approach the game in different ways.

Things I'd like to reflect on during development is definitely my approach on scoping the game, I probs took on a bit too much on, especially for a Compo game. Even saying that, I believe I achieved a lot that I set out to do at the cost of my weekends sleep :P. I got most of what I wanted out developed and the I believe I got the mood of the game down.

Even saying all that, I basically got no music done for the game and never got to finish my real endings, which feels like I never got to hit the real note I wanted. Pretty sad about all that as I feel like that would've truly completed my game but I'm happy for what I did.

I will say what I find super interesting was I got the MyHouse.wad effect I intended which is super cool, most people didn't see the rest of the game and only saw a partial amount. Genuinely loved seeing the comments try to figure out what the game was hiding.

With that, I've learnt a lot and I'am definitely glad I did this Ludum Dare, took long enough since I was missing prior ones so for this to be my first submission I'm happy!

Feel Free To Check It Out

So first of all... wow.

This is obviously the best I've ever done in Ludum Dare, and probably the best I ever will. Ludum Dare has been an amazing opportunity to grow as a designer and developer, and to catalyze that growth with feedback and exposure to other great games. Thanks to everyone in the community who makes this jam great and keeps me coming back every event!

Now for the postmortem. What went well, and what went poorly?

The good parts

Concept

Innovation has historically been one of my lower scores --- enough so that my postmortems for the last three events (52/53, 51) have all said "next time, I should focus on innovation."

One of the first existing games that came to mind for "Limited Space" was Rush Hour (and the million physical and digital copycats). Turning this into a word game seemed like an interesting spin on the theme, and being selective about the particular words can tell a compelling "story"... such as having to break through an impossible wall that is literally the word "impossible."

Making a playable game early

I had a "playable" version 5-6 hours into the jam:

It didn't look nice, and had some bugs, but it meant I could test a couple levels.

This is usually a good idea for any game jam game, but it's extremely important for puzzle games. If the mechanics in your head don't translate to interesting puzzles, or the design space is very limited, you want to know a few hours into the jam, rather than on the last day after you have finished your art and music and realize you have a very pretty (but not very fun) game. My LD42 game as an example.

In this case, after making the level in the gif, I decided there was an interesting game there. A version of that level ended up in the final game!

Playtesting

Another benefit of frontloading the gameplay portions is that you can collect feedback during the jam!

I'm lucky to have a number of hobby game development friends who are often willing to playtest. Particularly for puzzle games, you are the worst possible playtester. That "easy" or "obvious" puzzle might actually be extremely difficult for someone who didn't make it. And make sure you watch people play, in person or over screenshare --- it helps to see exactly what the player tried, where there attention was, and what you can do to make things easier (or very, very rarely, harder).

For Hope Falters, this usually meant removing "red herrings" --- actions that looked like they could be part of the solution, but were actually not. Such as adding blocks to make it clear that you needed to interact with a particular subset of letters.

This is ambiguous how you're supposed to interact with the words, since you could need any letter in "light"!

While this one helps eliminate red herrings by making it clear you should probably be paying attention to the first two letters.

Music and audio

For some baffling reason I decided to write it in 7/4 time, but people seemed to like it!

Low hanging fruit for extra audio "juice" --- add a slightly different version of the music you switch between contextually. For Hope Falters, I had a "sad" version that played when you didn't have the word "hope" in play, which was identical to the original track but shifted down one octave and with a low-pass filter in Audacity. This makes it sound like it's coming from underwater or something.

I did a similar thing for my LD53 game Holding Out (link) for the music; while you're "on hold" it plays with a high-pass filter, making it sound like it's coming out of a phone speaker rather than being next to your ear.

Could be better

Visual direction

While I'm not unhappy with the final look of the game, the graphics definitely aren't a selling point like some of my previous entries. Then again, I was focusing on gameplay and level design for this event, so I was okay making that compromise.

I borrowed a page from the Claustrowordia playbook here: keep the "word" part fairly simple, and have a character to the side to add some interest. Of course, my game still looks worse, but not everyone can be a superhuman juicemaster like @antti-haavikko.

Scope

I probably could have squeezed a few more levels in there! There were really only three difficult puzzles that made full use of the mechanics, after some introductory ones.

That said, limited scope is generally a good idea for level-based games. You'd rather leave the player wanting more than let them get bored halfway through without seeing that really killer final level.

Fan art

I didn't have a lot of time during play and rate this event, so unfortunately didn't get around to making fan art for the games I played like I have the past few LDs. But it's been awesome to see other people making fan art and other user-generated content and compilations this jam! Especially everyone who took the time to make a custom level for my game:

• @100th-coin
• @frogman
• @jdeedubs
• @alchemic

Conclusion

Thanks again everyone who makes this community what it is! Even without scores and ratings, it's awesome to have an opportunity like this a couple times a year to make something you're proud of and share it with the world.

Cheers, and see you for Ludum Dare 55!

The rankings for LD54 compo are out. Here are my results:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/gap-dango-shooter

!?!? WTF?

• Audio category: 2nd place (very happy)
• Theme category: 30th place (also very happy)

I received much better feedback than I expected, and I am so grateful!

Although I recognized some challenges with the game's fun factor (and Overall score), I believe it's mainly because I haven't fully mastered the Godot Engine yet. I think I can make it even more interesting in the future!

So, next time, I want to produce even better game, music, and theme! Thank you, Ludum Dare!!

We're so happy you liked Crime Critters! We were worried that as a co-op game, we wouldn't be able to resonate with enough people, many who were playing solo in their spare time. I'm glad that you guys enjoyed robbing the British museum with us :)

If you want to follow our progress as we work to turn a jam game into a full fledged release, you can follow us here

Instagram Xitter

well, it is my first time. So gg no re. Next time, I should do better and better preparation. Anyway, I am gonna continue do my other project. Or improving my artstyle Or focusing on my life. Until next time (not next LD), I am gonna take it easy. And no, I am not going black out forever. I am still playing online games and using discord. :))))

We were really proud of this game and it looks like the players liked it, too! Well done @tegantiu and @lenny-rudeberg

Before I start, I want to say: THANK YOU!

I put a lot of the 48 hours into making Spectra play and feel as good as possible, and getting rewarded 13th out of 400 or so compo games for fun is so cool! I'm not sure I really deserve it since the standard of competition was so high, but regardless: THANK YOU!

But enough about that, let's make a postmortem - because I think there are some lessons for me, and you can learn from my mistakes.

The Good

Colour!

The game is colourful!

When I sat down to start working on the jam, I hadn't spent any time coming up with ideas in advance (this is probably a mistake!). When the theme was announced, I spent about 30 seconds coming up with something, but immediately got distracted looking at my other LD game. That had a dark colour theme with one or bright spots of colour, and I thought: "I don't want to do the same thing again. What's the complete opposite of darkness?"

A rainbow!

And with that, I started working on the game. I used a shader and began tweaking and rerunning the game to get the look close to where I wanted. This took a lot of running and rerunning the game. Maybe over 20 times, plus the shader didn't work initially.

Although I wasn't able to spend the full two days on the game (it was more like 0.5 days on one day, and a full workday on the second day), and the first 0.5 days was spent on the background, and the shape effects, which was the second idea I had for the game. I found a calculator online that could spit out co-ordinates for polygons on a grid, which helped, but these lines all needed adjusting and testing (and retesting).

The biggest problem was that when transitioning between shapes, the lines could cross over each other. This started shoving enemies and the player around randomly and throwing them off-screen! I ended up cutting some shapes where this was a problem, and adding some special rules to slow some shapes down, which helped.

All this tweaking and changing the look and the shape effects took about half a day. When I sat down on the second and final day, I realized: "oh yeah, this is supposed to be a game, right?!"

At this point development became very frantic.

The Boss

I started throwing in enemies, playing and replaying the game until I was happy with it. Surprisingly for me, some elements like the enemy and player movement speed and shooting speed/rate barely needed changing. I just typed in what I thought would work, and it did! Working in such a tight resolution helped, but also I have made several games with shooting elements before, so I knew exactly how I wanted everything to work.

The biggest tip I wish I would've known when starting to make games is this: make the resolution of your game the smallest it can be, but no smaller. It makes making art so much faster, it makes balancing so much easier, everything just works better at a smaller resolution. Does it work for every art style? No. But if it works for the one you're using, then crank down that resolution!

After adding two enemy types, reworking their graphics and spawn patterns several times, I was happy with them, but time was running out and I was worried.

The game was fast and fluid, it felt good, but it was too repetitive. I had two enemy types and a power-up, but people had seen stuff like that before and I got really worried people would be bored. I looked at the clock and realized I had two hours to finish everything. No time for anything new.

Immediately my sleep-deprived mind asked me a single question: "do you think you could add a boss?"

I knew exactly how to add it if I had a day or so, but I was paralyzed. I didn't want to run out of time and break the game trying to add this. All the previous enemies worked totally different to a boss, after all, so could I do it?

I jumped into it head first, furiously coding and tabbing through GameMaker, reworking stuff, changing inheritance, adding health, changing hit effects. This was probably the most intense period of game development I've ever done, and the fastest I've ever worked.

When I looked at the clock I was shocked, it only took me like 20 minutes to get it working in a janky way, where it had health and it's attacks weren't too overwhelming. At that point I knew I could include it, it just had to be spawned in the right place. Sorting out where the boss and power-ups would go in the round order needed further tweaking, but I was so, so happy to get it in and working. When someone kindly complimented that it had a boss, I felt like that work really paid off!

Polish

This time for me, polishing was all about the background colours, the shape movements, and the enemy spawn-in visual effect. The moment I started making an arena shooter with claustrophobic movement, I realize I had a problem: how can I prevent the enemy spawning on top of the player and instantly killing them?

Polishing this aspect I came up with the idea of enemies quickly growing from the flashing light into their final form, which worked pretty well! I think in jams, it's really easy to focus on the drawing parameters that are easiest to work with: scaling, rotating, blending, and alpha. And remember, you can (and should try to) polish all you can in your game: hit effects, screenshake, transitions, anything at all!

The Bad

Too shaky!

I knew I had to add as much polish as possible, but when adding screenshake, something just didn't feel right. I ended up scrapping the system I'd come up with, and frantically threw something in there, right near the end. People called me out for the screenshake being a little too much, and I agree. It can be a little headache inducing.

Movement bugs

Because the lines can be drawn at a very specific angle, and because my movement code was pretty basic, sometimes you can get stuck on the lines that make up the border of the game. That's no good!

Fixing both of these issues was actually trivial, and if I'd had a few hours away from the game near the end, I would've recognized and fixed them immediately. This is a lesson learned: if you add something big near the deadline, like screenshake, you can't be mad when you don't notice that it has a few rough edges.

The Ugly

Where's the audio?

This is unfair, but I almost always leave audio to the last possible moment. And this time was no different.

When I tried adding audio I quickly realized I didn't have enough time, and figured it was better to have no sounds rather than one or two crappy ones. And while I think that decision was the right one, it definitely hurt the game.

So my lesson for next time is this: fully clear the 48 hours. That would give me and extra 12 hours at least to work on the game. At that point, I would have time for audio.

For music, this experience has pushed me into learning how to make electronic music. I'm working on first techno track at the moment, and I'm liking learning Ableton.

For sound effects though, I'm struggling. My issue isn't learning how to use the software, it's on coming up with sounds that fit the "mood" of the game. And most painfully of all, coming up with sounds that when they repeat, don't become incredibly annoying.

Does anyone have any tips? Any help is appreciated.

Conclusion

So my lessons learned are:

• Make extra time for audio + get some additional audio skills
• Try to implement stuff that will need tweaking earlier (screen shake)
• Try to take an hour or so away from the game near the end, so you come back and spot obvious problems
• Keep up with the heavy polishing + play testing
• Keep practicing!

Those are my obvious lessons learned. But next time, after making two low-res crunchy pixel games about shooting, I want to branch out and do something a bit weirder. I did notice my scores were lower for innovation, and I think that is totally fair. I don't think I will score as highly for fun or overall next time, but hopefully I can come up with something more innovative.

Thanks for the fun LD, everyone! I will hopefully see you all next time!

I’m very proud, it’s the first time I’ve scored this high in a jam and even it two categories!

Well, as expected of a visual novel or a story-heavy game, the results are pretty... acceptable.

And regarding certain critiques, I've indeed addressed them for the next version, version 1.0, which I've just completed and submitted for Game Jam Plus. The link is the same, so enjoy the full story and its epic conclusion!

https://dagitabsoft.itch.io/occhiolism

Until next year, folks.

Congrats @tegantiu and @human-writes-code job well done!

It's the end of the ludum, we're super happy with our result, especially compared to the number of votes. We talk about it in more detail at the end of the devlog We didn't expect such a good result (we were aiming for 300-400), we played the game more for ourselves than for Ludum We really had a blast, we continue to add content, we work on lots and lots of things (A little key art and a steam page are coming) The community is incredibly caring, can't wait to do the next Ludum ! <3

Thank you, a big thank you to everyone who played, it made us so happy to read all your comments <3 :3

Our goal is to bring the game until February, to release it in early access, we are working to release updates !

Thanks to everyone who helps us <3 We're going to need your help to wishlist the game <3 Objective to advance like never before on the game, the game will be on Steam and itchio

561 players have play our game <3 <3

The game ends at wave 20 ! With a boss

You can drop your com, your like obviously to help us, give us feedback on the #tchat-en Give us feedback on the weapons you will use, the characters, the items

https://alexkail.itch.io/gacha-fever/devlog/624180/v016-22102023

You can join us on discord or follow me on twitter to follow the progress, we plan to launch updates regularly. Discord : https://discord.gg/24sKcfSg2M Twitter : https://twitter.com/Starxiss

Thank youuu <3

The results are in and... my game is pretty average. For a one day build I'm really happy with that.

The thing I got the most comments on were the controls. They are set at a 45 degree angle to the camera. I know it's not a common control scheme, so I'm not entirely surprised by that. I think it's more common in isometric games where everything is very square.

Anyway, the one surprise for me is that the mood score was my highest score. I set out to create a nice chill atmosphere, and I achieved that. I'm glad it worked out.

Now I definitely need to learn a bit more coding before trying this again. I would love to make something a bit better than average next time.