Our side-scrolling rain shooting (?) game is out! Play as a cloud and deliver rain to make people happy :cloud_rain:

You can get the Windows build from the LD site or itch!

LD:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/rain-on-their-parade

itch:

https://moonlightjammers.itch.io/rain-on-their-parade

(The link doesn't seem to be showing up correctly hmmm but you should be able to go directly through clicking the username under the post!)

Kept the scope small and I'm pretty happy with what I got done in the time in-between kids bday parties & family dinners.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb93ztd2ilA

In ​SpaceEats you take on the role of a food delivery person, but in space and with Newtonian physics (think Battlestar / Expanse style movement).

Delicious, but in the end, it is still spaghetti

This is our second game jam as a team and we're so proud of the results! Check us out here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/pizzapocalypse-3 https://mineystudios.itch.io/pizzapocalypse

Fourth LD, second with just me and my partner - we're tired but really happy to have gotten to the finish line.

The code is a mess, but the art is super cute (thanks kinart!) and it's arguably the best game we've made.

Play Hear Ye! (Windows)!

Here goes round 4! It was truly brutal. No clue how our eyes stayed open for so long.

We are really happy with the results and had such a blast! Well done everyone - really looking forward to trying out what everyone came up with :D

Have a good night and rest well. 🛌🏻💤 You deserve it!!! 🙏🏻

I thought I'd see if I could query previous theme voting rounds, and do a bit of analysis on common themes etc.

I managed to create a a quick php script that kicks out a json file ( and a json header? )

Example : https://johnnysix.net/GetThemeByEvent.php?event=42

[ { "round": "Round 1", "id": 528, "node": 139254, "theme": "Space exploration", "compo": "Ludum Dare 44", "slug": "44" }, { "round": "Round 1", "id": 529, "node": 139254, "theme": "Everything has a price", "compo": "Ludum Dare 44", "slug": "44" }]

but the json_decode fails :scream:

I'm new to this, and all the things I've checked say its well formatted, and I've tried manually formatting etc. I'm at a loss :cry:

Hello fine people of Ld forums. I can not offer john wick 3 no virus 720 p hd free movie on Billi Billi. However I can offer you my game. DUNGEON DELIVERY! this is by far overall my best Ld game. granted that is a very small competition. My first ld game was my first game. It was terrible. My second one had a pretty neat gameplay loop which I might touch on later. But this one is polished which I cant say about the others. https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/dungeon-delivery-2 please give my game a try and some feedback would mean the world to me!

* Fresh out of the oven! * Help Pedro to deliver some * Isekai Baguettes *! https://ldj.am/$332281

Pedro is more than a sneaky squirrel that steals birdo food out in the yard.

He can do more than you think!

Some super saiyan skill? * CHECK *

Tired of being chased by BOSS? * TOSS IT AROUND *

Baguette not your taste? * COOK ANOTHER ONE *

Enough baguette delivery? * RIDE IT HOME *

Better yet, we have the game in WebGL build! Play it seamlessly on your browser!

Click me to explore the ISEKAI BAGUETTE DELIVERY KING

"Deliver or Die": My Second Ludum Dare Game Jam Experience

My game for this year's Ludum Dare is called "Deliver or Die." In this fast-paced action game, players take on the role of a delivery person in a dangerous post-apocalyptic world. The objective is to deliver packages to target locations while battling zombies and upgrading skills to keep up with the increasing difficulty. It's an adrenaline-pumping game that keeps players on their toes from start to finish.

Based on my experience in the last Ludum Dare game jam, I focused more on making the game immersive and user-friendly this time. I wanted to make sure that players were drawn into the game from the very beginning and that the gameplay was easy to understand and engaging.

We did it! We finished it. And we are pretty sure it works. This was my first time designing a puzzle game, so feedback will be much appreciated. I made quite a couple levels, and with the help of the team they work and look pretty nice. Let me know if you managed to collect all the golden stamps. I hope I found the optimal solutions for all the levels haha.

Check out the game at https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/rawnhill-post :heart:

This is our game about Cat Delivery

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/cat-delivery

Hope u enjoy it :)

Yay, we did it, we did it! :)

Super proud if this although of course we couldn't even finish half of what we wanted, haha :)

If you want to command little walrusses to do your mail related bidding, don't hesitate to drop by!

Will play and rate in return >:3 (I'm not angry or something, this is supposed to be a walrus!)

How about some ant'ertainment?

my game Tower Def'Ants is more or less finished! Please let me know what you think 🙏

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/tower-def-ants

This is our second game jam as a team! We always wanted to make a visual novel game, so here it is. Check out the game here and please give a rating: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/delivering-justice!!

This was my first Ludum Dare, and I glad I got to work with so many friends on it! I'm super happy with how it turned out, and I'm proud of everyone on the team.
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/$352235!

It works. I bite more that i could chew. Head is exploding. First time making 3d Game btw. Controls super nice (best with gamepad, but wasd works too). Wish i could: -finish placeholder assets -write main theme -made more 3d assets -build more engaging level

I think i'll continue this project into EXTRA category. I will think tomorrow, today i'm too tired. Good luck, everyone!

We're almost done making the game, just have to fix the bugs

I couldn't resist the pun and made a knight-themed strip game. I'm not sorry.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/tattered-tunics

It's a meditative game about spreading your garden over the wind! Gather resources with your plants to grow more and more, until you can reach the fertile lands that were promised!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/wind-garden

This is the story of why I almost FAILED the Game Jam (after dozens of successful jams)...

But first of all:

Hi! I'm Guilherme, the dev behind the game Mead War Valhalla. I'll not talk about what is the game or how it looks in this post (but you can check my profile and play it if you want! I'll appreciate it a lot!

My goal with this post it to explain the almost "half of the jam FAILURE" in the screenshot.

In the image, you can see the today tome spent on each day, plus a failure time (that I removed from the days. But if you want the accurate work hours number:

• Saturday: 9h 54min
• Sunday: 6h 45min
• Monday: 10h 49min

(If you're curious on how I know those numbers: it's because I recorded everything to make a timelapse later!)

SO what's up with the first 12 hours?

If you know me (you probably don't, but that's fine), you know that I'm a game developer, but also a Game Engine dev (yes, I make engines!) and I do have a "big 3D engine project" called Cave Engine, that is basically done already (you can download it on itch io, make an entire game using it, export and sell it for Windows). But I'm weird and had the brilliant idea to write a new one from scratch this month. The goal for this new one was to allow WebGL export (I really want my next Ludum Dare games to be browser based) and also for me to write THE ENTIRE THING myself.

Let me explain: I did write the entire thing myself in Cave (my big engine that is basically finished already), but I used libraries such as SDL2 (for OS stuff), glm (for math) and Bullet Physics (physics engine). And I wanted to make a new one with no libraries (other than the native ones, of course).

And I did!

If you go to my profile right now and check the pre jam posts, you'll see it.

So what went wrong?

Due to time, I was only able to finish the basics of the engine (3d rendering with shadows and frame buffers, math, OS windows, event handling and VERY basic collision detection and resolution (ish).

In my mind, that was going to be enough to make the game using it... Specially if I managed to create a small project...

But I was wrong...

And only realized that 12+ hours in! :smile:

For you to understand it a bit better: When the jam started, my new engine didn't even had a proper "main loop" (it was hardcored in main) and no Asset manager system. Meaning that I would have to write them all DURING THE JAM

And don't get me wrong: I'm fairly good at writing those things fast... but I think that this time I underestimated (a lot) how fast I was going to be able to write them.

Well, after those 12 hours, *I actually had ALL those needed systems done... *

But still, when I reached the 12+ hour mark, I decided to abandon the engine and create the game in a software that I'm used to it (and I decided to go with UPBGE, I will explain why in a moment).

And why did I still "gave up"?

The thing is that I was already tired af... and engine development is something that always requires testing and being ready for things "now working" when you are not expecting it to break. That's why making a "solid" engine takes years (it took me years to make Cave, I've been creating it since around 2016). And I realized that if I kept going with it, I would, probably, finish the game...

But it would be a VERY mediocre game...

Since I would have to spend MOST of the time writting engine stuff abd very little making the project itself.

I knew that from the beginning, that's why I planned a simple project (proof of it is that I managed to remade the entire game + make it 10 times better in less than half of the jam time).

But Ludum Dare is only ~3 times a year...

And I really like this event! (thank you all involved!)

So I decided to leave this engine game to another time, and focus on making a great game with the few hours left.

And why UPBGE instead of Cave Engine?

If you don't know UPBGE, it is a Folk of the good old Blender Game Engine (present in Blender until v2.79). And there is something about this engine (other than my 14+ years of experience using it :smile: ) that makes me develop VERY fast with it (more than with ANY other tool: It allows me to model, texture, animate and do everything else all in the same software (with a very fast process).

So due to my short amount of time left...

I decided to use it!

And it worked out great!

Exactly 1 minute and 26 seconds before the JAM deadline, I published the final release of the game!

Made with love, for an event that I really enjoy!

And here is a screenshot of it:

But as I promised in this post, I'll not talk about the game itself. But if you want, feel free to check it out in my profile (links are disabled in posts due to the spam issue, so I can't post it here atm).

Anyways...

That was my postmortem!

Thank you for reading it!

And good night!

We managed to make our game - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/sheggy-rush

Please leave a comment if you like it!

Hello everyone, and congratulations on the ~~survival~~ completion of Ludum Dare! My team and I finally completed our game, The Blind Pig.

Set in the 1920's, you're a waiter at a speakeasy trying to sniff out an undercover cop trying to take your business down!

If you feel so inclined, please give the game a play. We hope you like it!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/the-blind-pig

First time writing a game for Ludum Dare! Given the time frame it's really just a game idea prototype, but all the elements (except sound or progression) are there!! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/dronazon

you can play PaperDrone here https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/$362261

After trying to create 3 different game, I finally got the idea that lead to this turn-based game in which you are a very important messenger delivering a unique peace message between 2 factions who have been at war for way too long.

I hope that you will enjoy !

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/the-delivery-of-the-messenger

We finished building the game and are ready to show it to you!!! We're all tired and sleepy, so we'll meet up in the morning!

This is my first ludam dare, so it may not be as impressive as the other games here, but please give my game a chance :)

https://ott3rkid.itch.io/rush-hour

I have a working highscore board if you want to try your hand at getting 1st place! (Feel free to post screenshots too!)

Please give my game a try. I have never built a simulation game before so I am looking for some feedback on it.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/carriers

During World War I and World War II, carrier pigeons were used to transport messages back to their home coop behind the lines. When they landed, wires in the coop would sound a bell or buzzer and a soldier of the Signal Corps would know a message had arrived. The soldier would go to the coop, remove the message from the canister, and send it to its destination by telegraph, field phone, or personal messenger.

This is a pigeon message delivery simulator. Your goal is to reach 100% influence by getting paid to complete contracts with your carrier pigeons. If you take too long to accept a contract it will expire which will negatively impact your influence. There is a good chance that your pigeons will not survive the trip back, which will also negatively impact your influence. Successful deliver will have a positive influence.

You must also manage the resources in the game by keep track of the total number of pigeons you have as well as making sure they have enough food and shelter. Even though the population will increase slowly, it is easier to purchase additional pigeons in the shop if you need some to fulfill a contract. The shop will also let you purchase additional coops and lofts for your brood to expand. Don't forget to buy more food while you are there too.

I hope you have fun playing.

This is the second time we participated LD GAME JAM!!! We believed we did better at this time. Welcome to play our game and leave comments:)

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/lonely-train

We've made a cute game about little postmen delivering letters. Come check it out! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/postal-town

I mean, the title says it all: "Drifting Trailer".

You just drive a mustang with a trailer hooked up and... drift ! Also you need to deliver your cargo.

Check it out here : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/drifting-trailer

WE DID IT

Finally we managed to publish our game and I want to thank all our team! It's a game made for those who enjoy platform games and for those who like speedrun too. I hope you play and have fun! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/pack-it-up

Our immersive synthwave capitalism simulator is available now! Check it out!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/untitled-frabjous-game

Meet your new boss! As a Bankwave employee you'll exercise the highest standards of service for our loyal customers.

We know you'll fit right in with the Bankwave family.

We finally finished our game! (with a few bugs >.<)

Congratulations to everyone that participated and hope we can all enjoy each other's games!!

One small puppy must deliver a ball back to his human, so that they can continue to play together. Link: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/one-small-puppy

Why, he's gonna be a father!!!

Celebrate with him and his family here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/dr-orcas-delivery

Another project in the bag! We apologize in advance for any trauma you may experience playing it.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/mouth-feel

Looking forward to playing entries soon! :pointright: :cowboy: :pointright:

This game jam of LD 53 was amazing and after a year, I am doing a jam!! First when the theme came and still didn't get any ideas, I though of I am not making!!

But my parents gave a small hint of idea and i carried on it to the game of cyberpunk city where you have to deliver foods to the robots with a lot of enemies!!!

So.... Just my game and All the best for your games also The game :

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/delivery-dash-1

I submitted my first Ludum Dare game to the Jam just a few minutes ago. It's less finished than I expected 5 hours ago, more finished than I expected 72 hours ago, and a trillion times more finished than my 11-year-old self could have dreamed of.

Having worked on the same game for 3 years, it was truly a thrill to spend 3 days on a game. It's even more of a thrill to release it, my first! Of course, there were a million more things I wanted to add, but I'm sure by my 5th Ludum Dare, that won't surprise me anymore. Plus, I'm kind of glad I have more work to do on the game.

Excited to play a bunch of games and get some feedback in the next couple weeks!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/a-city-minute

Things got a little hairy at the last minute, but we got everything in just in time! And I must say, I'm really pleased with how this one turned out. As usual, we've got WebGL and Windows/Mac/Linux builds available, so feel free to give it a play!

The porch pirates are tired of being assaulted with glitter bombs, so they've acquired some bombs of their own!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/porch-pirate-panic

Yay, we did it! This is our most productive jam. Rate and leave your feedback :heart: :bat:

• LudumDare

• itch.io

Finished coding literally seconds before the jam period ended, then spent most of the submission hour begging, pleading, bargaining, cajoling, and finally outright threatening Unity to actual build something.

But it's done, with HTML5 and Windows builds. I'd like to think I learned some things from previous jams, particularly in terms of time management and planning. Still need to work on knowing when I've over-scoped for what's possible in the 72 hours, had to do some rescopong in the last few hours, when I should've done that a lot sooner.

Hoping everyone had fun, now the joy of playing and rating begins :grin: . And if somebody made a Kiki's Delivery Service game, please let me know...

I'm not seeing our game in the list yet, so I'm just making sure I'm whitelisted! In other news please check out our game! :hearteyes: :bird: :loveletter:

Game page is here: https: //ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/love-birds

It was very pleasant to return after quate a while. The experience of jam is challenging and fun at the same time.

At the 3rd final day the game became a some playable piece of software :) And final result is great! The game is fun and engaging. More detailed post will be later ( after a few days I guess )

Can't wait to see your games.You all rock!

You can check our game here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/ice-break-delivery

P.S. Also can you tell how to add links to posts? It's very frustrating

https://www.twitch.tv/littledoctorgames

Come hang out and get some feedback!

A StS-inspired deckbuilding card game. Can you beat the final enemy? https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/30-minutes-or-your-potion-is-free

the metasequel to Every Ten Seconds: jumping ship from my uninspiring game for a bad theme on the end of day 2, to joining @shreemp to help with coding his much better idea - but again failing to completely finish it in time for jam, oops

we've got a WIP mystery novel brewing up in extra, but for now it's just a super short demo lol

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/i-am-the-real-dahlia-verry

So apparently I might not be whitelisted, since I don't think anyone's been seeing my comments. So I guess I have to blog. I knew I wouldn't make compo or jam from my experience with LD52. I never realized how much time kids take up before I had one. Even if you get time, you're exhausted. It's a struggle to force yourself to stay productive, especially for things that aren't really productive (I have trouble convincing myself game jams are productive). Nevertheless, I am in love with my idea and really want to see it executed. So I will be submitting under extra, hopefully before the weekend. I've been trying to play some games whenever I have just a little time. Sneak preview: Comfy/Cozy horror exploration (narrative you're a creepy video dealer)

Then get back at the delivery men by barking and peeing on their packages!

Here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/corgi-cargo-co

This is an all out war against all delivery men!

A game about escorting valuable cargo. https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/buccaneer-mail-co

As a delivery dude, satisfy angry AI powered cute animal customers to maximize your tips money!

Play the Game At Here##

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/$358627

This was my 2nd participation in the Ludum Dare. Like the first time I made a 3D game. Both times as a solo developer. In total I have only made two 3D games so far.

My ambitions for this Ludum Dare were very high, so I had to cut some things (no music and no sound 😰). With only 2 minutes of time left, I was able to finish the Ludum Dare successfully.

Now I can finally test all the games ;)

My Game: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/delivery-dude

I only thinked about this NOW...

LOL

And just in case you don't know what it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pmBjIZ20pE

Hey everyone! This was my first Ludum dare experience and I had such a good time putting a game together! I worked on a cute game where you play as a bird that explores a park collecting words for a love letter :)

It's over!

Glad to have completed another Ludum Dare. We spent a long time trying to decide on a game this go around, which cost us precious time on Friday night. But, still happy with what we managed to complete over the weeknd!

Interested in playing our game? Give it a try here! We're looking forward to seeing what everyone else has submitted.

Did you know that storks are only capable of delivering babies properly with the help of some sick (nursery rhyme) beats? Come help them out in Baby Boom, a rhythm delivery game!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/baby-boom

Page coming up in a bit after I have a quick break.

game link: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/mission-404-delivery

You are a bodyguard, and you need to deliver a high-tech broken robot to the tech company.On the way to the company, there are many challenges waiting for you.

https://youtu.be/HX3W3B1ng

Play on Web HERE

Team Gaivot is back!!…. and with yet another delivery game! (not our fault this time)

Our game is about Jamie, a deliveryman who works for an incompetent delivery company in a remote and cozy small village. The company is very bad at keeping track of its client’s information and is usually only able to provide a general idea of who they are. Your job is to figure out who should be receiving the packages based on the information provided by the company. Due to standard corporate procedures, you will only know if you got the addressees right at the end of the day, via the company’s official complaint report. Based on the number of complaints you get each day, you will get a higher or lower payment, which you can then use to pay your bills and purchase upgrades in between the work days. Will you be able to perform according to corporate expectations? Will you be able to pay your bills and, therefore, be considered a responsible and functional adult? Or will you perish and contribute to raising the country’s unemployment rate?

Here's our submission and a link to the Windows Build.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/the-people-of-the-village https://drive.google.com/file/d/1twYKoAXj0Lo1vhWQ-YXssgLzVqkj92m8/view?usp=sharing

You are a bodyguard whoes mission is to deliver a high-tech broken robot to a tech company. On the way to the company, you will encounter a lot of challenges.Try to do your everything to protect the robot.

game link:https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/mission-404-delivery

Blast Belt is explosive automation factory sim game that challenges you to carefully delivered dangerous packages across conveyer belts.

Link to the Game

Good job to everyone who completed the jam! Looking forward to playing your game!

I've only ever finished a single game before today. It was a small, Java-based platformer/action game that, quite frankly, wasn't terribly interesting or fair. But it was a game I finished and I was proud of it.

Ten years later, I've finished my second game—as part of Ludum Dare, no less! Entering a real, proper game jam is something I've always wanted to do, but never felt like I had the time or skills to do so until (very) recently. So I did!

And let me tell you, Ludum Dare was fun. I had an absolute (mostly) stress-free blast. The theme wasn't what I was expecting (or even wanted), for starters, but it definitely got me thinking about how to deal with it. (Which, I suppose, makes it exactly what I wanted.)

After a relaxed game night with some friends, I set to thinking, and decided to try my hand at a rhythm game. With cardboard boxes. They'd come down a conveyor belt and you'd have to knock them off and into a pair of delivery trucks in sync with the music.

There was a lot of uncertainty around that idea, as I'd never before made a rhythm game, but I didn't have anything else and figured I could keep the scope small enough to be feature complete in two days (leaving one for art and polish).

So I fired up Unreal and got to prototyping.

I had the basics down in about an hour: a track, some notes, and a space bar to hit them.

For keeping time, I went with a sample-based approach. All the notes and graphics are tied to sample positions (44,100 per second, in my case) in the song so no matter what happens, what the framerate is, which direction the song is playing... everything will always be in sync. There is no prediction or beat/note analysis.

Lacking a level editor meant fishing for easy solutions, too. I landed on manually placing each note as a track marker in FL Studio, which I could then choose to export as part of a .wav file, and, in turn, read it into the engine alongside that marker's sample position. It's then an easy matter of then placing everything in the right spots and making sure all the moving parts get fed the right positions.

A bit (lot) tedious, but it got the job done and let me move on to gameplay, and I ended up charting it in sections as I needed breaks from everything else.

Over the course of the rest of the night, I put in the typical placeholder assets and some mouse control to see if this would even be any fun.

...and it was! I spent entirely too long just knocking boxes around.

But I did have a game to finish, so I got back to work and added a couple conveyor belts to carry the boxes into the eventual trucks and hit accuracy windows (and associated text). Some particle effects did a great job at conveying the accuracy of the hit—so much so that I never ended up changing this despite every intention to have done so.

At this point, I was about halfway through my self-alloted 48 hours of gameplay development time and was well on track to finish, so I treated myself to a slightly different shade of prototype-gray and set the gameplay area in stone:

The original plan involved just dumping missed boxes off the end of the track, but it came up while talking to a friend that it would be way more fun to dispose of them with fire instead. After all, every game needs fire.

Soon, the boxes were piling up, half the song was charted, and through lots of play testing, I'd squashed all the bugs I could find (one particularly nasty engine (?) bug was receiving a single tick of old song data when restarting a level (despite loading the level again entirely)—this one has several workarounds that took a while to find, all of which involve just discarding the first tick of data). Calibration made its way in, too, with a little refactoring. Sunday night was spent implementing all the menus, screens, scoring systems, and wrapping up the charting.

And, finally, I had a complete game. I went to bed, ready to tackle art and polish on Monday, plus a couple issues in the chart I'd noticed. But it was done.

When I got up, the first order of business was replacing the debug sphere I was using for the mouse cursor. Some particles fixed that up nicely:

I wanted the gameplay to be precise, but fast and swoopy. So while I didn't have time to implement a better scoring system for style, I could at least make the cursor bright, colorful, and very fun to fling around the screen.

After that was done, I went through all the assets in the game and gave them a makeover. Nothing too unusual here. I wanted to keep the stark, corporate look for most of it, but really make the track and notes stand out. Here's the final setup:

I'm so happy I got to participate (and finish!). I'd forgotten how good game development feels, and I'm absolutely stoked to share this game with everyone.

My friends tell me it's fun, but brutal. There's no way to fail, though. I'd love to know if you can beat my current high score:

But for now? Taking the rest of the night off. Tomorrow? Checking out so many other jam games, which I'm just as excited about.

You can play Beat Boxes here:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/beat-boxes

Edit: I had no idea the entirety of the post would be visible all at once, lol. Sorry for the length. :heart:

@lex asked me what my technique is for creating puzzles and then recommended I make a post about it. So here it is! You should probably play up to level 6 (and maybe level 9) of Sorting Center Savant to understand what I'm talking about here.

Most of my design theory came from a video called “What Makes a Good Puzzle?” by Game Maker’s Toolkit. To summarize, it’s all about creating a “catch”, where the player thinks the level is impossible because of some sort of contradiction. (I need to do A and B, but doing A prevents me from doing B.) To overcome the contradiction, the player must come to some new revelation about the game’s mechanics.

I applied this in level 6, where the catch is that you need to activate the blue fans to move the A crate into its respective chute, but doing so pushes the B crate off the edge of the level. The revelation is that you can use that right side B crate to shield the left side B crate from being pushed by the blue fans. The rightmost B chute is there to create the assumption that you should use it to collect that right side B crate. But if you solve the level correctly, that chute is never used. Consider how much easier the level would be without that chute there to guide the player into a false assumption.

When filling out the set of levels, I tried to come up with the catch first and then design a level that exploited it. For level 4, I knew before I started what the catch would be. It was just a matter of playing around with it on graph paper until I came up with something that made the revelation a requirement to beat the level without making it too obvious that it’s what you need to do.

For the last four levels, I didn’t start with the catch, I just had a vague concept for the level. I came up with some elements interacting with each other in interesting ways (like a laser that’s the same color as a fan), then I put it into the game and played around with it. The catches evolved from there. I would see which kinds of board states I could achieve that would require clever use of the game's mechanics and then adjust the level to make that board state the goal. And if achieving that board state is too trivial, I would try to throw a wrench into the player’s plans that made that trivial solution impossible. Or I would add new things to make new board states possible. In level 9, the cyan fan is the last thing I added, since I wanted the end board state to be that the yellow fan has been moved downward. Adding the cyan fan was a cool way to make that possible.

Level 11 was a particularly lucky one. I didn’t edit it whatsoever after constructing it in-game. I just had a feeling it was beatable despite not actually having proof that it was. It took me a good fifteen minutes of playing around until I figured it out!

I recommend watching the Game Maker's Toolkit video, since it talks about some other good stuff as well, such as how to come up with the game's base mechanics. I could probably make my game's puzzles even better according to that video if I had more time. I think I could do more work designing an assumption for the solution and make the puzzles involve fewer elements. But good puzzle design is time consuming!

If you would like to try your own hand at this very process, Sorting Center Savant has support for custom levels! See the game's page for instructions. If you do make a level, please post it! Happy puzzling!

You can download it on the jam or Itch page

Hi I mAde some assets with my friends on a game called Fishy Shipments for ludum dare 53, I thinbk it's pretty alright sorry for the trouble

I just had the pleasure of discovering that recording short videos showing the incremental improvements in your development is an amazing tool to keep you motivated! https://youtu.be/1V7Px5a_8SY

Embark on my journey through the development process and witness the evolution of the game from the first hour to its current state.

Please, give Reigning Race a try, rate it, and let me know if you see any commercial potential in the game. Your feedback will be greatly appreciated and will help me decide if I should continue developing this game. I ll do my best to rate back all games! Thank you!

My Game: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/reigning-race

Phew, what a weekend, guys! As much as I like the challenge I'm glad it's finally over, and it's time to chill out and play some games. I've already tried a few, and seriously, they're amazing. So many creative minds out there – it's wild!

I know you guys love HTML5 games cause they're super easy to play, so I made sure to use WebGL for my own game. This way, you can enjoy it without needing to download anything.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/electron-odyssey

So excited to have done this with such an amazing team! Definitely want to do this again! The whole jam was really fun from beginning to end. First time I design for a video game, and won’t be my last!

Check out our game! BABY BLASTER! https://irwatts.itch.io/baby-blaster

Congrats to everyone who participated! It’s so cool to see what you’ve all created in a weekend!

Go check my game out, "My Flavor-ite Kidnapper", it's not perfect, it was a lot of work, but it is done.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/my-flavor-ite-kidnapper

These past 3 days I lived for this game, waking up and straight to the Pc and working on it until late at night.

This was fun, I tried to attempt Ludum Dare before but never managed to finish a thing, but today I finally made it (it's also my first "finished" and published game too), sometimes I thought I couldn't make it, but here I am.

I ran out of time pretty quickly, the game has no sound, probably some bugs and English mistakes, and I didn't make nearly as much art as I intended, but it's ok, I'm learning a lot, but now I'll go for my much-needed rest.

Check it out now! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/dead-end-delivery

Congrats everyone! Leave a link to your game below and I'll give it a play tomorrow when I have more energy. And if you want, you can check out my game too :)

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/devilivery

Im not the greatest at stuff like this. My name is Justin and I worked on a game called Fishy Shipments with my friends, hello.

Hey there aspiring drone pilots! Are you looking for an unpaid internship that will suck the life out of you? Do you want to work for a company that doesn't value your time or sanity? Well, have we got the opportunity for you!

Join the QWOPCopterCo Family Today!

As a drone pilot delivery service intern, you will be responsible for navigating our fleet of malfunctioning drones through dangerous terrain and delivering packages to customers who may or may not want them! Here are some of the qualifications we're looking for:

• Willingness to work long, unpaid hours, because who needs money when you have "experience," right?
• Ability to work in poor lighting and poorly ventilated areas, because we like to keep our interns guessing about whether they're inside or outside.
• Tolerance for damp conditions, because we haven't quite figured out how to fix the leaking roof in our drone storage facility.
• The opportunity to develop new skills, such as how to duck and cover when a drone crashes or how to explain to an angry customer why their package is a week late.

So if you're ready to sacrifice your time, energy, and sanity for an internship that may or may not lead to a paid position (but probably not), then apply now to join our team of overworked and unpaid drone pilot delivery service interns!

You can play QWOPCopter Here: www.ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/qwopcopter

Duckarm Anchorfoot is back at it again with his crazy flying rocket lawnchair. Unfortunately, he hit Tony Stork, and with the wing injury, Tony is unable to deliver babies. Now Duck has to help him out!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/rocket-lawnchair-2-baby-deliverydoo

I missed the deadline for the previous two jams, but I finally made it on time for this one! I worked on this solo, and due to having work over the weekend, I couldn't make it for the "compo" category.

I made a game where you're a pregnant lady giving birth. You can play it for WebGL and Windows, and I just spent some time fixing a few bugs that had some issues with the physics. Let me know if you still encounter some issues.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/give-birth

Play as Naddhie in this little adventure game, Little Messenger!

Barely made it just in time to submit it. Had to cut it down a lot from the original concept, the core gameplay loop is still intact. Can't wait for everyone to try it out!

Here's the link: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/little-messenger

Pretend you'd enjoy working for Bezos and play it here: Package Man

Hey everyone this is my first attempt at a game jam! I wrote the music for this game! Check it out and if you could turn those speakers up that be much appreciated!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/devilivery

I had such a great time! Got to use so many naice sounding instruments! Clarinet and celesta are two of my FAVES!

managed to get something done: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/clickexpress

Very happy with my project! It's a short game, about 5 minutes, and you can play in browser. It has a bit of a story to it. Hope you play and enjoy! I'll be playing a bunch of games tomorrow

Boastful, right? Hahahaha

Well, actually, it means I just scrapped everything I've done. I just had another idea. I also was not be able to deliver (ha!) it on time for Jam anyway, so I'll have more fun and go for Extra.

Also, I have problems with the Eternal Sadness Decease, and seeing me more excited with this new idea instead of struggling with the not-so-good previous one means a bigger chance of actually completing a project.

Well, here I still am. \o/

Check out my game - Release The Meat

The goal is to build a cart to deliver meat to the end, and there aren't really any limits to what you can make other than money.

The code is held together by sticks and twigs but it works and I think is pretty fun, lemme know what you think.

I need ratings it's like a drug please I'm begging you

come say hello :)

https://twitch.tv/badcop_

Burnout got the best of me, it seems, and I wasn't able to finish my project

Maybe next time...

Delivery of Death finally released! Bug fixes are ahead, but we still will appreciate if you take a peak and play!

This is also only the first Chapter from 3 planned and we want to expand our game in near future!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/delivery-of-death

This was my first game jam I have competed in. It was a lot of fun to challenge and push myself. It's also been great taking part in such a positive and fun community. I really enjoyed checking these post each day to see what others were doing. I can't wait to compete again!

i'm a game programmer who has worked in the industry for about four years now. after years of telling myself to get back into making games as a hobby, i'm here to see if ludum dare will kickstart that drive again. participating in the jam was a ton of fun and i can't wait to join in september too

tried our best, it's not perfect but I'm so glad we eventually made something!! Yea!!

It's a game based on Greek myth about Hermes. And deliver message from Zeus to Hades.

I've managed to fit my Pico-8 entry into a single cart now! The original release relied on a multicart setup to load extra sprite data for the background, but now all that happens internally in one cartridge.

I was able to embed a whole extra spritesheet thanks to this handy function: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=33758

I definitely recommend it for anyone using Pico-8. It's best for embedding a large title screen into your game almost for free.

Also if you want to try out the game here's the link!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/air-delivery-1

This one took some long nights, but it's finally done.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/mothers-day-rush

I’m looking for games to play, please reply with your link and I will play and rate it!

Also here is my own game, Ganymede Shipping Company: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/$357074

Reviews from our friends and family:

-Nothing unusual about this game (experiences may vary).

-A heart warming adventure!

-Why did you make me play this?

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/deliver-the-baby

WEB: https://graal.itch.io/trajectory-express

Hi everyone! While I've started a number of LD game jams, #53 is the first one I've "completed". It's very short, but it has dialog, goals, score, arcade action, life (you can crash / die), levels in increasing difficulty, particles, parallax fx, and ugly fake physics :sweat_smile:. That's a lot for a weekend (mostly in the 8pm - 1am hours), and I'm rewarding myself by calling it "complete". :tada:

I still want to add: more levels, increasing puzzle, upgrades, a cool mechanic I brainstormed, music / sfx, better art... but all in due time.

I can't post a link, but maybe I can put one in the comments. Drop me a link to your game, too!

Second ever LD submission! Wish I had more time, but here it is! Art was done by my friend. Play the game: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/delivery-by-ripstick