Excited to see all the results for LD34, it was a gr8 jam. Looking forward to LD35!

Our game High Noon Swinger was made for the 2 button controls theme, we did actually add in some growing to the character, but it requires completing an easter egg to see it. Overall we love what we came out with. tweaking the controls is definitely a must for improving this game, we think it could be a really fun and simple PvP game. Thanks for all the feedback! Love being apart of the community.

PS: Since it’s last day I’m going to give anyone that plays the password for the easter egg 😉 there are two passwords “hotdoge” and “weiner”

Link to da Game

Hi everybody! I enjoyed a lot this LD, my first one and I’m feeling like writing a Post-Mortem and sharing with you my favourite games.

I’m happy with my first experience with LD. I participated on the compo and it was quite a hit. The weekend went terribly amazing and crazy (and short). To get some inspiration for the main idea of the game I got a little bit… intoxicated, which helped me a lot with the music creation. I am a musician so I always work this way:

• First, I record myself improvising about an hour and a half on the piano while thinking about the subject.
• Then, I select the best melodies and play them on loop to help me think about the gameplay and graphics, all at a time.
• When I got some clear sprites, backgrounds and ideas about the gameplay I focus on art or gameplay (depends on which one makes me feel more comfortable) and after that all goes smoothly.

Now, what went right?

• I managed to finish my project (Actually, I think it’s the first project I finish).
• Graphics went waaaaay better than expected. I know they’re not great, some people dislike them but I’m terribly bad at drawing, real bad. So I’m happy with them. Funny thing is that I randomly found a filter on Gimp that I liked. Graphics are shit without it.
• The plot is more solid, deep and playable than I thought I could ever do in 48 hours.
• Some conversations are funny.
• Music is great! I was soooo inspired.

So… what went wrong?

• I had to hurry a lot in some scenes, music jam part went very bad. The music didn’t loop ok, the sounds you could make are terrible, etc. I wanted to make more games on the game scene…
• I worked with RPG Maker XP, wich doesn’t give you as many posibilities as Unity or Gamemaker does.
• It’s a walking and talking game… nothing interesting about gameplay. But there are some masterpieces with the same gameplay 😀
• I wanted to use the “two button controls” theme too.
• The installation is full of problems for some users. Some people needs to install adittional software. Sorry, its my first upload.
• As I saw in other entries, the have around 60-70 ratings. Mine have only 32.

You can check my game here:

Now, here are some of my favourites. I’m sure I forget lot of games, but here are some I remember:

Shot snap – Very creative game about perspective. You have to understand how this game works and its difficult but awesome when you understand it.

http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-34/?action=preview&uid=8101

Grow a beard! – Hilarious game about growing a beard. Its gameplay are mini-games

http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-34/?action=preview&uid=65958

Gjallarhorn – Interesting gameplay and superb graphics and music

http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-34/?action=preview&uid=50652

As I said, I forgot tons of games that I enjoyed, but these remind on my thoughts.

Thanks to you all, and thanks to Ludum Dare! Enjoy this last day and good luck with the results! And Happy New Year! See you on the next LD

I’m been working on a post-compo version of my LD game Sanctuary Station, cleaning up the codebase, and adding some new controls/features.

Some improvements:

• Plan multiple moves ahead
• NPC movement orders (the grey arrows)
• NPC behaviour & hitpoints

But now that that is mostly done, I am making more missions! First one is where there are two alien races that are mortal enemies and you want to save them both.

Of course, I then tried to make them fight to the death instead… (yes all grey ones are dead bodies :D)

A real massacre…

Play my original LD entry to see the pod-puzzling part in action. (not the combat, as of yet ;))

146 votes so far, this is awesome!!!

Thanks a lot everyone for playing our game Long Long: A snake lies in the Past and giving great feedback!

Tags: 2D, 2d game, ld34, LongLong, mashup, parody, pixelart

I joined this ludum dare compo for the first time and learned my lesson. I did not have a plan and did not start off with any base code. I decided to do it in C++ and SDL. Also not the best choice. I spent the first day trying to get music working then realized that my computer speaker was broken. Second day I scrambled to get the game playable and somewhat failed. After that, the game was just available on Linux for a couple days. Then I made a windows version which was very glitchy. All in all a good experience and I am going to do again, this time actually making a playable game!

Hey everyone!!

So I’ve played and rated around 171 games so far for this Ludum Dare (which is a crazy amount but don’t get me started on those who’ve somehow rated around 200-400 entries) and before judging ends tomorrow, I’d like to show you (in no particular order because picking favourites is already hard :V) my top 5 entries so far (i.e. the ones you should totally give a go):

O3000

Guru

Super Lefty Garden Fighty

Soulless Capitalist Robots

Space Plant 6000

Also, since judging ends tomorrow, I’m going to shamelessly plug my local multiplayer entry Rolla Grolla Arena once more because why not (There’s 72 votes for it so far and I’m aiming to reach 100 by the end).

Click the pic to play!!

Hey guys, just wanted to give one final push and encourage you all to play my game, Twin Condition. I am so grateful for all the feedback I’ve received so far. I’ve been blown away by so many of your entries and had a blast playing them.

Below is a video of a complete playthrough of my game. Thank you everyone and I look forward to the next Ludum Dare!

Play Twin Condition

As soon as the two button theme was announced, I knew that I wanted to make a game where you used a sword and a gun.  The sword would be used to gain forward movement as you cut through enemies, and the gun would use backwards momentum as the gun recoil would push you back from wherever you were shooting at.  My first idea was for a side scrolling infinite runner type of game, but in my head the mechanics didn’t seem to mesh that well for that kind of game.  My second idea was for a top-down room clearing shooter, which seemed like a better fit for the mechanics, but I wasn’t in love yet.  The idea I went with was for an arcade arena shooter that used gravity to add extra importance and nuance to the movement mechanics.

The end result is Captain NinjaBeard.  This is my fourth Ludum Dare and in my opinion, this is by far my best game.  The mechanics work really well to create a frantic, fast paced experience.  You can of course go HERE to play, rate, comment, subscribe, follow the game on Twitter and MySpace, etc.

(Just ignore that fact that I’m plummeting to my death in this picture)

Things I liked/ went well:

• The Mechanics work like a dream.  The wild movement and spray of your gun complements the incredibly precise movement of your Katana really well.  It’s always nice as a designer when things just work.
• The difficulty curve is nice and snappy.  One of the biggest mistakes I made with my second game, Final Breakfast, was that the difficulty curve was so slow that you would never want to replay the game.  Arcade games often need a much steeper curve than you’d think in order to keep them interesting across multiple playthroughs.  I ended up more than doubling the speed of the difficulty increase in this game, and I still think it wouldn’t hurt to be raised a bit more.
• The Primary color pallette works great.  It wasn’t something I planned since the beginning but it was something that sort of developed as I started to finalize the look of the game.  The red and yellow objects really pop against the deep blue backdrop.  The color pallette isn’t completely consistent accross some of the earlier sprites (like the UI) but that’s just a small issue.
• The death sound/animation turned out really well.  It’s always a huge plus when dying in a game makes you laugh.

Rough spots:

• I was completely out of my element with trying to make a seascape.  Originally, I was going to add waves and ripples to my ocean backdrop, but when it came time to actually drawing the background, my attempt was… pretty embarrassing.  I ended up just slapping some parallax on to some blue rectangles and clouds, which actually turned out looking ok.  It’s very clean, but it’s not particularly impressive.
• Sound was a nightmare.  Usually just going into SFXR and cranking out some sounds is the easiest part of the whole process, but as I found out, SFXR can’t make sound effects that loop very well, which I needed for my laser enemy.  Luckily, I eventually remembered that Milky Tracker, the tracker I used, can make excellent looping samples.  I was going to make a looping sound for the rockets as well but I couldn’t make anything that sounded pleasant so I just made a one time sound effect for when the rockets enter the game which ended up being an important game element since you could now tell when the rockets have spawned and how many there are in the group without seeing them.  I was also going to make a sound effect for the waves you create when you get close or shoot at the water, but I couldn’t make anything that didn’t sound like ear cancer so I just made the spray silent.  Overall, the sound turned out fine, but I lost a lot of time and got pretty frustrated through the whole ordeal.

So far, apart from my first game, all of the games I’ve made have been lighthearted, simple arcadey action games.  Next Ludum Dare, I’d like to try something a bit more complex with maybe a bit more mood and atmosphere, but I really can’t know what I’m going to make until the competition starts and the theme is announced.  I don’t want to force myself into making a game I’m not really inspired by so who knows what kind of game I’ll make next.

A little later than planned but All Ways Down Post Jam beta version is now available.

Changes include:

• Various bug fixes,
• Increase pellet size,
• Faster player,
• Input from left and right arrow keys,
• 5 new levels,
• New obstacle type – Zapper
• And most importantly, Camera Shake!

The post jam version can be either downloaded or played in browser over on its itch.io page.

Or if you haven’t already, you can check out the jam version of All Ways Down on its entry page over here

Tags: 2D, All Ways Down, Post Ludum, unity, update

A screenshot of our game, Susception!

Hello, everyone!

Judging is drawing to a close in less than 25 hours, and I would genuinely appreciate some extra feedback on the game my friend teledoor24 and I made, called Susception. This was our first Ludum Dare, and any constructive criticism would really help us improve our process for future competitions.

Susception is based around feeding, splitting, and growing a small colony of cells, all while fending off incoming viral invasions. It was created and programmed in Unity, with art assets created using GraphicsGale. It can be played in-browser using the Unity Web Plugin, or run as a standalone program on Windows.

Play it here!

Thank you!

-WolfkingW

Harvest Dues is a match-3 style game where you manage resources to grow plants and upgrade your farm in order to pay back the loan you took out to get the farm in the first place!

Play Here

We want to say:

• “Thank you” to everyone who participated in LD 34. It was a blast making a game for this event and we had great fun playing your games.
• “Thank you” to the Ludum Dare hosts and orga teams. This is really a stellar event and went just flawless, like everytime.
• “Thank you” to everyone who played and rated/commented our game Bloat Blaster. We really appreciate your feedback and and every submission to our HighScore list.
• “Thank you” to everyone on Twitch and YouTube who covered our game. No matter if you liked it or not, we learned so much about our game and it´s flaws just by watching you play it.

Besides being part of this awesome global event, making a game and playing yours we could also recruite the artist of Bloat Blaster for our upcoming next game.

If you want to check it our, we would appreciate your visit and “like” on our Facebook page. We will announce the project soon and will keep you guys updated with the progress of the development.

See you all next time!

Marcus – The Arrival Games

Make sure to check the Post Compo Version out! Includes Three Types of Difficulties for Classic Mode, New Power Ups/Power Downs, More Music, and MULTIPLAYER!
I’m currently at 186 votes and would absolutely LOVE to get to 200, let’s make it happen! We’ve only got about 15-20 Hours! c:

And if I haven’t rated your game yet, drop a link in the comments please!

Hi guys

i was really amazed to obtain way more votings than on last LD
For those who did not played my game yet :
could you kindly  : play and help me get 11 more reviews to reach 100 !
that would be awesome !

links to the game are here :
http://tinyurl.com/LD34-2gB

Thanks in advance to those who’ll take time to test !

It was my first LD and want to get many reviews and feedback. Can someone review my game?

http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-34/?action=preview&uid=62226

This was our first Ludum Dare and we had alot of fun and pain making the game.

Thank ya’ll for the nice words and feedback. If you have not tried it yet, give it a try Here!

Adam and Markus

This is my 7th Ludum Dare, and I know it’s basically tradition for all of us to complain about themes once they are chosen. However, out of the previous 6 times I’ve participated, I don’t remember the theme seriously HARMING games. Even the entire game on one screen theme probably produced some neat games. Maybe they were small in scope or a little annoying because of the one screen, but normal controls could be used etc.

However, out of 30-something games I played and rated this time (and that’s low by my normal standards), plus my own game, I feel some games were actively HARMED by the two-button theme. I know it’s theoretically optional, but many developers including myself apparently decided that we wanted to use it — or that perhaps we would be judged harshly for ignoring it and using the other theme.

Whatever the reason, many people including me ended up using two controls, and in some cases made neat, clever games THAT WERE REALLY ANNOYING TO PLAY. I thought maybe Morse code would be a clever idea, but the timing was too difficult for the vast majority of players. Even if the two-button mechanic was creative (maybe one does one thing, and one does the other thing, and both does a third thing), it might range from glitchy to frustrating to nearly ruining the player experience.

I may be a minority on this, and I’m sure some games WERE good even with two buttons. But next time you’re voting on a theme, I respectfully ask this: Please consider voting for a theme that relates to content rather than mechanical restriction. I really feel that the player experience will be better because of it.

My first ludum dare game ended up becoming chaotic(in a good way), with awful sound but I’m quite happy with it, try the chaos yourself and tell me what you think !

Chaotic Potato(my game): http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-34/?action=preview&uid=64420

Tags: #potatoe, 2D, chaos, compo, flash, html5, ld34, Ludum Dare, potato

Hi everybody and happy new year!

For reminder Switchies entry is reachable following this link.

Post jam version is actually in development. We still improve our game and you can play our last version here: play.switchies.xyz.

Thank you for your support,

Switchiers

Another Ludum Dare is almost over, we had a lot of fun participating this time as much as the previous time and we hope you enjoyed it as well. Let the year 2016 be a successful one to all of you gamers and indie devs!

If you haven’t tried BoltStorm yet, you can:

PLAY HERE!

We’ll see you next LD35. Keep making awesome games!

Cheers.