Hello everyone!

It’s probably a little late to introduce games at this moment but I’m still going for it! I honestly loved this ludum dare. The theme challenged me a little but I managed having an idea in about an hour. What I ended up creating was +/- what I had imagined, which is pleasing in it’s own way. I’m not sure how to exactly generalize this game but essentially it’s a turn based strategic board game (?).

The game I made is “Kingdom of Metamorphs”!

Theme:

There’s probably a little bit of question where my theme implementation is in this game. Well, some people don’t notice (of course anyone who plays enough to get to combat notices) that the ATK and DEF switch places after every end turn and that’s honestly completely my fault. ATK mode is indicated by the square, DEF mode by the circle. It’s honestly my mistake, since I should have added some kind of a noticeable effect to the switching. But don’t worry, the theme is definitely there and I think it really suits the game well. It makes you think twice before making a move!

The compo:

I started off quite slow at the beginning. Took a whole hour to come up with a good idea and brainstormed on how I should go about things. After the idea was there, I took at least 2 hours drawing concept art, thinking up game mechanics, card effects, etc. My original idea was to actually have a 6×6 board (which probably would have been way too small and not so fun). At first I actually tried to draw a sprite for the board without thinking too much about it… But after I was finished, I understood my mistake. There was actually no easy way to make the tiles on the sprite clickable. So what I ended up doing here was creating a small script to spawn a 10×10 board in the editor for me and create local positions (such as [1,1], [1,2]…) automatically. After that, it was pretty easy to navigate myself with all the mechanics. I started off with just simple colors, making them able to move around on the tiles, showing possible moves, then making the spawning, etc. During the first day, I was done with all the moving mechanics, attack mechanics, atk/def swaps and the card mechanics. The core mechanics were done on the first day. The second day, I kept debating on whether I should make the enemy have a “fortress” kind of thing, with preset strong values and a lot of enemies, or to actually make an AI. I honestly didn’t know if I had enough time to make a proper AI, especially since it was the first one I tried to make for a strategic game. I ended up going for both ideas, first setting up everything for the fortress idea just in case and then proceeding to make the AI. After about 5-6 hours the AI was there. I wrote the whole code for it, trying to make it challenging enough but of course prioritizing at least general defense, so the bot couldn’t lose in a few turns. Funny thing is, is that I wrote the whole code without testing it even once (about 400 lines). I honestly couldn’t test it. I kept writing the actual thinking for the bot, but not the movement. What I did is make the bot consider the situation and then assign different jobs to each minion according to the situation. The movement just ended up being taking the shortest path to the assigned location with exceptions of nearby enemies or the base being attacked. Well, I finally ended up making the movement and it was the moment of truth… Will the code work? I launched the game and the code… well… did weird things… Looks like he assigned everything correctly, but there were problems with how he made the movements. Even though I ensured the script had at least one or two lines that told the bot that he can’t move his minions wherever, the AI kept making illegal moves. At one point, it just teleported into my base and won. Looks like I made it so “smart”, it could cheat. Adding a little delay between spawning and moving fixed it though. So adding one line of code fixed everything! And that was it. I drew the card art, made a little turn/tip panel and I was done at about 5 hours before the deadline. I had A LOT of fun making this and participating in this game jam. I’m honestly proud of my work this time around. Of course it doesn’t come without it’s mistakes…

The game ended up looking like this:

What went wrong/What needs improving:

-I’m honestly not an art person. I tried my best to make the cards no be blank and to make a few pretty assets but that’s honestly all I managed. The minions could really use some kind of graphics, instead of just being cubes and circles.
-I think it’s not very obvious where my theme implementation is, especially if people don’t go to in-depth to the game. It needs some kind of an effect, switching the attack and defense points because it’s honestly not that noticeable at first.
-The game definitely needs some sounds and audio. Strategic games like these can do without such things but it would still be a nice touch and would improve the atmosphere quite a bit.
-Even though I added an explanation, it didn’t do a very good job of explaining everything, since the game does have a pretty steep learning curve. The tip box definitely helped with the cause, giving the instructions for your first turn but I still feel like I should have explained combat, switching, and cards in a tutorial level and then commence with the game.
-The color I chose for showing unused minions (black) was simply stupid, since it wasn’t noticeable enough. I fixed it in the post compo.
-I didn’t add a win/lose screen. I fixed it in the post compo.
-There are a few bugs here and there. The known bugs in the compo version are:
–There are sometimes a few problems with spawning your minions (allows spawning on enemy minions in some places, which replaces the tile data’s assigned minion to a friendly, and deletes the enemy’s minion connection with the tile, which creates a ghost enemy. It can’t move, it can’t hurt you, it’s just there. (fixed in post compo)
–There’s a recent bug I found that you, as a player, can attack more then once, if you have the health to not die. I honestly didn’t think about this, since I only made the minions unable to do moves after the moved to a different tile.
–There are a few typos here and there (mostly fixed in post compo).
–You can press the end turn button more then once, making you skip turns and making the enemy AI go a little crazy with power.

Plans for the future:

I plan to still continue developing this game. I’ve had A TON of great suggestions from you guys and I really do think that this game can become something very cool in the future! My at the moment plans are:
-Make the AI smarter
-Add multiplayer
-Add more and more diverse card effects (for example board affecting ones, movement affecting ones, etc)
-Fix all the current bugs and problems
-Add music and art
-Add a proper tutorial
-Add more diverse minions
-Add more capturable bonuses, maybe even more bases.
-Add different maps.
-Add some kind of a resource system (it was intended in the original, you can tell that from the gem that says 5 on each card but I didn’t have enough time to do it)

Any suggestions are welcome and much appreciated!

Anyway, enough with me ranting! All I can say is that I’m really proud of what I’ve created and that I will continue developing it in the near future. As for everyone else, this Ludum dare truly offered me a lot of amazing games that I enjoyed playing, and I will still continue playing them! At the moment I ranked up 51 coolness but I plan to reach at least 100 till the deadline!

Please post your games in to the comments and I’ll try them out!!!

Here’s my game if any one wants to give it a shot as well!:
http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-35/?action=preview&uid=50640

Tags: #LD35 #gamedev #indiedev, LD35, shapeshift, thanks, thanks ludum dare

Neon, cubes, gameplay, and challenge, and tetris inspirated soundtrack! what’s more to want?

come play here! We have cookies (or at a working leaderboard!)

play online here: http://bit.ly/neondx

MUCH LOVE

Hi everybody

Some time ago I have finished post-jam edition of my game “Shapeshift Racer” and now I need votes (currently 73) and feedback — bug reports and suggestions!

Some information about development and resources
Engine — Unity 5 with C# (Ildar Karymov)
Modeling — Cinema 4D (Ildar Karymov)
Music & SFX —  Ableton Live 9 & FL Studio 12 (02FC)
Some visual effects — Kvant (thanks to Keijiro Takahashi)

So, there is post-jam edition and there Ludum Dare edition

Enjoy!

Hey everyone!

I just wanted to give my final thanks to everyone who played and rated my game (even if you didn’t like it D^: )

This was my first published game, and it really was quite an experience! It was so much fun seeing everyone play something I had created (and breaking it lol). I learned how important gameplay testing is, and how important time management is. Most of all, prioritizing. If I hadn’t forced myself deadlines and cutoff points, I probably would have only had the basic game mechanic down lol……..but then again…….the music would have sounded better lol

Anywho!
If you haven’t already, give it a shot below, and don’t forget to rate it! It’s so close to 100!

Thanks again, you will see me for sure at 36!

My Ludum Dare Entry:
Apeshifter Munk Game

Twitter:
@BiolumGames

Facebook:
Facebook Page

Twitch (I do personal 3D artwork and indiegame work here):
Monkeybit29’s Channel

I can program in JavaScript. I just need a little guide of creating games with JS, I’ve always thought it would be cool if I could have a programming team. If anyone would like to help me or create a js team with me just reply.

I made the game way easier, added controller support, and added spiders that will kill you if you touch them.

Try the post compo version here!

My game Shape Escape received 128 Votes so far. THANK YOU ALL! Especially for the nice comments and great feedback.

I’ve also played lots and lots of games and really enjoyed it. Really hard to compete against so much talent. But I had lots of fun (and it was way more relaxed compared to my last Ludum Dare where I was in Zombie-Mode several days after ;).

I’ve assembled a Ludum Dare 35 Playlist on Soundcloud and there are some very cool tracks in there. So I invite everyone to enjoy the music WE ALL created. (If your track is missing, let me know in the comments and I will add it).

Thank you all again. I can’t wait for the results.

Hello everyone. My name is Khaled, and along with my friend Fasial, we made Paranormal Investigator for the LD35. We are based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. This was our first LD submission. And I would like to thank everyone who played, rated, and gave us a feedback.

This really meant a lot to us. Honestly in the beginning we weren’t really sure about this, because we are fairly new the the whole game development thing (we started less then a year ago.) The second reason is we were kinda of afraid to participate in an international jam, because we weren’t sure about our skill. But in the end we decided to make it for the hell of it, and thank god we did that. We really learned a lot of lessons like, how to limit the scope of the game, and focus on things like the mechanics.

I would have never thought that some people would like our humble game, and to see people play it on stream, and having fun gave me a joy. I think the community is what makes the Ludum Dare experience important to any gamedev, because it will not only help you to improve your game, but more importantly it will give you the desire to really push your skill, and make more games. Also, It’s really great to play the games of other devs, it’s like swimming in a sea of creativity. Thanks Ludum Dare.

My game, as per the usual: An Abnormality

Previously, on ‘Please Rate my Game’

Okay, here are some real Clever games. Do you even read this?

Sergei’s Virus

This game is insanely difficult. You are are literally re-programing in python.
i em dum.

Pasowix’s Magical Shapeshifting Workshop

A smart little game where you have to draw connections between two seemingly unconnected objects. Some are ridiculously easy, while others are real tricks.

Agent Shift

This was one of the first I rated, and it was pretty good, but now with the post-compo it’s great.

Cubeshift

A very polished, and clever game. That’s it, really.

Shift Order

Tu smrt fo me.
Seriously, I couldn’t get past the second puzzle.

You may have noticed that all the games links are a smaller font than my games font. I may be hinting at something here.

So, I want to thanks first all the peoples of have played my game and leaved me a comment on improvements. Because of you, I want to improve some issues regarding the controls and the difficulty:

In the newest improved version, I’ve tweaked the space between the walls to be more forgiving than before in the three first levels, since those acts like a tutorial of some sort. My goal here is to have less space the more you complete levels, so you can see a difficulty curves as you progress.

My second improvements is more regarding the controls, which I’ve made the falling a little more forgiving, so if you release the up key button, you’ll fall less quickly than before, but if you stay bouncing at the same place, the falling will speed up a little, making you want to react more quickly. I think it’s a good tradeoff for a less quick falling acceleration speed, since you would want to always progress if you’re stuck between 2 walls.

So I want your feedback again on the difficulty. If you find it hard, what kind of hard is it for you ? Is it hard as a positive thing, like a “feeling rewarded” difficulty like you could find in Dark Souls series or is it hard as a negative thing, more like if it’s a frustrating experience ? I’m wondering this because most of the comments I had so far was about the harsh difficulty, but to follow right after with a : “Good job ! Great game !” … So I don’t really know what the feedback is, since I don’t know if it’s a good or bad difficulty feedback.

Anyway, if you want to test my game, so I improve it more, try the improved version : Click here

Hi ludumDarers

I have took part  in two editions of Ludum Dare Gran Canaria before this one. In both I have shown most of participants are male, and female are focused in artistical part of development. That’s why I managed to create FatalFemaleVideogameFactory group for this spring edition, to introduce women into videogame development.

I’m very proud of the result of this team, Magic Clay and I hope girls in this team to repeat next editions. 😀

I haven’t told that girls in this team should never participated before in Ludum Dare, that’s why every edition the girls in the team are always different. We are open for remote participants!! If you know any girl interested contact us by fatalfemalevideogamefactory@gmail.com

Thank you for your attention.

Hi Everyone.

The ratings have stopped now so just wanted a final push if you havn’t played or voted on my game check it out :). Gettings lots of nice feedback so far. Think this could be my best ludum dare game i’ve done so far.

Play Game

The level editor is still a bit rough, but ready to use! It still has several moderately large bugs, which are likely to break old level save files, so we will not be uploading a build just yet, but stay tuned!

Here’s a link to the game if you want to try out the original levels: Shape Escape

We’ve just uploaded a web version of our dimension-shifting puzzler, Figment. If you’ve not played it yet, you can find it here! We’d love to hear what you think of our entry

Figment: Play here

A little late, but here is it!

Yayy

What is the game about

This game is about a spaceship that can change its shape. Each one has unique abilities, and you must use them to save the universe in the year of 2344.

It’s a endless bullet-hell like game, where you confront increasing waves of enemies. Btw, what is your score??

Ideas and process

We had just some ideas until we get this one. One of them was a puzzle game where you had to move as quick as possible onto some cell next to you that has the same shape of the player’s current shape (the red rectangle from the image below). We discarded this, as we do not find so much fun on it :p

wat

So we got the idea of a bullet-hell game, using only geometrical forms (as it can be easily generated using SFML lol), so we started the development and we get…. Some shapes on screen

it’s… something

Of course, this was one of the first steps on having a game. A little more effort we got some enemies on screen and started testing the ship movements, including awsd controls, asteroid-like moving through the edges of the screen and, finally, a follow the mouse approach.

huehuehue

Long story short, we had some nice ideas for different abilities for each shape, but as the deadline was coming, we just simplified them to get a minimum viable product. See the abilities breakdown:

Triangle (weak, quick)

Attack: quick laser shot

Alt attack: nova (was guided missile)

Rectangle (strong, slow)

Attack: nope (was melee)

Alt attack: melee (was timed invincibility/time warp)

Circle (normal, medium)

Attack: nothing (was mine deployment)

Alt attack: absorbs enemy shots with its shield (was reflective shield)

Also, we did not make any sound for the game. Sorry

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

not today!

What Went Well

• We did a game!
• Learnt some new cool things on SFML
• Valuable feedback from the community (yay, you!)
• A more finished game the our last entry
• Linux, OSX and Windows builds
• A really cool HUD 😉

What Went Wrong

• No music
• No joystick support
• No shaders :/

Future

Now we will try to finish the game, add some missing features, improve the code quality (generic classes will belong to our “bootstrap” code, helping on future projects), a better collision detection, evaluate game balancing, create some badass audio, all of this considering all your advices <3

ffmpeg FTW!

So go play our game (the jam version, we didn’t worked on improvements yet, but take a look on the code on our github page), follow us on twitter/facebook and have lots of fun!

Tags: dbo, jam, post-mortem, postmortem

Hello everyone. That been quite some time since Ludum Dare and we were probably taking our time too much to fix numerous bugs in our game but we finally did it, and we are not going to stop.

Though we are not really sure how far we could go with our fixing but we did just that so its up to you to judge or not to judge it. If you think that too much bug fixing is not the thing that can fit into jam version of the game please do not vote for it. Its our first Ludum Dare and we dont know what we can do and what we cant. So i will keep here post fix and pre fix version for you to check.

Sooo here we go, please check and play first level of our game, rate it if you want, we were working really hard during three days of competition and we dont want our work go to waste.

We will keep working on our game(we have only one level in this version), and the story of Max will be finished, i promise, he will get his revenge, so stay tuned for post-jam version of the game.

If you still here we have some bonuses for everyone.

Bonus one: our audio engineer made really cool soundtrack for comics and levels but we sadly havent been able to put most of it into a jam version of the game, so please just listen to them as it is, we really like this music.

Download it here

Just tell me if its not a proper way to post something like this.

Bonus two: some cool and intersting bugs from the first version of game (thats, folks, is what happens when you have only one unity-developer, who does all the programming):

Just dont ask questions.

We were just having so much fun with them, so it must be shared.

Clearly Max should not be on the sky.

But why not, after all.

Lets try to fall down… well…

Thanks for checking this post and the game, see you soon.

Check our entry here.

Tags: Max Wheigt

Hi everyone! Voting is almost over, but we thought we should write a post inviting you to play our game before the end.

(Mono no) Aware is an interactive novel with platformer elements that discusses life’s shapeshifting nature. We were really trying to achieve a delicate result using watercolour and subtle dialogue and, well, please let us know what you thought!

Controls:
Arrow keys to move
X to interact and push things
Z to jump

Tags: (Mono no) Aware, interactive novel, LD35, narrative, pastel, platformer, shapeshifting, Visual Novel, Watercolour

We want to thank everybody that played our entry Bloodbearer!

We recieved a lot of feedback and we are really thankfull for all of it. We take the feedback with us now we decided to further develop the game

If you haven’t played Bloodbearer yet, go play it 😉 If you did, thank you! You’re awesome!

Hopefully till next LD!

If you want to see how we develop Bloodbearer further make sure to follow us on twitter: @EmielBoven & @Coen_Balkestein

Blob versus tour (is a pretty bad title, but I couldn’t find a better one) is a reverse tower defense. Your goal is to destroy the final tower of each five level, using your minions that can shapeshift. One shape avoid battle and run straight toward the last tower, while the two others just attack everything they can.

You can still play and rate it !

http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-35/?action=preview&uid=71664

What went well :

Base Idea :
I wrote down on paper all the idea that came into my mind after reading the theme, mixed them and found the game idea taking a little from every ideas. I simplified the result to fit into 72h of production, then, I started to program the core mechanic.

Graphics :
I made all the assets in 3 hours, the second day, which was faster than expected. I’ve even made all the necessary sprites for animations, and some others that I finally didn’t use.

All the graphical element were ready to go into the game, but I was desperately trying to understand « why-the-hell-do-I-have-this-error-message» for some important game elements and loose all the time that should have been spent to take care of the animations. The game look a little bit weird because of that. At least it has graphics.

What went wrong :

Music & sounds
I remembered that I should take care of the music for my game three hours before the deadline… I was expecting more time to make my own music, because I have no experience at all in sound design, so I had to search for free copyrighted musics to avoid a completely silent game.
It was supposed to have in game sounds as well, but when I put them in the game, it created too much bugs… At the end, I just removed them.

Programming :
Well my biggest problem is the whole programming thing. I’m pretty bad at making it works before the [put a number here]th try… even if i’m getting better at it because I continue to practice almost everyday. I loose too much time trying to resolve problems that ended up having a really simple solution. I’m still looking for an extremely complicated way to do things that can be done in one line of code…

It appear that I should have think of a better mapping for the shapeshift thing. Now, I think that making it all with the mouse isn’t a bad idea. Probably easier to do for the player, but also for me ! Why am I doing things in a complicated way while an easy one exist ? Ugh.
I’ve also found a way to avoid one of the biggest bug I met during the jam, but it needs a lot of work, so I will go back to this game later this year. I need to work and think of something else for a while.

I’ve learned a lot during this Ludum dare, it was a great experience, even if things didn’t went as well as expected.

Hey, levch is here and I’m streaming now. Suggest your game in a chat!

Come and see me playing and rating your game: http://www.twitch.tv/levch

Best,
levch.