For my game, I’ve had three different difficulty modes, with the hardest difficulty mode locked until the player beats the game on normal difficulty. I wanted to share my thoughts on how well that went, and also in general share some decisions I’ve made about the difficulty progression in my game and how well they were received by the players (at least according to the streamers I’ve watched).

Please note: obviously, this post contains "spoilers" for my game. If you have some free time, you can try playing my game without spoiling it at https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/pyramidion

Including an easy mode for the game

This was my first Ludum Dare, but before starting, I’ve read some advice saying most players have very little patience for the game, so I should make sure not to make the game too difficult so that a very casual gamer can get through it. At the middle of the second day of the jam, I had the game completely playable and finished balancing the game for normal difficulty mode. I then let my wife, who’s not a gamer, try to play through it. I saw that she couldn’t even get past the first level. I realized the game might be too difficult for casual gamers, and made the easy version.

The guidelines I had for the easy version: 1. Minimal randomness. Enemies should be predictable and easily avoidable. This lead to the two types of snakes - walking snakes and jumping snakes. The walking snakes never jump, and almost always chase the player. The jumping snakes always chase the player, and jump when they get close to the player. This is in contrast to normal difficulty snakes who jump/walk randomly. 2. My wife (non gamer) should be able to complete the game within a few minutes.

Walking snake:

Jumping snake:

What went well with easy mode

• Easy mode ended up serving as a great tutorial for normal mode! I saw many cases where streamers were stumped with normal mode (usually because they didn’t realize they need to go under the snakes when they jump), changed to easy, and after finishing easy it was very easy for them to go through normal.

• Many more streamers got to the end of the game thanks to easy mode. As predicted, many streamers (and I assume other players as well) didn’t have the patience to go through the game at normal difficulty. However, easy difficulty allowed them to get to the end game and have a much more positive experience with the game.

What didn’t go well with easy mode

• Many streamers (and I assume players as well) only finished the game on easy mode and complained the game is too easy (as I said above, easy mode was supposed to be easy enough so that even a non-gamer can get through it). I'm not sure what could be done about this, except maybe give a message at the end of easy mode reminding the player that normal mode is much more challenging.

Difficulty progression for normal mode

For normal mode, I had one main guideline for my design: * Enemies should have random elements, but be predictable enough to avoid. My basic rule was that I should balance the game so that I could consistently beat normal mode with only losing up to one life. If I’m losing more than that even though I know the correct “strategy” to go through the game, it means the enemies are too random.

I made three main mechanisms to support the guideline above: * I made the snake give a little hiss and wait a moment before jumping, to allow enough time for the player to adjust their movement to go under the snakes while they jump. * I made the snakes significantly slower when they “random walk” (they are faster when they’re chasing the player). The slower random walk allowed the player to cancel their jump if a snake changes direction as they try to jump over them. * I made the snakes “communicate with each other”, so the snakes actively try to avoid a situation where the player could not avoid one snake without bumping into the other.

However, I found out that I can’t put more than a single snake in the smaller higher levels of the pyramid without making the game too difficult. This meant that only the 2nd level of the pyramid had more than a single snake, making it the hardest level on medium difficulty.

Normal mode snake:

What went well with normal mode

• Many streamers felt the design was fair, and commented that the snakes are challenging but predictable enough so they feel it’s their fault when they die.
• Good learning curve - I saw many streamers getting better as they played through the game (as I said above, especially for the ones that tried easy before going into normal)
• Having the most difficult level be the 2nd level (and then levels 3-5 being much easier) actually made the game much less frustrating because after players finally figured out how to go through the 2nd level, they usually passed levels 3 to 5 without dying and were able to complete the game. If I’ve made level 5 much harder, I’m afraid many people would be really frustrated with dying after going through the entire pyramid.

What didn't go well with normal mode

• Many streamers/players did complain the game was unfair and that they do not feel the deaths of the player was their fault, complaining the snakes move too randomly and are unpredictable
• Some players could not figure out that you can go below the snakes when they jump (almost everyone figured this out in easy mode, which is why easy mode made normal mode so much easier).
• Many players complained that the hitboxes were too aggressive. Next time I’ll definitely look into making the hitboxes a bit more forgiving.
• Some players complained that the last level in the game was the easiest level, making the difficulty progression a bit weird for normal mode. I still tend to think it’s a good thing to have the most difficult level early, but I’m not sure. Would love to hear your thoughts.

Including a hard mode for the game

I made the hard mode at the last minute - basically spent the last 3 hours before the deadline to draw the bird sprite, program the bird enemy, and balance the hard difficulty mode. Because of that hard mode is not too well balanced, and might be significantly easier than normal mode.

Bird enemy:

What went well with hard mode

• Hard mode was not just “more of the same”. It actually included a new enemy (the bird) which looked different and had a completely different behavior. I think this made players (judging by streamers reactions) feel actually rewarded for completing normal difficulty, as they got significant new content for the game.
• The fact that hard mode was easier than normal mode was probably not good for difficulty progression of the game, but was kind of nice for streaming, because it usually took a long time for streamers to be able to get to hard mode, and I assume at that point they had much less patience to go through the game many times, so it was nice that they were usually able to complete it within the first few attempts.
• The last level of hard mode was very easy, but looked kind of crazy (with both the snake and the bird jumping around inside a very small space), and made a lot of streamers laugh. I think it was a good ending for the game (to the select few who actually got that far).

What didn’t go well with hard mode

• I spent quite a while designing an additional enemy character that was exclusive to hard mode. The fact that it was locked until finishing normal mode, means most players never got to see this enemy, which was kind of frustrating for me. I still think it was worth it (see my point above about rewarding players who got this far), but it was kind of frustrating, especially when watching the first few streams and realizing how few people actually get far enough in the game to see hard mode.
• As I said, hard mode was probably not hard enough, but surprisingly I didn’t hear anyone complain about this one :) Probably by the time people get to the end of hard mode, they are pretty happy the game is done and don’t want it to be any harder.

TL;DR

Had a lot of fun spicing up the game with different difficulty modes and seeing how people progress through them. I think locking up the hardest difficulty was a good decision as it allowed people to feel rewarded for completing the game. A lot of people complained about the game being too difficult (mainly people who only played through normal mode and did not try easy mode), but also a lot of people complained about the game being too easy (mostly those who finished the game on easy but then never progressed to normal).

Would be interested to hear your thoughts about difficulty, in general in Ludum Dare games, or in my game specifically. If you want to try out my game, please do so (and I'd appreciate any comments or feedback) at: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/pyramidion

One last shoutout

Thank you to all the streamers who allowed me to watch them play my game! This has been invaluable for my learning experience. Special thanks to the following streamers: @bigbosserndog, @ursagames, @outstar, @saoi-games, @firesplash-entertainment, @wertle, @rebecca-kremer, @tigerj, @jtn191, @messinabrothers, @mike-inprinciple. I tried to include as many as I could find, but if you're not included and you streamed my game it's probably because I couldn't find your Ludum Dare user. In any case thank you everyone who is out there playing and streaming games, you guys are awesome!!

Only 4 days left...keep playing, keep rating!

If you're tired of playing a million WebGL games, how about trying something different?

Bath Time is now available for iOS and Android, if you're looking for something you can play on your phone!

We had quite a number of people comment that they felt the game would work much better on a phone, and I'm happy to report that it works great with a touchscreen!

Give it a try now: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/bath-time

new enemy - mage

Jump

For those who have not played yet https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/anstorm

With only four days left till results, I am so ready to rate all of the games out there, and I would appreciate if I could get a few ratings too. It's got HTML support, for the impatient ones who don't want to download.

Link: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/power-ports-pollution

Hey LD jammers!

Music Game Jam starts in <11 hours!

You'll have two weeks to make any music/audio-themed game you want!

Last year's games included music-based tower defense, pitch-controlling platforming, and guitar shop management, and you could make anything from a Beethoven RPG to a FPS musical!

There'll also be ~$200 in game prizes! :video_game:

PLUS we've organised 40 YouTubers and streamers to play your entries and give you great feedback!

And all participants will get a free unlimited asset license for the Wwise game audio software!

🔊🎶 Join Music Game Jam ->

You should also join our Game Jammer Discord community and follow MusicGameJam!

This might be obvious to some people, but I didn't figure it out until after the previous LD. The number rankings you receive are relative to your category (Compo/Jam). Not relative to all the LD submissions. You can confirm this looking at the winners from last Jam: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/results

So if you did the Compo your ranking will be out of 1056 submissions whereas if you did the Jam your ranking will be out of 2013 submissions.

You might say "Why does it matter?" But I think you know the answer to that. With the right attitude it can be fun to compare yourself to others and we can't help but want to know how we stack up.

That being said, the fact that you even made the commitment to participate is a huge positive step. I'm sure you've talked to friends about LD and they've said things like, "That seems like too much of a time commitment". My answer to that is, "What could possibly be a better use of a weekend than making a game?!" (well maybe your child's birthday or something, but you get what mean :P )

If you aren't satisfied with your ranking, use that as fuel to do better next time! The only way to lose is to stop making games!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/camp-snuggle

Post a link and I'll play, rate, and comment.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/get-to-the-airlock In case you haven't tried it yet, we've been getting some great feedback and plan to make a complete game from this dare project. We could use your feedback to get there!

Regarding game balance...

Hey guys! Thanks to everyone that's played "Poisoned Palace" so far! I really appreciate all the ratings and feedback thus far. Several people have found the game too hard. If this is the case, this was certainly not on purpose! If you have time a minute, please play it (it's HTML5) and let me know how you feel about the difficulty! Was it too hard? If so, what made it hard? Whether it's because of too many enemies swarming around you or the platforming jumps too tough to make, I'd like to know about it! Thanks for the valuable feedback-- I'm proud of my game but want to make sure the user experience is balanced and enjoyable. It seems to be one of the hardest things to do in game dev, especially in a game with RPG elements like this one. This Ludum Dare has been my first, and it's been so much fun! Thanks to everyone in the community for being amazing. Cheers!

https://youtu.be/1_2j-22Qkb4

Play and rate:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/poisoned-palace

Please comment with a link to your game, I'll play and rate it, too!

Hi guys I know in three days the rating will end and you get your rank but I want something now! :D That’s why I want to do a micro-ranking. If five people post their game and we all play and rate each others game we can then each make a blog post with a ranking of the others, let’s say by tomorrow evening ( in 28 hours). Who’s up for some competition? paste your game below ! The first five can join my mini-ranking :D !my game : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/changing-spaces

I need like 3 more to make it up to 20 across the board. If you play mine, leave a comment on my game and I'll play yours today. Thanks! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/dirty-duty

I realised I needed more ratings so I decided to make a web build for my game Bopxcorp Employee Training

Find it here!

For LD 42, I decided to take a literal approach on the theme, and the game I came up with is called "Edge Runner." I am super happy with the result and I have created a video postmortem (as I do with all my LD games) where I talk about everything there is to know about my game.

Yes, there are plenty of things I would like to have done better or differently but that is okay, because this is only the beginning for Edge Runner.

I put a lot of effort into this video to make it both informative and entertaining. I hope you enjoy it!

https://youtu.be/8GWzmZB9WvQ

P.S. I will be playing and rating games for the next few hours so let me know if you have a game you would like me to play!!

Hello!

I've had a great time playing people's entries, especially on stream, but I've been away from my computer and then working on my latest professional project for the last week. It's been a little while since my last rating, and so I thought I'd politely ask for some ratings.

Play it here! A game about being the potion seller NPC. We're so proud of it and would love your feedback.

I always leave detailed comments on every game I rate, and hope to stream once more. If you would like me to play your game, just let me know :)

Love you as always, everyone!

Taha

Thank you so much. The results are somewhat here and my game is 25th in the grade category(compo and jam) This is my third sixth game jam and the best results I have seen so far. And special thanks to everybody who played my game and give me feedback for bugs, suggestion etc.

If you want to help me go a little bit higher, Play my game!

Game link: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/gunning-out-of-space

Hi everyone, I'm a traveller passing through this lands in search of the ancient ratings for one special game. The legends tell that if this game reaches it's 20 ratings before the deadline something incredible will happen. And I want to see if this legend is true so I beg all of you to rate it and I'll do my best to return the rates in the minor time possible. Thanks for your help and may the gods be with you.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/space-out

My game is about saving the world from elon musk and some space demons, here is the link https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/timothys-correctional-institute

we got a lot of feedbacks for our game. thank you! if you already played the game, some of you might notice that the boss can teleport during fight sometimes. well, I need to be honest to you guys, that's not his ability. that's an actual bug. :laughing:

so, I just got an idea: making that teleport thing to be his ability. I made a simple dissolve shader using Unity's new tool "Shader Graph". the graph will look something like this:

it needs sometime to get used to this new tool. but I was having fun quite a lot. now, let's see it in action:

sorry for the gif quality. it shouldn't more than 4mb tho. what do you think? don't hesitate to leave a comment. :thumbsup:

nb: we won't update the game until the Play+Rate game days ends

With the rating period winding down, it's time to me to reflect on how I did. This was my second Ludum Dare, and there are definitely areas where I've improved since the first one. Getting on the frontpage of Newgrounds was one heck of an achievement, and always something I'll be proud of. Once again, a massive thank you to everyone who played AsterVoid, and left such good ratings and feedback. I really appreciate it.

Having said that, there are also areas where I feel I did worse this time. So...

What Went Well

• When Love Is A Battlefield came out, it was so glitchy that I had to rush out a patch to fix the more serious issues. However, since AsterVoid was simpler and smaller in scope, I was able to test it more thoroughly, and I feel like it's a lot more polished. I even had time to throw in content and Easter eggs beyond what I'd originally planned.
• Thanks to the earlier start time, I was able to stay up to see what the theme would be, brainstorm for a bit, then go to bed and wake up nice and prompt on Saturday. Thanks to that, I got at least a couple of hours' extra dev time compared to LD41.
• Now that I have some experience with PICO-8, I find developing on it a lot easier. Similar to my point about testing, I was able to spend far less time on things like menus than I did with LIAB, giving me more time to play with things like the reusable particle system and the eight-digit scoring system (which, in hindsight, was probably unnecessary).
• The sound effects don't suck!

What Went Badly

• While AsterVoid's smaller scope helped me get it done and polished with less hassle, I feel like it also detracted from the end product. For all its glitches and balance issues, Love Is A Battlefield was a true 8-bit bullet hell game with a deep, meaningful storyline, and a love interest who reacts to your performance. AsterVoid is just a gussied-up Asteroids clone. I don't think my Innovation rating is going to look too good this year.
• On top of that, I don't think I did enough to integrate the "void" mechanic into the actual gameplay. As several reviewers have noted (and as my own gameplay GIFs show) you can just stay in the middle of the screen racking up points, and the voids will never be an issue. I thought about ways to prevent this - spaceships that shoot at you, have the player be moving when they spawn, make voids block your bullets - but they all would have made the game even more difficult than it already is.
• Collision detection. The bane of my PICO-8 programming experience. This game could seriously have benefitted from per-pixel collision detection, but I just... didn't know how to do that. I had a look at other people's algorithms but couldn't make sense of them, and I couldn't use them anyway because Compo. So instead, AsterVoid has clunky square hitboxes that make the game even harder.
• I still have no idea how to use PICO-8's music editor.

What Comes Next?

I'm still committed to releasing an updated "DX" version of Love Is A Battlefield. I may also make a couple of post-jam updates to AsterVoid, just to address a few of the issues that people have raised, but I don't think there'll be any significant overhauls to it like there will be with LIAB.

For now, I gotta play some more games, as I've been busy for most of the rating period and haven't had the chance. Once again, thanks to everyone who's played my game so far! You're all helping me learn, and I promise my next game will be better (and not another top-down space shooter :P )

~F1

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who played my game, rated and left me some handy feedback. I had a really great experience for the second time taking part in Ludum Dare game jam :D

Seeing people playing my game and actually liking it, was something I couldn't have imagined to experience.

THANK YOU

I'll definitely be working on the game in my spare time. Making it less difficult :b and more fun!

I case you haven't played the game yet, [HERE] is the game page :D

Here we go..! Better late than never.

TOOLS USED: Unity, Inkscape, GIMP, Audacity.

Play the game here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/prime-planets

THEME ANNOUNCEMENT:

I liked the new 11am (BST) start time since I could (in theory) come up with some amazing idea and sleep on it. Alternatively, it could make my brain not sleep. It did that.

I expected 'Fragile', 'Decay' or 'One minute' to win, and had some ideas for those, which were of course now useless. My initial thought was (as usual...) to imagine some 3d physics craziness in Unity, maybe using a swarm of nav agents chasing / being chased.

I vowed this time to not enter Ludum Dare unless its a game idea I really really want to make. Either the mechanics or use of theme had to really grab me.

SATURDAY

Prototyped the physics/nav agent thing. I thought the swarm of nav agent blobs could later be cats. I was going out all afternoon, but anyway, I had some blobs navigating a super-simple maze, with walls to block them. I added some jump code to see if they'd pile on top of eachother and get over the walls, but I soon discover that mixing nav agents and physics is pretty awkward. I later added some boxes, thinking the player could move these into place, as the room shrunk perhaps. Kinda worked, but very glitchy. Moveover, wouldn't every level be the same? ie move boxes into place, wait for cat glitching to occur.

As mentioned above, this didn't seem to be a game I really wanted to make, or one that would even be playable. Went out on my trip, kinda giving up on the original idea and jam altogether. In the evening I browsed the site, seeing many fantastic games well underway.

SUNDAY

A thought occured to me: I could make a maths game (note - I'm a maths & computing teacher). I get to see various maths resources over the years. Dice/number games are some of the most common, so I don't claim a lot of originality, but I did my best to add my spin on everything. A space theme would work really well, and you 'run out of space' in many board/puzzle games as the board fills up.

From this point, I was really productive. The requirements of the game code are very clear, and theres no major stumbling blocks to making a 2d puzzle game like this.

-- Early progress getting the board set up.

The hardest bit was the computer AI, which in the end is a brute-force checking of all combinations of numbers and operations.

It wasnt realistic to hit the Compo deadline, so for the first time I entered the Jam. It did have the advantage of allowing me to grab some graphics and audio from elsewhere.

WHAT WENT WELL

Completed the game fully, nothing major got cut though proper help/menus would've been nice. I could also add a 'hint' option, that would be cool. As would difficulty levels. But overall, scope was just about perfect for 2 days. By entering the Jam I could spend most of my time on coding. Creating audio is never my strong point, but I think the sounds combine quite well.

The AI took ~50% of the time to code, and many bugs were squashed. It was challenging but never frustrating to code.

WHAT DIDN'T GO SO WELL

Struggling on Fri/Sat, brainstorming ideas. Not just re-treading my usual go-to ideas. Need to be better at 'thinking outside of the box'. Hence, started too late for the Compo.

Very little time for testing, resulted in a bunch of bugs, which early testers spotted. One major bug let the AI cheat, so I did patch that one asap.

-- One of many bugs, now fixed...

Technically, JS/HTML5 would've been fine for this game (and its output usually plays well on iPad), but I'm very rusty with that tech (e.g. Phaser), so went with Unity.

Overall, I enjoyed being so productive and making a game that turned out well (imo), and I find fun to play myself.

We're almost at the end of the rating phase, making it a good time to look back on Shrinking Panes (and to try and attract some last minute ratings :wink:). Thank you to everybody who has already played and rated it -- your feedback is greatly appreciated, and I've tried to address some of it in the post-compo release.

The Good

• The narrative. I've been blown away by the number of people who said they enjoyed the story -- it's only 10 lines of dialogue! -- and I'm going to make more of an effort to include some sort of exposition in my future Ludum Dare entries. It also proved a good way to inject some humor into what would otherwise have been a fairly dull experience.
• The characters. There are only three visible characters, and each is represented by a rectangle (or cube). This was originally intended as placeholder art, but the more time I spent staring at the Professor and her Assistant the more I came to love them. I've come to the realization that a consistent style is far more important than a particularly flashy one, and that minimalism can work to my advantage.
• The plan. I've already admitted that Shrinking Panes is not the game I planned to make -- it's not a top-down shooter about somebody trapped in a shrinking box -- but I drew up a prioritized list of features and tried to spend an appropriate amount of time on each of them. Without this plan, I wouldn't have finished in time for the Compo.

The Bad

• The bugs. There's a lot I've clearly forgotten (or never truly understood) about developing in 3D, and the initial release had some fairly spectacular bugs: the player and enemy could phase through the glass under certain conditions, the mouse controls would go crazy on window changes, and the camera could be flipped upside down by looking at the player's feet. (This last bug is still in there -- let's pretend it's an Easter Egg.)
• The textures. I wish I'd had time to introduce a few simple textures to spice up the lab: even a simple bump mapping to imply that the floor or ceiling were tiled would be a great improvement.
• The music. It's not as bad as untRACEable -- nobody's ears bled this time -- but the loop is too simple. Next time, more variation!
• The web build. I always leave this until the last minute, and there are always problems. Maybe next time I'll be more disciplined: even building once a day and asking a few people to play it would likely help a lot.

There you have it. I'm sitting at about 40 ratings, which is twice what I got last time, and overall I'm very proud of how Shrinking Panes turned out. I guess we'll see how proud I should be in 3 days time. :laughing:

That's a big question...

Play & rate to guess!! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/whats-in-the-crates

Hello there, fellow jammers! (Is that how we refer to each other? That can't be right). While the jam is still going on and our game is doing fine, I'd like to take this opportunity to invite y'all to a most promising update for a project that originated in this very event, 2 years ago.

Two years ago, our team Whales and Games (unrelated to my team on this jam) made a Ludum Dare 36 entry game, Colossorama. A game with the idea of having multiple weapons, swap them constantly, and adapting to different loadouts. In its original iteration, it barely lived up to that expectation. And, as a result of feedback, it’s been updated twice in the past and becoming a project with plenty of characters, challenges and a weaponpalooza that makes every run unpredictable!

However, and hopefully to wrap it up, we’ve been working on on Colossorama 1.3 entitled The Champions Update. Not only does it reconstruct mechanics and fixes bugs, but is also a major visual and gameplay overhaul, rebalancing, and, of course, weapons, weaponized weapons making it the largest weapon-fest it’s ever been! Over 70 last time we checked. Swords, Axes, Items, Cannonballs, Status effects, Dogs, and more!

Since we want to do out original vision justice, we’re looking for people interested in a #playtesting of sorts, in order to get more feedback before we finish the final product with a few extra surprises on it. You’re more than welcome to participate by filling up this form and joining our Discord server, so you can tell us all about your experience!

Thanks for all the thrills! We’re looking forward to giving you a far better head slicing experience than ever before! :crossed_swords: :whale: Cheers!

RPG-style math in my game!

Does it make sense? Let me know in the comments!

Please play and rate: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/poisoned-palace

Leave me a link to your game-- I'll play it tonight after work!

Beat the boss yet?

Post your fastest times! See if you can beat 1:32! ;)

Where’s my kingdom?! is an action RTS in which you’ll lose your kingdom if you’re not fast enough! You can play & rate it here because there are only 2 days and 20 hours left!

I have spent the past 3 weeks remaking my LD42 game "Parking Spaces" and it's getting close to being ready for Google Play Store now with new graphics, more game mechanics (thanks for the suggestions in the feedback comments), new music, more levels, and an economy system to unlock new content and levels. Here's a preview video of what it looks like as of today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRGwsbaFu7w

Here's a closeup gif of a car wash mishap too =)

Check out my game page for the original entry :) https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/parking-spaces

Hope you are all having a great weekend!

My queue is (almost) empty!

I'm playing and rating games on Twitch.tv but my queue is mostly empty! Submit your game in chat, in a comment, or better yet at the link here.

You can see the (mostly empty) queue here.

Looking forward to playing your awesome game on my Twitch Channel :smile:

My entry was very experimental story-based game, and I'm really curious as to what everyone thinks of the various aspects like art and mood. So it would be awesome if you could come check it out, and leave a rating!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/paradise-inc

If you're low on ratings too, just let me know! I'll come play it when I get a chance tomorrow. :smiley:

Hello guys! The time to play and rate our game is ending! Don't miss the chance to do this! Thank you very much to all that give us a feedback!

Our game: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/stack-master

Hey everyone! This was my first jam and I had a blast working on my game Space Shipping. If you haven't had a chance, feel free to check it out here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/space-shipping

Meanwhile, I'm still working on the post-jam version. It's taken a bit longer than expected due to work, a complete code overhaul, updated UI system, and a ton of other updates. I've been learning a lot as I go about some of the nuances of Gamemaker Studio and honestly game programming logic in general. I've been tinkering with making a game for quite a long time, but this is the first time I've ever gotten anything to the point of a public release, and I did it in 72 hours for the jam. I want the polished version to actually look kinda decent, and I've been working on re-sizing everything from the original 1280x720 resolution into Full HD 1920x1080. Some of that has been done, a lot of it is still a work in progress. I'm also a solo dev team with a full time job outside of programming games, so I don't get to work on this as much as I'd like to. But I'm making time, and I'm slowly but surely getting things done. For anyone who's interested in a post-jam version, I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments. I'm seriously taking all feedback into consideration (one of the FIRST things I've figured out how to add into the post-jam version is a reset button for once you get to the end game so you don't have to exit and re-start, because several people mentioned that).

Also, I have a working Graphics Options menu implemented, and (I'm 90% certain) I've bug tested it enough that everything works as intended. Here's a screenshot:

Again, TL;DR: I had a blast, you guys are great, thanks for the feedback, and now I'm gonna get back to work on Space Shipping - Post Jam Version! :)

Please help me get a 50 rating for my game. Also leave comment so that i can rate your game also. https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/planet-o https://youtu.be/e4a4RK5vjnE

Hey there! I recently competed in the Ludum Dare 42 for the FIRST time. However, I did not know any good game engines for 2d games. I know about GameMaker: Studio 2, and Phaser, and some others. But the next LD Jam is in a few months and I cant decide which one would be easier or better for me to use. Could you please help me to figure out which game engine I should or could use and then list the programming languages which CAN be used with these game engines? Thank you for reading this blog, and thank you in advance for your advice and support!

A few days left until game rating ends. Enough time to try out my second Ludum Dare game. It's a platformer with a twist: your character, a dazed grasshopper, has a rare genetic dysfunction and needs magic mushrooms to keep his vision wide.

P.S.: You can play it comfortably from your browser!

Click HERE to check it out

Hey guys! My game was....... less than horrible, but I still would really like more support and ratings. Next time I will hopefully be able to produce a game which is fun to play with a game engine, but this time all I had was my limited knowledge of HTML and CSS. Also, like in my previous blog post, what are some nice 2D game engines? Thanks!

https://github.com/Cicijix/ksyneLD42

If you havn't had a chance. Checkout my little arcade style game for ludum dare 42. It was alot of fun to make the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN5Znb2RrK0

It's been fun playing alot of your games aswell, some really innovative games as usual.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/blockie

Thanks!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/beater Audio visualizer

You may also leave a feedback on that 😉
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/pirates-greed-1
Game Concept
Design Document

A sneak peek of the final document

Note. It may have small inconsistencies comparing to the final game, but the most parts of it are the same.

In an attempt to figure where I keep going wrong over the weekends of Ludum Dare, I decided to analyse all of my entries to date - all 4 years of them.

The main reason I started participating in LD was to improve as a developer and to have fun while doing so. From the graph it shows I've got better in some regards, but I do repeat the same mistakes over and over and I believe it's because of my poor time management. Other issues show up too, theme-block is a big one and relying too heavily on my strongest skill, coughgraphicscough.

LD30: Courier

I started fairly decently, relying on my stronger skills to make an 'experience' rather than a game as I spent most of my time creating graphics and audio while keeping the game itself to a pretty simple platformer with scripted triggers. Still my best MOOD rating and rank I've achieved to date.

LD31: RGB :star::star:

This I regard as my greatest game to date. I started late (forgot it was on until around 5pm on Saturday) and decided to only enter if I could make a skeleton of a game in 2 hours. I did this and decided to embrace the gameplay and theme and spent less than an hour on graphics. Getting back into the top 25 distracted me for many events until I remembered why I participate. While the prestige of getting a high ranking is great, I think improving on previous entries is far more important if I want to succeed. This was my best attempt at FUN, which is a little disappointing as I believe that is the most important category.

LD32: Extinguished

Something I've lived by from the start is a refusal of repeating myself, sometimes to my own detriment. This time I figured I'd give UE4 a whirl and make a 3D game instead of the usual pixel art focused 2D game. Unfortunately the gameplay took a dive and the art took so long to make I didn't have time for audio, something I go onto repeat in future jams.

LD33: Eat Sheep & Die :star::star::star::star::star:

Keep it simple, stupid! For once I listened and managed to make one of my strongest submissions yet. The tiny retro pixel graphics were quick and easy to pump out and I even had time to spread myself very evenly, which the results certainly show as all categories scored higher than 3.5. This has stayed my best attempt at THEME, which makes sense as the theme was fairly loose.

LD34: Super Christmas Tree Tycoon

This I always felt went pretty poorly, but the scores are fairly decent so I suppose I wasn't expecting my future attempts would make this look good :stuckouttongue:. It's my best attempt at HUMOUR, but also the only time I've tried to make something humorous. Graphics were done in photoshop this time around and I avoided making pixel art. I don't know why.

LD35: Porknight :star:

A decent submission but I mistakenly thought I'd done a good job with theme this time around but had that turned out to be completely wrong. The cute graphics and simple gameplay held this one up more than anything but overall the ratings were far lower than the comments let on. I guess people lie.

LD36: Mik & Odi

This was the event with no rating system. You can imagine my despair as it will reflect poorly on my consistent participation and leave an ugly space on my OCD stat keeping, but it's not the end of the world. Going back and having a play I see it was a solid submission with only minor balancing and buggy control issues. Graphics and audio were great and I decided to live by a new rule of limiting my colour-palette which worked wonders.

LD37: Abominable :x:

Aaaand this is where I officially go down hill. Theme-block is a horrible affliction as it totally demoralised me having me re-start what I was making multiple times over the weekend. The fact it got ratings above 2 stars will always astonish me and you may wonder why I even submitted it. Well, although I knew the glaring issues with the game (for instance, you could fish, cut trees and make fires with an axe...) but I was still curious how it would be rated.

LD38: Planet Heist :star::star::star::star:

Theme-block strikes again, but I had a plan this time. Fuck it and make the best game from the list of final theme ideas, which I did to great success. This entry holds my strongest attempts at OVERALL and INNOVATION and aside from theme, it's a solid game with challenge and multiple levels meaning it will require a good 10 minutes to complete. This is quite key to making a game, it seems. Innovation has always been my weakest category so this claiming the top spot isn't much to shout about.

LD39: Zest & Goop

This was a strong entry but suffered as I had a wedding to go to that weekend! This meant I essentially made a compo game but submitted it to jam causing it to have far better games to compete against and higher expectations. It remains my strongest GRAPHICS score while losing out on ranking to LD35. This further proves the effectiveness of a simple colour-palette. Also, if you have walls, making the character a ghost isn't enough to disregard collision checks :stuckouttongue:. Also, the audio was seen as annoying which is something to learn from.

LD40: Tail :star::star::star:

The main issue with this submission was the level... It was absolutely massive which meant the load time was around 15 seconds. The movement/controls were highly praised and overall it was a great entry aside from its lack of depth. Humour is very low in comparison to other categories but this is to be expected as not every could and should be funny. It claims the top spot for AUDIO which is great as this generally gets the least amount of time spent on it and my previous attempt was quite unsuccessful.

LD41: Wasted Warlocks :x:

Oof, talk about over-scoping. This will be the last time I allow friends to be around me during the initial design process. They had great ideas but very little knowledge of how to accomplish such things. I've only myself to blame though, I should know better after 11 LD participations. Too much time on GFX... the usual problem that caused me to not finish the gameplay.

LD42: Obey

These results are obviously not yet in but I'm certain this will be a poor entry. The main gameplay focused around a system that I implemented poorly causing Sunday to be mostly bug fixing and very little polish :cry:. Audio fell by the way-side and the game, while playable, lacks challenge and a core goal.

CONCLUSION

I need to sit down and practise my system design and programming practises before the next event, that much I'm sure of! I have felt this way for a year or so though, let's pray I actually do it this time. I'm also considering to limit myself to focusing on humour and innovation as these are my least explored categories (probably as they're the hardest :stuckouttongue: ) and hopefully that will bring something new out of me. Or maybe I'll fail even harder than before... Only time will tell!

If you've read this far... Thanks! This is an incredibly self-serving post but perhaps others could gain some loose learning points from it. I'd be interested in seeing others take a deep dive into their own ratings over the years, it's a great way to see which skills could do with some improvement.

I've yet to rate 20 games, so if you need more ratings to compete just drop a comment and I'll try and play it today! First come first serve and time permitting, of course.

Good luck to everyone for results day :grinning:

I'd love to play and rate your game if I haven't already!

Please leave me a link to it in the comments.

Please give mine a try if you like!

Play in browser: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/poisoned-palace

There's score now and a bit more challenge. Pew pew!!

Link: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/pizza-defender

You can save the forest here:
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/aquaduct

I just need a few more ratings before I can hit 20, and while I'm rating other games, it would be great if you could give mine a go right here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/power-ports-pollution

There are only 2 days left for you to play and rate my game. I'd love to get the score at the end!
You can play "There’s No Place Like Home" in the browser

Leave a link to your game in the comments so I could play and rate it if I haven't already!

Try to survive as long as possible

Wolfs can eat you,snow will block you,your stomach will starve....

Everything is trying to kill you in this survival game!Come and check it out!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/demon-space

Guys, I really need WAY more votes on my game, it would really mean a lot to me if some of you could rate and vote and give feedback on my game. At this stage I'm not going to get a score.

CYBATRON is a cyberpunky puzzler where you lose ground to move ground in the hopes of producing the resources your society requires.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8o2nnS16QQ

🎮 ➡ PLAY CYBATRON (HTML5)

My LD42 game is about reshaping people so they fit their future job. I still need a few votes to get a rating, so you can play it here and let me know what you think of it:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/human-tangram

I also made a post-jam version that I called "bloody", that makes the game more disturbing ...

Even if we don't rank in the end, do we still get to see our score? I.E. 2.76/5 in THEME, etc.

You can walk, jump, explore, open chests, trap an expanding boss by placing blocks, look at cool pixelart and listen to good 8 bit NES music. We already have more than 20 ratings and cool feedback, we just didn't want you to miss out the fun of our cool and good game. https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/blob-attack

Hi everyone! Only a few days left but it's still not too late to save the world! The human population in our world is growing at a startling rate and our mother earth is calling! :astonished: Can you hear it? Please come check out my game if you haven't already. I'll give you the power to change people's genders, infinite free condoms, and the chance to save our world and become a hero! Sounds exciting? Please click the link below:point_down:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/homos-save-the-world

You have no idea how much it helps us if you would rate our game! :smiley:

Due to multiple "complaints" :D I made the pacing a little bit faster ;) And the ones who suggested this were right :D its more engaging.

(this gif is old though)

As for a leaderboard - I think Im gonn add it tomorrow. Until then, you must remember the score in your head, visualize a leaderboard and try to beat the highest score.. No cheating tho@:D

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/pizza-defender

Do you enjoy checking out stuff that's not "appropriate"? (Gosh stop using your filthy dark, dirty mind. I only meant umm... right, those kitties and dogs you are checking out while you wooork) Anyways more content for you here https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/rated-r-for-rum Guess what, its Rated R for RUM soo check it out as much as you want and maybe leave a feedback as well....

...and I only need 1 more rating (in the mood category)! Wohoooooooo! :D

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/french-pen-price-doom

Greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen! CHECK OUT THIS GREEEEEEEEN GAME: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/zero-star Greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen!

GRIDLOCKED is a stylistic puzzle game. The goal of the game is connect and manipulate numbers provided by the 'Inputs' around the outside of a grid so that they link up with a series of changing 'Outputs' found inside white boxes.

We're only a handful of ratings short of 40, if you'd like to try the game click to play here!

Try What's in the crates?! here! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/whats-in-the-crates

I have got comments from streamers saying stuff like "now thats how you make a game jam game!" and "hahahahahahaha" so u should play it too https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/plug-and-shoot https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/plug-and-shoot https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/plug-and-shoot

Based on all your awesome feedback, and all the things I didn’t have time to add, there’s an actually pretty fun version of my game! screenshota.png Now with Ugrades!