So i've never done one of these before but I understand how it works, i'm not like a pro game maker or anything but I can make something half decent so i'm gonna try it out. I use GameMaker Studio 2 so thats a thing. Yeah cool thats it.

Hi I'm AmDMaster, a new indie game developer working on a metroidvania game. I was thinking to participate in this game jam since I've heard about it a lot. I have some questions: 1) Can I make the game from home? 2) How does the submission system work? 3) Anything else I need to know...

Literally 90% of the themes from round 3 would cause everyone to make the same game. "You are the final boss", "You are the quest giver", "You control the enemies", "Everything is a weapon", etc. Lots of themes that aren't really "themes" are making it pretty far. What I mean by that is a theme is usually "Rouge-Like", "Space Exploration", "Underground", or something very broad. Saying like "You play as this and the enemies are this" would be too restrictive and in all honesty would make the jam quite boring, as everyone's games would have the same major gameplay expectation. I really hope a good theme wins, but for now, it's not looking too good.

Hi everyone! How is it going? I hope everyone is feeling great things and we will create pretty games in this event. If i find some spare time in this weekend i will be participated in this event for 3rd time. Generally i am making my games in JavaScript but this time i planned to use Godot Engine to create my game. It seems very simple to use but i am completely new in Godot Engine and GDScript so if you have any advice or trick about Godot Engine please write down to the comments. So.. yeah that is all. See you later in this weekend !

As mentioned before, this will be my first Ludum Dare, and my first game jam in general. In the past, I heard some people say about Ludum Dare: The theme always sucks. Now the voting rounds are open and I think these people were right. Although I liked some of the past themes.

WTF Ludum Dare?! Most of the "themes" are just game mechanincs. This has being a problem for a while now and they where a lot of very interesting suggestions from the comunity of how to solve it, but it looks like nobody cares! This is infuriating, we are not exploting the full potential of this event and that really set me down.

So many of these are just old themes slightly changed or rephrased.

See, at this point I would have written 3 lengthy posts for each theme voting round exclaiming my opinion on each one and what I think the potential is behind all of them. Sadly, I think I've already completed this job in advance as a result. Only around 12 of the 48 themes suggested are original and have not already been suggested in the past.

This on its own wouldn't be bad if most of these themes weren't terrible. So, I won't be making a post like that again. Here's a very nice, easy to digest list of screenshots instead. See you in 3 days and happy jamming!

I do not know why people dislike the themes present in the theme voting so far. I voted positive for most of them.

I've recently gave up a job at a medium-sized company where I was acting as a CTO for six years; mostly working with mobile apps and highload backends. This was quite a journey, but at some point I felt bored and decided to get into something that always tempted me: game development (is 30 years too soon for a midlife crisis? :D)

I've only published one game since then - an endless runner for iOS and Android heavily inspired by an old-school classic SkiFree game for windows. The game is called Avalanche Run and I will be really glad if you could provide some feedback :)

You can check it out here.

So I decided to challenge myself and come up with something creative. I will do the compo and I hope I won't mess it up too bad, since I have really next to none experience with game development and I am still fairly new to both C# and Unity :) :v:

I am almost certain that I will make something in 2d, since it's easier for me (yes, as a total Unity noob I am still wrapping my head around Quaternions xD) and 10 years ago I had some experience working with Flash when it was still not dead.

Hope the theme would me awesome.

Btw, why does the jam start at night? Seems a little strange :)

I would probably try to set up a twitch stream, but it seems that there are not much working software for mac to stream the screen that don't try to set the CPU on fire :D

I haven't done a compo since LD26 so, I am really excited. Me and My brother are gonna hash out this game. Going to use Unity and try and use free licensed art to get things done faster. I want to use Pro Motion to create any assets.

And if you have any constructive suggestions on dealing with it, consider leaving a comment on GitHub.

Almost all of the themes are great. It's hard to pick one to vote negative.

First of all - I am not sure I can pull this one off.

I happen to be traveling to Luxembourg at this exact weekend, so I might not have enought time to devote to actual development. Maybe I will put together somethin super-simple, but no promises.

On the other hand I have recently upped my programming skills, and learned a few ways how Unity can be used to develop games other than being Rendering and Phisicsing engine. So putting together something playable should be simpler for me now. Hopefully :sweat_smile:

Theme voting... I don't remember if there was another time where I would only upvote one theme, but here it is now.

But I am not going to get into "Theme suxx" rage. First of all - it wouldn't change anything, except spoil my (and potentially someone else's) mood, and this would be bad. Secondly - any theme would be workable. There is no such thing as good or bad theme.

So... Happy jamming, everyone! Let's have a lot of fun making and playing those games!

Hi, I am excited to participate in LD44, will do my best!

During LD, I have a few other things to take care of so I might be even more time constrained than normal. Will try to get inspired during the busy times. I am planning to use vrum.js, blender, audacity and gimp.

I am joining the solo entry, my goal for this LD is to get top 50 in the humor section.

Can anybody finish this line: Why did the developer cross the road?

Hey!

So, finally taking part in my first LD. I've basically managed to get the whole weekend to myself so I'll have about as much time as one could hope to have in this kind of thing. But I had a question;

What is the stance on using engines in the compo?

I apologise if this is clearly answered somewhere and I've missed it but I was just wondering if using an engine excluded you from the compo. I get you're supposed to create everything from scratch but making an engine (and then a game in that engine) in two days seems like a fairly tall order. And if you CAN use engines, where is the line drawn between what you can and can't use? For example, obviously you can't use Unity's first person controller but can you use standard shaders or would you have to write your own?

Regardless of the answer, I'm almost certainly going to stick to the jam for my first game, but I would like to know. Looking forward to taking part!

It's nothing new that themes usually suck. Heck, even Phil Strahl a.k.a. Pixel Prophecy made a movie poster about it.! the-theme-always-sucks-v02.jpg After 43 Ludum Dare we must face the fact that the theme is not the most important thing; good games spring out even with shitty themes, bad ideas or begginer teams. We as a community are who decide the theme for every year and we know that as a fact. It's purely democratical. Sometimes an idea or a theme sounds really good on paper, but it doesn't work that well later; maybe because it was too narrow or too broad, but it's up to us to determine the quality of our games.

In any case, if LD themes are just not doing it for you, there're a lot of jams out there!

This are my votes for this LD44, they may be negative, but I'm sure we'll make something good out of it! Good luck this weekend, jammers!

Yep! I'm joining this one. Pushing myself to the limit is the best way to actually get the ball rolling. (and work more on a certain game about a ball)

So there has been some controversy surrounding the themes sucking. That's fine, I'm joining to have fun, even if I have to work with a theme like "player must eat 4 burgers each square meter they travel on the desert bus". Ok, that was very specific, but you get the idea. Just use imagination or something.

And I hope to give you guys a better game than last time. Like, something actually playable. ~~Maybe james 2~~

See ya!

I joke, I kid. Your not bad (well you might be but I don't know you well enough to judge so I'm just gonna say your not.) Much has been said about how terrible the themes are and I agree with that sentament but ladys and gentlemen I come barring what I consider a solution. Did you know that in 2014 Ralph Koster gave a GDC talk all about practical creativity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyVTxGpEO30

I'm not saying this is the miracle drug you all will need to make a bad theme win first place, but I mean it can't hurt when there is a chance we will get the theme "Non-traditional Boss Battles". Now because I am a big believer that claims need evidence I am gonna use some practical creativity and list off Sixteen diffrent game idea's all in the genre of Twin-Stick Shooter (which I don't plan on making one at any point as they don't interest me at all) using the themes from Round 3 of voting to show that even with bad themes all you need is a little creativity to make it work.

• Ridiculosly Overpowered: Enemys are impervious to direct fire (talk about being overpowered) you instead must bounce your bullets off walls and even other enemy's inorder to deal any damage.
• You're the Final Boss: This would just be a tradiditional twinstick shooter but you spawn with a bunch of ally's trying to kill the hero and each time you kill the hero you advance or alternativly each time you die you become the next more powerfull enemy with diffrent powers and shot patterns.
• Everything is a Weapon: A twinstick shooter where instead of starting is a gun or something like that you enstead grab enemys and use them as auto-firing weapons against there own kind
• You are a Side Character: Rather than play the hero in this twinstick you play as the orbital cannon following around the hero shielding him from fire and casting out small blast at enemys
• Shelter: A twin stick shooter crossed with a tower defense game. Every enemy you kill drops resources that can be used to build towers or upgrade your shelter. Your goal is to defend your shelter until you can build a becon to call for help.
• The more You Die, The more the World Dies: You are the guardian angle of a small island as foes siege the island you are on each time you die you wake up a year later (aka the next level) with the world falling apart slowly in your absence
• You Can't Save them All: You are a rescue ranger tasked with saving people from a burning forest fire use your water spay to put out flames and carry people to the rescue zone unfortunatley the clock is ticking and you won't have time to save every one.
• You are the Quest Giver: Start deep in a dungeon planting the holy grail inside on your way up activate all the monster spawners with your fire and try to escape without dieing. Once outside you stand and wait for the hero to apper so you can send them to retreave the holy grail.
• Contagious: You are a CDC decontamanation expert run around shooting people with your vaccine gun to stop the spread of a deadly contagion.
• You Control the Enemy: You are the enemy guiding the mindless minions into the spray of fire from the hopelessly incompident hero.
• Alchemy: Litterally just a twin stick shooter but instead of shooting bullets you lob potions at enemys (maybe the potions could all have a diffrent effects)
• Break the Cycle: A twin-stick shooter where your goal is to destroy the towers that create enemy waves rather than just defend in an endless cycle.
• Underground: A Twin-stick shooter but the arena's you fight in are underground fight clubs where you battle for the entertainment of the rich elite.
• Non-traditional Boss Battles: Rather than have a big boss where you have to fill him with even more bullets than a normal enemy you enstead have
• Two Characters, One Player: Take the controls of Brothers a Tale of Two Sons and use that as your twinstick movement each character moves in the same direction they are shooting.
• Tiny Town: You are a giant kaiju terrorizing the city use your twin stick action to destroy tanks and even some buildings

So yeah as you can see with some creativty even bad themes can turn into something not terrible. I really do recommend that you watch the video as Mr. Koster does a far better job talking about mixing genres and making entirely new genres that what I could ever hope to convey in my short sixteen theme ideas. Like I said I won't be doing anything with twin-stick shooters probably ever so feel free to rumage through my garage sale of ideas and take what you want, and always remember "The theme is eternally bad. Even when its good its bad, and if you think it can't be any worse just wait."

Also here are my votes for all the diffrent voting rounds so far.

Praying for a good theme :pray:

Ok, now I'm hyped!

Well everything is in the title. I'm brand new to all this ld thing and before reading about how everyone felt like the theme sucks I was literaly talking about it to my schoolmates being like : "The themes are freaking awesome, you can build so much around it or derogate it anyway you want" And so I'm not a true Ludum Dare jamer, coz I dont slaughter, I enjoy some themes more than others but everything is way to green compared to others. So here i'll share my stuff.

Say something

come up with a really good idea for one of the themes that makes all of your other ideas for the other themes seem stupid then you start hoping that the theme you have the best idea for wins despite the very low odds of it actually winning? me too.

Here's hoping I finish something wacky and interesting.

• Unity (w/ VS or VS Code)
• Inkscape

As the title explains, this is my 3rd time entering Ludum Dare.

# Change in mindset

So for this event, I have changed my mindset of how I will be creating these games within a limited time, but first, I have to give credit where credit is due. HonestDanGames had inspired me to start coming up with ideas with the themes that are being shown in during the Theme Votings BEFORE the event starts. My last 2 entry ideas were both made up on the spot as soon as the event started.

Thinking of themes before the jam starts seems obvious to do to probably a majority of the participants and I am confused to why I didn't do this in the first place.

This can be seen in Solar Engulfment, my first submission. Solar Engulfment was an LD42 submission, with the theme being "Running out of space". When the theme dropped, I did have the obvious idea of having to delete data from a computer; An idea which I had seen multiple times after I had published my game. The original idea for Solar Engulfment was the player needing to escape from a room that was being flooded with water; This idea was not achievable to me as I wanted to have Fluid Dynamics implemented but I couldn't find a good solution and so I went back to the drawing board and came up with what you see now.

Now for Caprae Mortem, Caprae Mortem was a LD43 submission with the theme being "Sacrifices must be made" or something similar to that. I could not come up with an idea when the theme dropped. I distinctly remember staying up late until the theme dropped and going to bed; When I woke up, I had a look at what people were doing with the theme, until I saw a post which mentioned something about Satan or whatever, and then I thought of how you would sacrifice a goat to Satan as a form of worship [I don't study religion or care about religion so I'm unsure if I'm right on that], then low and behold, you see Caprae Mortem's result.

# Ludum Dare 44 Themes...

I won't lie, the themes this time round are terrible. Original opinion, I know.

I haven't been able to come up with ideas for a majority of the themes, so far, I have 19 (out of a total of 48) themes that have ideas. These themes, I may add, only have 1 idea to them, no theme on my current list has more than 1 idea. Some may wonder why you'd want more than 1 idea; I think it's important to have more than 1 in case you are incapable of doing that idea and need something to fall back on, something like I did with Solar Engulfment.

I've also had a look back at Ludum Dare 42 and Ludum Dare 43 themes and noticed that there are duplicates. Let's list them shall we?

All themes are with respective listing, meaning that number 1 for LD42, will be number 1 for LD44.

• Ludum Dare 42

  1. One minute
  2. It's spreading
  3. Colour as a gameplay feature
  4. One enemy only
  5. Four elements
  6. Decay
  7. Safe in the dark
  8. You can't control the player
  9. Alchemy & Magic
  10. You can't save them all
  11. You are the final boss
  12. Light is dangerous
  13. Floating islands
  14. You control the environment, not the player
  15. You are not the main character
  16. Shelter

• Ludum Dare 44

  1. 30 seconds - It consists of a limited time to complete or perform a task
  2. Contagious
  3. Colour changes everything
  4. Only one enemy
  5. Four elements
  6. Decay
  7. Stay in the dark
  8. You control the enemies
  9. Alchemy
  10. You can't save them all
  11. You are the final boss
  12. Stay in the dark
  13. Floating worlds
  14. Control the environment, not the player
  15. You are a side character.
  16. Shelter

I do understand that people want to do these themes and possibly see what other people would do if the theme was chosen and I am completely fine with that, but I think I speak for some people where some of us are getting annoyed that these themes keep being suggested and chosen for theme voting. I personally think that those 16 themes that are duplicates of Ludum Dare 42, possibly Ludum Dare 43 as well, could have been entirely different unique themes and as I am still new to Ludum Dare, when themes come up like, Alchemy, I find it hard at how I would implement that into Unity, and needing to research of how Alchemy was theorised to have worked.

Or possibly a better example, 30 seconds or 1 minute; I'd need to think of an idea that would get the user to do something in a limited time. Sure, you have the possibility of testing reaction skills such as "Click the left mouse button when you think it's been x amount of time" but it's a very repetitive gameplay idea and can be very boring to play after a couple of minutes.

Anyway, enough ranting!

I plan on using the following: - Programming: - Unity3D 2019 - JetBrains Rider 2018 - Art: - Adobe Photoshop CC 2018 - Sound: - Audacity - Modelling: - Blender - Planning: - Trello

I hope that everyone enjoys this jam and can come up with a game idea that is really fun and exciting to play! Good luck to all of you, can't wait to play some of the games that you create with the best abilities you have, whether it's art, sound, gameplay, etc!

So I should be able to participate to this jam. Well I have nothing else to do, except work for my art contest, but maybe i'll be able to do some illustration on the game jam i'll be able to show, so, hm, yeah, I'll try.

I'll try to make something simpler than my last game (Disco Lovers, that ended up being . . . Not good, cause I in 48 hours I couldn't do what I wanted plus the graphics plus a storyline, etc) and also a bit more original. I think I lost my originality somewhere between the end of 2017 and the very begining of this year, so I'll try to do something out of my confort zone this time. No space, no disco, and probably (?) no purple. I maybe already have an idea, so we'll see . . .

I'll be using :

• Unity3d as the engine

• Sublime text 3 as a code editor

• Gimp for pixel art and design

• Procreate for artworks

• Paint tool sai 2 for artworks (as a complement if needed, but tbh I'll probably stick to procreate)

• Garage Band for the music ! (yup, no more "old school but make it modern" songs, i'll do EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC this time !!! And it'll sound good !)

Good luck to everyone, and let's see what you will create ! 😄

Or maybe it's because I have some ideas for a lot of them, I don't know. But yeah, I admit a lot of them are repetitive. I want to strangle myself for forgetting to complete my slaughtering of the themes after I left for the week-end. I could only slaughter like half of the propositions :'(

Anyway, my choices :

So, what do you think ?

Let's just all agree that "You are a side character who is running out of 30 seconds and has two buttons to change color of space islands" would be the greatest theme of all time.

I'm going to suggest that for LD45, seriously

After previous entries in LD38 and LD40, this will be my third time entering the compo in LD44. I'm looking forward to it.

Previous attempts I've used Python and Kivy. This time around I'm looking at Rust and Amethyst. Mainly because I've been playing around with Rust for the past year and want to build something in it, and also it's easier to package up Rust than Python as I lost hours in both LD38 and LD40 to working with python packaging.

Big goals this time: More sound, more motion.

Once again, I'll be streaming (including my practice) at https://twitch.tv/argensis

I'm in!

I wanted to share whatever ideas pop into my head for today's themes. Ideas aren't precious, so hopefully these help inspire other people!

When I'm thinking of ideas I tend to try to think of obvious ideas and ideas that subvert the theme.

Ridiculously overpowered

The best way to feel overpowered is to fight huge swarms of enemies at once. Make a game with tons of enemies!

A game about finding ways to stack abilities to combine abilities to become overpowered.

A game about gamers complaining something is "OP".

* You're the final boss *

Defeating waves of super smug hero types.

What other sorts of "final bosses" are there? A final exam? Maybe you play as the exam trying to mess someone up?

* Everything is a weapon *

Taking this to the extreme, what if the user interface is a weapon?

* You are a side character *

What if you played as someone like Kazooie from Banjo and Kazooie? You'd have to trigger abilities at the right time to help the main character.

Games where you run an RPG style shop are also pretty fun. The world ending might be big business!

Or you could be some other profession like a dungeon janitor.

* Shelter *

Shelter implies sheltering from something. The cold, wind, rain, negative emotions?

You can build shelter, or seek it out. Shelter often feels important when it's for you and someone else. Maybe you're a family of animals? Maybe you create shelter for others?

* The more you die, the more the world dies *

Each time you die, part of the level goes away? Maybe you play as parts of the level, so you are the world?

Could you use the word "dye" instead and make things change colors?

* You can't save them all *

Escorting lots of small creatures Lemmings-style comes to mind.

What about "saving for later" style saving?

Or what about a game about the Trolley problem?

* You are the quest giver *

A "quest" is a search for something. What if you are a librarian of lost objects, and you ask adventurers to find lost objects?

What if you're just giving "quests" to your dog to go find a ball?

Maybe you run a quest giving business as an inkeeper, and you are paid to give quests to adventurers?

* Contagious *

Make a game about the Dancing Plague of 1518.

* You control the enemies *

Obvious: You play as an enemy stopping a hero. Like a Goomba instead of Mario.

Less obvious line of thinking, if something is an "enemy" to you and yet you still control it what does that mean? Maybe you can control the enemies but they still cause damage? Think moving a bunch of monsters around a city at once as you press the arrow keys, but because they all move at once some will bump into buildings while some run into range of your weapons.

Maybe it's a game about herding zombies?

* Alchemy *

What "matter" can you transform? The level itself? The rules of the game (like Baba is You)? Can you perform Alchemy on yourself to change yourself?

* Break the cycle *

You could be a malicious railroad designer, optimizing for maximum congestion (parody New York's MTA to get New Yorkers playing your game).

Perhaps some sort of automatic system tends to reform cycles and breaking them might be tricky?

* Underground *

Rabbits, moles, worms, and other animals live underground. What is their life like? How might they move and what struggles might they overcome?

Skeletons are underground, what if you're playing as a skeleton in the afterlife under a graveyard?

* Nontraditional boss battles *

There were old flash games about beating up your boss at work, but that seems unusually violent.

What if you have to talk things through with the boss. What if you were a negotiator sent to reason with the dragon?

Maybe the boss challenges you to a dance off?

Is it the boss that's non-traditional, or the battle?

* Two characters, one player *

There are lots of good platformers where you swap between characters to solve puzzles.

There are also good mechanics to be had by controlling characters at the same time and figuring out how to complete the level with both of them at once.

The theme doesn't specify you have to "control" the characters. It could be that you're one of "two characters" in this world. Is there some way you could disguise which player the character controls? So the player has to figure out which one they control?

* Tiny town *

How can you make a small space meet certain goals? (this Ludum Dare game was a brilliant implementation of this idea: Tiny Towns)

If a town were on the surface of a small object, like a cube, or a marble, what would that mean and how might that impact gameplay?

What if it's a game about "small town" rumors spreading. Maybe you try to spread rumors to get more popular, but other people are trying to spread rumors about you as well.

Real talk tho, most themes are ok, it's just that I don't feel like I can come up with any original ideas for them, or that I have seen them already on previous LD theme suggestions or other jams. And also, what's the fun in having a theme that is "OK"?

You can vote on suggestion and suggest themes before the 3 last rounds happen. That's called Theme Slaughter.

It is the most annoying thing to talk to people that think games are easy to make. Now i have to go do some things on Friday and Sunday (luckily I freed up monday). It is so nice to talk to people on here that understand how difficult it is. Everyone seems to think that a game just takes a few hours top to make and never actually think about all the things that go into it. Dealing with people like this is the worst part if my day.

This will be the second time the team and I are doing a Ludum Dare game, our first one was quite successful, with 74k views and 43k+ downloads!

Should be really fun making another one! Slightly less time to do it than before, but we'll work hard.

Last LD was December 2017... didn't actually submit anything but had fun anyways. This is the first time I've got a VR setup at home for an LD event, so I might do something with that.

Anyways...

• Unity
• Blender
• Possibly giving Masterpiece VR a try for throwing together some models
• ASEprite for textures usually or possibly

• Gimp

• Audacity if I ever actually get to do sound for one of these

Good luck to everyone. I see everyone's complaining about the themes being terrible, so it's good to know nothing has changed too much :wink:

In light of [@ian-kettlewell]{https://ldjam.com/users/ian-kettlewell} idea of suggesting ideas to get people thinking about the themes, here is my 2c

Cards are your weapons

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwY1i1cR-VM Standard JRPG

What about a ground-hog day were you can't remember the game word between daily resets. You need to create notes (on cards) to yourself to solve problems.

The bufferfly effect

The weather is the same everywhere every day. Constant drought or constant flooding. We need chaos causing weather butterflies!

Only one enemy

Escape a mirror you.

Fight a giant fungus (appears above ground in many places but is the same creature)

Light as a weapon

Starwars, Any Vampire game. A really brutal dieting regime. Airships pirates ("Weight then down and send them to Davie Jones")

One room

Classic escape room. Papers please. Basically make you character stand still and bring the game to the character.

Regular jobs, but in Space

Make a sandwich but all the ingredients float around.

The environment is a weapon

Bar fight, everything from tables and chairs to wall, light fittings and the bar can be used to injure. Populous; strike your enemies with lighting, floods, earthquakes, like the vengeance of an angry god.

Change the genre of a classic video game

'Strip poker' manage a Las Vegas casino in a business sim.

'Doom' The real time strategy game.

'Rimworld' racing game.

'Secret of monkey island' cooking game.

Take a lovable plumber from a platformer and put him in a racing game ;)

Decay

Murder mystery in a haunted house.

Stay in the dark

Vampires again.

Sith lord tempted by the light-side of the force.

Side effects

Puzzle game, push one block another moves in sympathy.

Can only move sideways.

Two-button game

Rhythm game?

Platformer/puzzle game but jumps, spikes, traps, block puzzles, monsters and of course exactly two buttons.

Time is the currency

The past it threatens the fastest weapon, you wouldn't make it past a second. Sorry I don't know what came over me.

Thyme is the currency?

Risky power-ups

Running short of inspiration, but you get the point.

Permanent damage

Perma-death

Don't let it escape

Just don't let it escape.

Could you actually vote on round 1 even if round 3 already began?

Here's first version of the player...

I don't know what I'm doing, so here's some random thoughts to help future-me figure out what to do with that theme you have no idea how to handle. Good luck, and I'm sorry if I haven't done laundry yet.

Space exploration - It'd be cool to do a play on words, and turn this into a "how close can you get to someone without making them uncomfortable" thing, while exploring personal space. Unsure if that'd be fun, or just make me laugh. Probably neither.

Everything has a price - Maybe you're a shopkeeper, selling things. idk, I need to think more about this one.

No upgrades, only downgrades - You start the game wildly powerful, but after every battle you receive items that you MUST equip (instead of just hiding in your inventory somewhere). The further you get, the worse your equipment is. Cursed items could make this hilarious.

Color changes everything - Scanner Sombre, except not pitch black, there's a swarm of zombies coming, and as you hit them with color-changing light, they shift into allies, or different enemies, or stop swarming and start commanding the nearby enemies, or have lights of their own to change things near them. This sounds boring at first, but could probably be super sweet with a little thought (...and more time than I'll probably have lol).

Four elements - I get it, you want Captain Planet but without Heart. Or you want Avatar, the Last JamBender. Nah, the magic elements will be something wacky like Porridge, Mustard, Soup (various types), and Milk. Combining your elements in different ways allows you to craft a meal that COULD STUN A GOD

Mutation - I hope this doesn't win, because all I can think about is like the Pandemic board game, or Contagion. Conway's Game of Life with some mild adjustments could be a decent way to go with this.

Floating worlds - How does a world float? Don't all worlds float... in space? Maybe like use "world" less specifically, and use it to mean just "biome", and have radically different islands that happen to be near each other? "float" could mean in the air, or just in the water. idk maybe each "world" is a cork "floating" in a bathtub and the whole game is a daydream of a toddler, imagining all the little things happening in the air pockets within the cork.

Limited memory - Memento? Or like a computer? I don't really get how memory applies. If this wins, would I just make the "Simon" game, where you have to remember the color patterns? That sounds boring, needs more thought.

Your life is currency - This can be cool. An rpg, but you buy items with your blood, and need to do quests to earn transfusions to replenish it.

Symbiotic relationship - Venom was a cool movie. Feed the beast, the beast does the hard work for ya. Probably you wouldn't have any control over what the symbiote does, and you'd try to satisfy it's urges so that it "chooses" to do something beneficial for you.

Control the environment, not the player - This sounds very similar to the Symbiotic relationship. Player is trying to do Thing, and you're trying to guide them to do Other Thing by knocking trees down in front of them. Ever play Black and White?

Old technology - something that feels like Mega Man Legends. I don't really like the "we're so far in the future that our technology is bad again" thing, so I'd rather do like a cave exploration type thing with weird technology that's worse than what you have, but also different enough where you don't know how to handle it.

You have 30 seconds - Bullet hell seems like the obvious answer. Just fill the screen with projectiles and say "good luck". What could also be cool would be like a detective story, where you only have 30 seconds to study a scene before needing to move on to the next area, so you have to try to look for clues quickly (or else Plot Device happens... bad guy gets on a plane and escapes or something).

Unusual magic system - Two or three of the above things also fit with this. Or maybe have it based on dancing. Crypt of the Necrodancer is neat, but I mean like a 3x3 grid or you list a few moves (left leg in, right leg out, spin, small hop, duck, arms together in front -> Shockwave of Shame). Can't use fire based attacks, since it's "unusual"... unless the activation is purely the unusual part. You know, that all sounds complicated and not fun, future me can figure something else out that's better (sorry)

You can't kill the enemies - This sounds like a cruel joke. Maybe it's like the opposite of Lemmings, and you need to push them in to holes so they get out of your way? Or just try to rush to the end of the level before taking damage? Or you use your Unusual Magic System dance to convince them not to fight you anymore? Wow, are we making Undertale?

Parallel worlds - Stranger Things? A Link to the Past? Actually, a super slimmed down version of Tales of Symphonia could be cool. Like, there's an alternate world that's full of magic, specifically because they've been syphening it all away from our world, but now magic is starting to flow back into our world, which is killing theirs?

Cards are your weapons - Gambit, from X-Men. I love deckbuilders, Slay the Spire is a blast, but making a roguelike game where you frisbee cards with various abilities at enemies sounds sweet.

The butterfly effect - I don't think there's enough time to do this any sort of justice at all, so I sincerely hope it doesn't win. It'd be cool, but I'd be disappointed with anything I tried to do. So for that reason, future me, I suggest that you build a Mothra-simulator, and use "the butterfly effect" as a euphemism for rampant destruction via a giant butterfly.

Only one enemy - You know the bad guy. You know his strengths and weaknesses. Choose your weapons, go to the gym and beat up a punching bag, then sit down for a Final Fantasy style 45-minute boss fight. Actually, probably skip all the training, that's boring.

Light as a weapon - Luigi's Mansion? Nah, let's go nuts. Super focused light is a laser. This is a game about using lasers to build nightclubs of death. Also, you're the bad guy, and don't like dancing.

One room - Almost anything above can fit here. Why not dodge lethal lasers in a Nightclub of Death to reach the evil parallel version of yourself and beat them up?

Regular jobs, but in Space - Babylon 5 had an episode that was just two random maintenance guys, walking around the station fixing it up, while wacky things were happening in the background. That could be fun. For me, I don't know how it'd be fun for the player. Maybe it's part-survival game. "dodge the sudden hull breach!"

The environment is a weapon - One of the things above is about how you control the environment, not the player. This is the same as that. Or, that new video from Unreal during GDC? Where they shoot up a building, so the collapsing bridge destroys the enemies? Yeah, knock trees over to accomplish things.

Change the genre of a classic video game - Please no, this would just make me feel dirty. Tetris, except instead of completing lines, you're dropping words into a sentence to have correct grammar? I'm boring myself by writing that. Pac-Man with a chainsaw sounds better. Turn the workers into ghosts before they collect all the balls!

Decay - RPG, and items have durability? Actually no, just go up and read whatever past-me wrote about "Mutation". Decay is just another version of mutations.

Stay in the dark - This is the opposite of "Light as a weapon". Dodge the death lasers! Or maybe a stealth game. ...with lasers.

Side effects - Sure, that sword is pretty strong. Might even crackle with electricity. But using it could cause all your other items to melt? Dumb. How about, you have a choice of quests to do, and they all accidentally do something else, like further the plot of Villian #2? That sounds like it has more unpredictable "I'll figure it out later" applications.

Two-button game - Two buttons. An action for pressing, an action for releasing, another for holding, and others for pressing them in various sequences. No mouse. All movement based on the two buttons. ...probably no movement. Does a choose-your-own-adventure count as a game?

Time is the currency - I don't know what to say. Good luck, my dude.

Risky powerups - This sounds like Side Effects. And it also sounds like "No upgrades, only downgrades". Maybe things you pickup have a chance of just straight up exploding, dealing damage instead of helping? Could be a neat Galaga-type game.

Permanent damage - Sounds simple enough. It's Thursday night, you're a god chillin in the heavens with your godbros, and you decide to shoot some pool, using our solar system as the balls. No matter who wins, them planets have PERMANENT DAMAGE

Don't let it escape - Ok hear me out. You're a zookeeper, a monkey got out of the cage, and it's playing a rousing game of hide and seek with you.

Ridiculously overpowered - One hit defeats the enemy. But it also blasts their body through the wall, and demolishes a building from the nearby town. The town guard is mobilized to subdue you, but you easily handle all of them... accidentally. No no no. Let's go nuts. Let's go Shadow of the Colossus "you only fight bosses". You're so powerful, you just walk past the minions. Even the bosses seem easy. We're going Final Fantasy now. This is a game about fighting Gods. But to make it fair (for them), they'll be teaming up against you. I just got a weird mental image of PunchOut with Hera. Would Gods fight in a boxing ring?

You're the final boss - Ever play Dungeon Keeper? Yo, build a sweet dungeon, then fight the "heros" who come to rain on your parade.

Everything is a weapon - This is literally the same as "the environment is a weapon".

You are a side character - This is literally the same as the Symbiotic relationship one. I'm glad we have duplicates, I'm running low on ideas.

Shelter - I honestly don't know how close to the theme we need to be. Like, can I take "Shelter", and extrapolate it to mean "Gimme Shelter" by the Rolling Stones, and then extrapolate THAT to make a game based in Vietnam?

The more you die, the more the world dies - Unsure what to make of this. Good luck.

You can't save them all - Ever play Lemmings?

You are the quest giver - Congrats, you own a tavern. Hire a bard, make people happy, and get them set to venture out to certain death.

Contagious - See Mutation/Decay above.

You control the enemies - This could be an interesting puzzle game, where you and the enemies move at the same time, so you need to make them walk into traps or something?

Alchemy - I shouldn't have started at the top of the list, I'm about fried at this point.

Break the cycle - You're a pothole in the road. Break that bicycle!

Underground - make literally any game, then put it in a spooky cave.

Nontraditional boss battles - Does playing patty cake count as nontraditional? What about a dance off, and you need to judge which moves to use based on audience reaction? Can I even do that in time?

Two characters, one player - This is kind of like "You control the enemies", but with less death.

Tiny town - Are you tiny? Is this a town for ants? Can you see large blades of grass gently swaying overhead? Or maybe you're a turtle, and the town is on your back, and the point of the game is to move them to a new spot so a flood doesn't kill them, all while they're living their lives, in their tiny town, on your turtle back. Let's not do turtles, let's put the town in a bottle, and throw the bottle in the ocean. Something interesting might happen that way.

Hey Everyone! I'm starting a Youtube Channel about Game Development and thought that LD 44 would be the perfect time to launch. I'm going to be covering the the entire Jam from now all the way through to the results. I'll be covering my journey, giving advice, and playing other peoples games. Here's my video about how to prepare for the event.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T51tGxr5bu8

I'm in! I think. The Go's an amazing machine and I've been thinking about writing something for it, but I don't know whether anyone else here has one. If you have a Go, say so in your reply and let's all organize and test each other's games!

Well as it turns out, I seem to actually have some free time for the coming weekend, so I guess it's time to see if I can squeeze a game in there as well.

Though considering my overall busy-ness, I think I'm going to stick to the tried-and-true method of doing my games in C++ and SFML, it's done well for me so far. And while there are other things I'd like to test, I think those would be better suited to using when there's the time to learn how to properly do so.

Going to try and avoid falling into the traps of doing advanced scripting, multiplayer features, or any other time-heavy things - as I've done before. Though I was thinking of writing up some shaders this time, for that little bit of extra compared to my usual vector graphics. And hopefully nowadays, even laptops have powerful enough iGPUs that shaders and other complicated graphics shouldn't break everything, as they did back when I first started toying with them around LD 25 or so - the first game where I had to release a GPU-specific binary.

Hopefully all the rest of you have been starting to hype yourself up about what's coming, and I certainly hope that time is permitting for this to be another great instalment.

1. You are a side character
2. You are the quest giver
3. Two characters, one player

The player likes when the whole world revolves around him. He's the center of attention. It all depends on his choice. The interest in life behind the scenes is the pleasure of unraveling the mystery.

What kind of life is there besides life in the spotlight? Is there any motivation for side characters? How deep is the game world? Swap the first and second plan.

I find myself struggling to finish in time pretty much all the time, so I was wondering if someone wants to join me this time around. I can do both art and coding. Let's make some games together bois

I always thought “Ludum Dare” was just two made up words, but according to Google translate it has actual meaning if you translate from Latin. It translates to “game to give”.

Hey, Guys, This is my second time in LD Game Jam.

I would like to share some experience in my first LD jam.

On the first time(Dec), I reversed one laptop from the university and try to work 48 hours. While Its feel alone and I have to keep working. I have to focus on arts and codes and many other things but I did not prepare anything. I started at 9 PM and not sleep for the whole night. The only thing I feel happy is that I insisted 48 hours and never gave up. Although my game is not even reaching my task, I feel its worth.

In the past four months, I also joined another Game jams to learn how to work with others. During these months, I shared my skills on my youtube channel(https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC84aSoQ90sbu83C8JZUKqxg/videos?view_as=subscriber). Itch(https://beaverjoe.itch.io/) also records each time Our team published the game. Although there are not perfect even reach our original thinking, Each time we make some progress. On the first time When I join the LD jam, my plan is to make one big RPG project. Now I want to fulfill all of my thinking inside the Project which is enough. First step for me is to make this game complete. This is one my own advice for someone like me.

Last but not least, I hope everyone can enjoy this game and try the best in these three days~ Have a Good Day/night!

I've been poking at Godot Engine for a bit, and figure Ludum Dare is a good external motivator to sit down with it seriously for a long weekend and try to hack out something that is at least somewhat gamelike.

[removed]

Hooray! It's LudumDare time! I had to miss LD 43, so I'm even more excited than usual to participate.

You know, we're entering into a new era for LudumDare, now that it occurs twice a year, instead of thrice... Does that mean we need to work 150% harder? Well, I don't think that's quite right. We should all just do our best, I think.

Favorite tools list:

🍣 Construct2: HTML5 game creation software!

🍣 Aseprite: Pixel art program!

🍣 GIMP: Open source image editor!

🍣 LSDJ and bgb: Authentic Gameboy synthesizer and emulator!

🍣 Audacity: Open source sound editor!

🍣 itch.io: Storefront/games host!

PS: Remember Cardhoard, my LudumDare 40 entry? It's PC remake, Combo Postage, has been delayed several times, but I'm hoping to finally release it on Steam and itch.io within a couple months. Thanks for your patience if you've been waiting! 📦✨

Hey, i just want to hear if anybody is playing on linux, because we could probaly make linux build if enough people play on it.

Im In and this time i won't be late!

I am Kukareru Sekai and I will participating in Ludum Dare 44. I will be using the newly released GB Studio and I will hopefully be finishing some assets for you Godot users out there. Follow me on Twitter for more and check me out here during the event.

How many are we? I know we are a minority but it could be great if you guys make some mac builds :))) I will make a mac and a window build and if i can, i'll try to run my game also on Linux.

Hey Guys, so a lot of folks are doing games this jam that require specialized or niche SOMETHING. Specialized Hardware (Vive, Oculus Rift), Specialized OS (Mac Only, Emulator Only, Linux Only), or fall into a very specific genre of game (Paper, Card Based, Etc).

Is there a talented web Guru with the skills to quickly work up either:
A) A Submission Portal and simple Filter System for folks to submit their games into a list, and then peruse the list based on those filters.
B) A Data Crawler to crawl thru LD Submissions (I know I've seen folks make these before), and pick out the ones playable on Mac, Linux, Etc.

I'm not a Web Dev as much as I'd like to help, but I can at least help organize it, and help ensure the passionate folks working in their smaller communities have an opportunity to get their game to 20 votes.

(Can folks tag or share this with folks they know do web development?)

I know it's today, but does anyone know a time?

So if you didn't vote in all three rounds yet, do it. And if you changed your mind about your votes, it looks like it's possible to change them still.

I think it makes sense that people upvote only a few categories that they like the very very most, and downvote the rest.

I hate when it glitches and post empty thingy

Does anyone know why it glitches and posts empty message ?

messages glitched so had to send another :v

Hey all! Thrilled to be working on Ludum Dare this weekend. I'm a web developer at my day job, so last time around I made a game with Vue - I'll be doing something similar this time around with Nuxt and possibly Three. I have a component for Vue + Three.js that helps cut down creation time, so that should help if I end up going the Three route.

In any case, good luck and have fun, everyone! :smile:

Going to be Jamming and Streaming my Ludum Dare from inside Dreams. I know this is going to be hard to vote on so prob goign to go for Jam instead of Compo like I normally do. Though if you have Dreams I hope you can play the result. Looking forward to it

Missed out on LD43, and I have the itch to give LD44 a try. I'm not sure how much time I can/will dedicate this weekend, but I am going to give the Compo a shot. My LD42 entry had great results, and I hope to continue that streak, but who knows. :smile:

Tools of Choice

• Unity
• Audacity
• Photoshop
• Paint.Net
• Aseprite
• bfxr
• Coffee and sugary drinks

Like the title says, it's been a year or two and I've missed a few LD's in that time, but I'm going to participate this round. Tools that I will be using are below:

• Language: Java
• Engine/Framework: LibGDX
• Graphics: Paint.NET/Tiled
• Sound: Probably BFXR
• Fuel: Coffee/Energy Drinks

Tools I'll be using: * c++, g++, clang * emscripten * emacs * windows linux subsystem * git * roland's keyboard for music

Then I'll have my own basecode: * gameapi library (game engine) * gameapi builder (procedural model generator) * meshpage.org web site (for publishing it)

But sadly for the basecode, source is not available, so I'll be entering the jam and not compo.

We'll hope the theme is something reasonable, preferably something clear instead of fuzzy.

Here's few bonus effects for you to enjoy: * http://meshpage.org/meshdisplay?id=GVILK@64 * http://meshpage.org/meshdisplay?id=GVILK@61 * http://meshpage.org/meshdisplay?id=GVILK@82 * http://meshpage.org/meshdisplay?id=GVILK@87 * http://meshpage.org/mesh_display?id=GVILK@8

Good luck fellow jammers

Targets:

• To enter the top 100 in the overall ranking
• To enter the top 20 in the graphics ranking

Tools to be used:

• Unity3D 2019.1
• Blender 2.79(maybe 2.80)
• GIMP
• LMMS
• Visual Studio 2019 Community Edition
• Substance Painter

It's hard to say if I'll be able to participate this time. I didn't last time, which was the first time I hadn't participated since I first started participating.

Here are my theme votes:

Most of these themes were pretty bad. I consider themes like "Four elements" and "Alchemy" to be pretty bad as well, but I also like making games with those kinds of themes, so I gave them +0. I gave some of the less bad themes +0, and then there were only a few themes that I thought qualified for +1. In fact, "Side effects" is really the only theme I actually think is any good, while the other ones I gave +1 just have the bare semblance of a good theme.

Oh well. Bad themes are part and parcel of Ludum Dare. :package:

Say something

Im going to be making a game for the jam with my friend for our first ludum dare! Our tools: Engine - godot Art - paint.net Sound - probably bfxr Ideas - brain

Good luck to everyone thats making games out here!

More people intending to go for hand drawn graphics?

Anyone aiming for a turn-based 3d strategy board game like so:

If so, which technologies and projection matrix do you use?

Second LD jam for me, third jam overall. Planned to start in a team, but life had other plans. So, I'm again alone and have to do everything on my own again. More stress and less time, good combination :laughing:

I wish you all the best for your game development and have fun.

Edit: No team this time, i'm alone again

This will be my 9th LD! I plan to use javascript to make a web playable game. No engines or frameworks, just straight JS.

Also announcing ZzFX, my super tiny seeded sound effects generator is open source and free for everyone to use!

Include this tiny bit of code and play sound effect just by calling a function with the seed, like z(3) for example! Or if you aren't using javascript, just use another program to record wave files. Here's the code, you can just paste this directly in your javascript game!

// ZzFX - Minified Code (352 bytes) - MIT License - Copyright (c) 2019 - Frank Force z=e=>{h=R(5E3);r=e;R(R());e=(R(1E5)+h)/1E6;l=R(1E5);m=R(9);g=R(l);n=R(1E5)/1E9;p=R(1E5);h=[];for(F=f=0;++F<l;f+=1+R(m))h[F]=Math.cos(f*e*Math.cos(f*n+p))*(F<g?F/g:1-(F-g)/(l-g)) F=X.createBuffer(1,1E5,1E5);F.getChannelData(0).set(h);h=X.createBufferSource();h.buffer=F;h.connect(X.destination);h.start()} X=new AudioContext;r=0;R=e=>(r^=r<<3,r^=r>>2,r%e)

Check out the ZzFX sound fx explorer!

I've also published the code on Github

.. as stated :smirk:

This is the first game jam I've ever joined so I have no idea what I'm getting myself into. Will be working alone, that's my style. I'm joining to see how I can handle such a small deadline, and to get back the energy I need to work on my bigger project. And of course I'm here to have fun, too!

Engine: Unity with Playmaker. Graphics: 3DS Max, 3D-Coat and Photoshop Audio: FL Studio + maybe something from Freesound

I have some interesting ideas for "Parallel Worlds" and "Side Effects". Any themes you're crossing your fingers will make the final cut?

Finished the theme voting and I already have a super exciting idea for this game jam :D glhf everyone!

I am in for my 8th LD! But after 6 solo LDs I am now working in a team of friends!

We will most likely use Java with libGDX. More will be decided if the team gets together.

We are tackling LD44 as a team this time around. Here's our lineup:

• Programmers

• Marcel

• HiddenRaccoon

• Armadillq

• Composers

• SassyKeys

We're exited to participate and have a good time this weekend, here's a few tools we will use:

• Unity Game Engine

• Reaper Daw

• Photoshop

• Github/Sourcetree

Well then... good luck to everyone and make sure you catch those :zzz:'s and learn a thing or two!

So, Ludum Dare starts in little over 51 hours... Time to do some crucial engine development, isn't it? :laughing:

I've just started porting Kea to web, and if you care at all about it, you can see it on my freshly setup blog at blog.noxim.xyz

Hi everybody.This is going to be my second participation in ludum dare and i feel pretty optimistic after voting for themes.

Wish you all luck😉

So this time, we have an extra team member! :D an actual music producer! so our music will be actually good this time lol

best of luck to all of you! I am streaming this event this time, probably on Dlive, not sure yet...

Let's see how we pull off the time zone difference, our artist is from the future 12 hours ahead!

Can't wait for the theme!

This will be my first Ludum Dare but not my first jam. Took part in the "I Can't Draw" jam a few days ago and learnt a lot from it that I would like to put into practice this jam.

Looking forward to developing my game and following other developers. Good luck jamming everyone!

Hi. I am not too sure about what i have to do. Do i just have to submit my game before the deadline?

Took last year off, but I'm back and ready to dive into the 72-hour gamedev wood chipper!

I've done a couple of LD's but this time I have a secret... I know how to actually draw things now.

Here are some ideas I came up with, some of them are serious, and some... not so much :D

I also made a quick and dirty Google Docs spreadsheet to put them all in one place, feel free to copy it, put in your ideas and share them with the world, if you so choose :3

I tried to avoid going for the first obvious thing that comes to mind and instead try and come up with something a bit more weird for some of the themes.

Planning to enter, this time as a team with @adafheyesh whereas I've only worked solo for past jams.

Probably using Unity, no idea what we will make. I'm excited!

It is a busy time at school, but I successfully recruited my housemates to work on the jam with me. Looking forward to it.

We opted to use something none of us have worked with and went with Lua and Love2D. The simplicity is great and we're looking forward to getting into it.

Additional software includes: FL Studio, Asesprite, VSCode, etc.

Good luck everyone :)

I'm in again! This time I'm actually learning from past jams. Doing a little bit a prep to re-familiarize myself with my tools!

I'll be using:

• Unity
• VS Code
• Blender
• Krita
• Gimp
• Audacity

Well if everything works out as planned, I am in again. This time using Godot with GDScript (probably), Pyxel Edit, Audacity, OpenMPT, Gimp and my espresso machine. Good luck to everyone! :grinning:

Hey, this will be my first game jam and I'm pumped for this weekend. I've been working in Unreal on a VR game as of late and so I'd like to try making a VR game for the jam if the theme provides, even if it means less people could play it. If anyone else wants to try and do this with me, let me know.

I've done personal 48 hour challenges before, but this is the first time I'll be doing an official game jam. Going to do the 48 hour version using Godot Game Engine and streaming the whole process. This weekend is going to be so fun!