Ludum Dare 47 October 2–5, 2020

Running late, but on schedule for Ludum Dare 47

Hey folks!

I'm running a few weeks behind getting things ready for the next event, but we're still on schedule for October 2nd-5th. Theme Suggestions are now open so go do that when you get the chance.

The reason for the lateness is after one of our SSL certificates expired some 3-4 weeks ago, it snowballed in to me finally sitting down to rebuild the servers. For context, the servers we are running on today were built over 6 years ago. A lot has changed since them, including my experience, having built and run the infrastructure for an online game a couple years back. Much of the software I use today isn't the software used to build these servers, and it's been a bit of a quiet headache of mine dealing with it over the years.

So for the past 3 weeks I've been grinding away rebuilding the servers, far longer than I was expecting, and I'm still not done. So after one more SSL patch-job, the existing servers are back up again so we can start signups and theme voting. I'll be continuing to work on the servers in parallel, and hopefully get them switched over next week without too much downtime.

Anyway, that's what's up. I'll get back to wrangling the server guts and check-in again next week as we kick-off the voting.

My new game for Google Play

Peace Dose is an endless platformer game in which you play as a crazy time traveler. You are faced with an impossible task - you need to survive! Due to an error in the code, our hero was brought into a strange acidic dimension with a thousand portals, each of them leads to different corners of the galaxy, but only one back to reality, try not to die and find the necessary portal.

Google Play Store - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ilimanic.peace

132.png

Our theme suggestions

Just signed up my GF and myself as a team for the jam. These are our theme suggestions:

  • Bread
  • Refresh
  • Make Some Noise

Have a good compo or jam everybody. Hype!

Theme Suggestions!

  • control the world, not the player
  • non standard controls
  • limited to mouse controls

Performing My Civic Duty

Saw the tweet from the LD twitter about theme suggestion being open and decided that it was time for me to come do my civic duty of suggesting bad themes.

ThemeSuggestion.png

Here's hoping that this Octobers Ludum Dare ends up being a good one. Also lets all pray that there is slightly better themes this year in the voting... Seriously if you put in any jokes about floating islands as the theme I will personally email you the Navy Seal copy pasta.

My suggestions

Finally the site is back. And here is my suggestions. 2020-09-16_08-50-15.png

My suggestions

Hope it is good and usable:

@ All keys have its purpose; @ Longer combination of keys bring more rewarding results @ You can use each key only once

btw: why is it so hard to publish something?:D

My suggestions

Hello everyone!

Ludum Dare 47 _ ldjam.com _ Ludum Dare game jam - .png

Our theme suggestions!

Hello, dear :wink:

What you think about choosing one of that?: 1. Relativeness 2. NULL 3. Restricted

So I have an idea for my Ludum Dare theme.

What about these themes:-

Ludum dare theme.png

These themes were made using the power of walking in my house, hope these are good. The theme slaughter has begun and I am a part of it myself. Hope, you the best for ludum dare 47 Jam/Compo.

More theme suggestions

Throwing in some themes as well. I'm happy I found out about this one BEFORE my agenda filled up with stuff, so I can actually reserve the weekend to build something again.

I'm adding these to the list:

  • It is what you do that defines you.

  • "The theme was within you all along."

  • Keep your distance.

In with bevy

I'm aiming to do the compo, although mostly it ends up in me being way too ambitious and ending the weekend a little embarrassed by what I've produced :grimacing:

I'm planning to use bevy engine, which is a new (i.e. quite unstable) game engine written in Rust I've been playing around with for the past week or so.

My Themes + Looking For Artist or Musician

MySuggestions.PNG

I'm also looking for someone who would like to draw (3D is also an option) or make Audio (music/sfx) for a game we would do together.

Me: C#|Unity|GameDesign|

If interested enough we can discuss more on Discord. Add & DM me: Yzy#6520

So excited!

Yay, the site's back up! Thanks for all your hard work Mike!

Here are my suggestions:

MySuggestions.JPG

My LD46 puzzle game's open beta is live! :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDXcHum4Duo

My LD46 puzzle game, Regrowth, is getting closer and closer to its release date! :smile:

The second open testing phase, the Open Beta, has just begun!

Check it out here: https://portgatestudios.itch.io/regrowth

Feedback is greatly appreciated :slight_smile:

And if you're interested, feel free to wishlist it on Steam:

wishlist-bigger.png

Cheers! :smile:

Suggestions :-)

Here are my suggestions for Ludum Dare 47 ! sqdqsd.PNG

Challenge your fate

Something is missing

Challenge your fate

Fix the broken mirror

Errors must be erased

Rewrite this world

And victory shall be yours

my theme submission

I cant wait for ludum dare 47 here's my ideas

1should have thought 2Past, Present, Future 3Meta game

My Theme Suggestions for this LD

  • Repulsive

  • Twist

  • Sunset

These topics leave enough space for anybody's infinite creativity in my opinion. "Please leave me be during the slaughter rounds!" :skull:

WAVER

Hey folks, we're stoked to take part in LD47!

LD46 was a huge success for us - it was our 5th LD and brought us the best ratings we've had to date (including our first single-digit category rating!) Driven by the wonderful feedback, we've been continuing development of our game WAVER and it's really REALLY close to done. I'm hyped for all things game dev right now... I've been watching game jam dev diaries, getting excited about WAVER's release, and starting to brainstorm theme ideas for LD47. I intend to bring that energy into October and have fun making another LD game!

Our WAVER trailer dropped just yesterday, you can check that out here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3h0GME1VM0

Also we'll be streaming our LD47 development live at this channel:

https://www.youtube.com/TheGreatBerate/

Good luck everyone, and happy jamming!

3 ideas for now

Dear Everybody!

I have my theme ideas:

1. Challenge your fate

2. Try it again

3. How to play

I hope it will work somehow, I didn't really made games for a while...

I don't know how much time I need to belive in online teams again. Even if I make a mess of a game, I can make one.

I might need a lots of searching now, but someday I will be more fluent in programming.

For now, I shall make it. Never again publishing a prototype~~, will I~~. Instead I will show small parts...

Till then...

Good luck, Everyone!

Theoteno

Three thoughts for the day

My suggestions were - escape - survive the night - keep away

This is my first jam so I hope I can at least make something worth a play :)

I think I'm doing this the other way round to a lot .. I'm a software engineer by trade and never made a game ... So I'm learning from the inside out ... Hopefully it works

10th Alakajam! | 18-20 Sep. | Classic 48h jam... with a few twists

akj-site-logo.png

If you can't wait for LD47, the next Alakajam! is being held this week-end! For the 10th event we are spicing things up with a few surprises, brought by a mysterious character who took control of the jam :anguished:

In case you're not familiar with Alakajam, it's basically a small and peaceful community (50-ish entries by event) with some special things like:

  • All games can enable a high score system on the site (people just have to upload screenshots)
  • A gaming competition is held after the jam on a selection of games using this very system to keep track of scores
  • A launch stream will be held by @DanaePlays and @Aurel300 in the hour preceding the start. It might feature some physical goodies being given away
  • ...and more surprises (see pic below)

Hope to see you there! Feel free to say hello on Discord

themes2.jpg

My Theme Suggestions

Last time one of my suggestions got to the 3rd final round. Let's see if any of these will. Capture.PNG

Theme suggestions, I'm in, the usual.

Hi. I'm in. Again.

There is a non zero possibility that you played one of my games from the time when my username was SYRAPT0R. Well, I decided to change my name and appearance and can't wait for the next ldjam!

As pretty much always, my tools are - Game Maker Studio 2 for coding - BFXR for sound effects - PyxelEdit for sprites

For music, I recently switched from FL Studio to Ableton. I still have to learn some stuff important for game music but I should be able to do that until the jam.

So yeah, I'm ready. Let's make this jam a good one!

Oh, and of course, my theme suggestions.

Screenshot_20200917-030810-01.jpeg

Excited

I'll be entering the compo again. Last April I performed really well, so it's gonna be tough to top myself!

Short of Time

I think I will be in for the fourth time now, but my Master Thesis is due just 1 week later. I hope I still find time for some LD action.

3rd Ludum Dare here I come!

I've only participated in 2 ludum dares so far, but I'm super excited for my 3rd one!

I am probably in!

My god. I seriously need a few programming warm up exercises...

I'm in!

Words cannot express how excited I am to finally join again! Can't wait to see what we all come up with!

Theme suggestions:

  • It came from behind
  • To give is to take
  • We

Getting excited

Eagerly waiting for LD47 to start, here are my theme suggestions

ScrSuggLD47.PNG

Can't wait to play your games.

1st Ludum Dare!

This is going to be my first Ludum Dare! I've been interested in Ludum Dare for a while. I've watched several developers document the development of their LD games on YouTube and figured that I'd finally contribute. I'm not the best at staying focused on long term projects so the time limit is a great motivating factor. Now, I'm off to get my coding skills up to scratch :D

Pretty Excited!

My second gamejam, and will be my first working in a team! Have always wanted to take part in LD, but have never been able to make the time! Very excited to see the final theme and get started!

my themes.JPG

Really Excited

This is my first Game Jam, even when I've been working on games for well over two years. I've been working on my own indie title and this is going to be mi first test to see how good of an entertainer my games can be.

Ludum Dare 47, Baby!!!

Thank heavens that server rebuild is done. I'm all fired up for Ludum Dare 47 and I'm ready to make another weird, surreal game! Here we go!

Yoooo I'm hyped

Never done a game jam before but been practicing game dev skills on and off for years. Can't wait for my first Ludum Dare

I'm in like argyle cardigans

Locked in a day off work and going solo this time. Going to use MelonJS for the first time, so I can make something web playable and probably do something 80's arcade inspired rather than narrative driven this time, but we'll see what the theme is. Hopefully something thematic. Oh yeah, love a good thematic theme.

4th LD, woo!

I can't wait to join up for yet another Ludum Dare! I'm going to be joining up with a friend, and using the following tools (as needed).

Engine: - Godot

Art: - Blender - Affinity Designer/Photo - Aseprite

Sounds: - Microphone recordings - Tools such as SFXR

Music: - LMMS/BoscaCeoil/FamiStudio (🤷‍♀️)

And last but not least, my theme suggestions! ld47_themes.png

12th Ludum Dare - this one I'll stream

Nice to see the site back up and that Ludum Dare is only 2 weeks away. This will be my 12th consecutive LD and I'm just as excited as ever!

New for me this time around is that I'll stream it on Twich =)

Also great to see posts from those of you who will be doing this for the first time. Let's have a lot of fun on this one and remember to keep practicing your skills in the tools that you'll use to refresh your memory before the event!

I'm ready for LD 47

My theme suggestions: * Escape the game * Combine two incompatible holidays

Keeping Myself Busy

Phew...

I've participated in two longer Game Jams in a span of a month. It's been a lot of work, but really gratifying. First I thought I might not have the energy to do Ludum Dare after these endeavours, but I feel quite enthusiastic.

Here's my most recent work called E N I G M A T I K, created for the Unexpected Jam.

It's a surreal creepy point 'n' click -adventure, and I think it might be one of my best creations yet.

q4lg9kB.gif

6uUKaX.gif


I'm thinking since I usually put emphasis on the story/mood in my games, this time I might try doing something that's based more on physics / mechanics.

I could also try to go more along with the theme, since that's something I struggle with sometimes.

In the meantime, here's my theme suggestions:

suggestions.png

See you in the Jam !

I'm in - with a personal AI challenge

I've discovered some nifty AI tools since the last LD, including:

Neural Composer for Music (https://github.com/HackerPoet/Composer) AutoDraw for quick placeholder sprites (https://www.autodraw.com/) Gaugan for Textures/Images (http://nvidia-research-mingyuliu.com/gaugan/ ) DAIN for smoothing animations (https://github.com/baowenbo/DAIN) AI Image enhancers/upscalers (https://imglarger.com/Enhancer https://icons8.com/upscaler)

I want to make as much of my game with as much AI generated content as possible, should be fun! Let me know if you have other ideas for AI tools I could utilize.

I'm In

Decided not to suggest any theme this time round.

My setup

  • Engine: Haxe/Heaps (https://heaps.io/)
  • my custom framework/codebase https://github.com/ZwodahS/hh_common
  • Graphics: Aseprite (https://www.aseprite.org/)

I'm sooooo excited

This will be my first Ludum dare and I can't wait to start the grind, I hope the best for everyone :smile: .

Tools:

Engine: Unity

programming: JetBrains Rider

Graphic: Asprite / Photoshop For UI + Google:)

Sounds : Sfxr

list-making : Trello

Theme Suggestions: التقاط.PNG

First timer

This is my first time joining a game jam, let alone Ludum Dare. I’m probably underprepared in ways I have yet to even imagine, but I’m SO excited you guys :) Wish you all the best of luck!

It’s been fun reading what others have submitted for the theme, so I went ahead and made my three suggestions as well. 667A51E1-5A25-4921-ADE5-9D31B590AD4B.jpeg

Round 2

I'm excited to try this again after having such a good time last time. Can't wait to try all of the games again!Screenshotem20200918-070551/emChrome.jpg

A quick reminder on how to choose a good theme

Hey all, Niterich here. You might remember me from the last Ludum Dare, where I made a post about what I thought made a good or a bad theme for Ludum Dare. You can read it here, but as a quick recap:

The theme SHOULD:

  • serve as a starting point for ideas to help people to overcome the "blank sheet of paper" problem

  • be flexible enough to be made into to a video game in any genre, scope, and developer experience level; and with a number of possible interpretations so we don't get the same game 5000 times

  • be specific enough that each game can be identified as coming from this specific jam. Many people here enjoy seeing other people's different takes on the same theme

  • impact the game in a meaningful way, and not just as an artificial limitation or visual gimmick

The theme SHOULD NOT:

  • repeat a theme from a previous Ludum Dare

  • specifically be too large in scope - we can't all make a MMORPG in a weekend!

  • be explicitly violent, sexual, illegal, controversial, or otherwise inappropriate for a public, worldwide jam for people of all ages, races, religions, and sexual preferences. You can make your game whatever you want, but don't force others to work with a topic they don't agree with

  • be a commonly ignored theme from past Ludum Dares. From experience, these seem to mostly be simple inversions of video game logic ("two button controls", "you are the villain/weapon/princess", "start with nothing", etc.)

  • be a joke theme that never get chosen, but always clog up the theme slaughter round (looking at you, "floating islands"... which in itself isn't an awful theme but it gets suggested and joked so often it's annoying)

  • be a niche reference or a relatively unknown concept, including memes. If most people have to Google your theme, it's not a good one!

So what do you guys think? Do you think I'm being too tough? Too lenient? Is there any criteria you would add or remove?

Prepping for LD47 with a Game Portfolio Self-Evaluation

In prep for LD47, I did something of a self evaluation on my previous gamejam submissions to come up with some goals and learning objectives to see what I expect to get out of my second Ludum Dare.

https://youtu.be/V_zCHtZIsYw

Theme Suggestions

So, theme voting has started and I've submitted by three ideas! My favorite one is the first one. :slight_smile: Screenshot 2020-09-18 at 12.20.17 PM.png

I'm in, second time

This will be my second LD! Looking forward to playing your games too. I'll be using Godot Engine again.

Here are my theme suggestions. This is kinda hard to get good themes that fit most game genres and can be used both in terms of game mechanics and mood/story elements. Yeah I'm not really into sentence-long themes like "Press Every Button to Jump" or "You Are the Villain's Grandparent". On second thought maybe they are too short.

Capture d’écranem2020-09-18/em20-31-13.png

Excited (but also Nervous) ((but also Excited))

First timer to Ludum Dare and am I excited to know what it feels like to crunch for a weekend on a game and make some friends along the way.

  • Engine: Phaser and probably a mess of other JS-based tech thrown in there
  • Art: Home-spun pixel art tool (I'll get to releasing it publicly eventually)
  • Music and Sound: Probably Garageband + Online modulation tools + Me

Theme Suggestions:

Screen Shot 2020-09-18 at 6.51.35 PM.png

Very happy to join for the 3rd time

Many gamejams, 3rd Ludum Dare. We probably going to join 6 friends together !

Here's my suggestions ;) ab.png

Excited for first Ludum Dare!

This is my third game jam and first Ludum Dare! I never tried a weekend jam yet and I'm excited and probably very unprepared so I wonder how it'd go. Regardless of the results it'll still be a good learning experience.

Theme Suggestions:Capture.PNG

Very happy to participate for 2nd time!

This is going to be my 2nd LD so I'm really excited because on my first LD my game wasn't as good as i wanted!I hope this LD will go better for me this time!:)

Can I start working on my game now?

Can I make my game now then submit it when the event starts or do I need to completely do it within the hours? This is my first Ludum Dare.

Copyright free images

Hi guys,

I was wondering whether I can use copyright free images off the internet in the jam (not the compo). This is my first Ludum Dare.

...

a...

First time

Joining for the first time. Looking forwards to it!

Henlo

Hello frens it is i

First time doing this

Does anyone want to add me as a team member? I don't have experience in game programming, but I am a programmer and a quick learner.

:D:D:D:D!!

I'm wicked excited for this jam. I've helped with several jams BUT this is my first time at the helm! I can't wait to try my hand at programming <3

Anyone Need a Teammate for LD47 or do you need tea, mate?

I'm a strong programmer and really enjoy game design, buy I'm weaker in other areas. Anyone want to team up? An artist/musical person could really compliment me. I'm also happy to team up with another programmer. This time I'm using Unity Engine. It makes everything easier lol.

AAAAAUUGHHH!!!

K, this will be my first time working alone in Unity (OH $%#@!!!)

I will be lucky to have anything done for the jam even, let alone the compo.

I'm basically using this as my final test after teaching myself C# and Unity in the last few months to flesh out my resume.

The vibe of a game can change the players mood

I think in-game there are two main factors, the vibe, and the gameplay. The gameplay is important but the vibe is too. Many games skip on the vibe or music. Which surprising knowing sites like OpenGameArt exist. Yes if you are in the compo, there is no time for music and making music is hard so I can agree with them here, but in general, people skip on music vibes in jams. Like a basic minimalistic puzzle platformer with Lofi beats in the background is going to be a better experience for the player than an RPG with stunning pixel art but no music vibes. And getting copyright free music is easy and can enhance the player's experience. Like there is a reason why FNAF is so scary. The scary vibe makes it scary and atmospheric, not the jumpscares. In a game jam, there's not always a necessity to make everything yourself, especially something as hard as music.

Looking forward to the jam!

Hi everyone!

Time since the last jam passed as fast as a blink of an eye. This is going to be my second Ludum Dare as well as a second game jam that I have participated in. There's so many things I would like to do better this time. I am gonna list a few.

  1. I would love to spend more time doing game design. Maybe even use a paper for that... Have a clear idea of the game before I start making it.
  2. I would love to spend less time doing everything else than working on the game. Procrastination and day-dreaming is sadly what I have been doing the last time a lot.
  3. I would love to find more depth in the theme, not only the obvious solution, but rather a clever one.
  4. I would love to start by coding and not get distracted by other things first.
  5. I would love to make my HTML5 version of the game functional. Not entirely sure what happened last time but the UI was totally broken in HTML5 so I could only publish the ".exe".

There's probably more but I guess this is enough for an idea.

Just like everyone else, I just have to share my theme suggestions.

theme_suggestion.PNG

I believe that my ideas allow for a very different approach and at least for me they provide a lot of inspiration. (They carry me away from what I really need to work on like my thesis and my non-jam game.)

I am also thinking about teaming up with someone with a bit more artistic experience and skill but I don't know. I like being in charge of my creative process here for now. But I have to admit that having someone who can actually compose music would be great. I tried to avoid using open assets and I am going to continue to do so.

Well, I hope all of you are excited just as much as I am and enjoy the remaining days before the jam.

Looking for a team or a 2D/3D artist

Hi all, this is my second Jam. I have been working as programmer for so many years and did a few games (using Unity) with my brother (he is 3D artist). I want to participate on this Jam but my art skills are awful, so I am looking for an artist (someone for music/sound could be great too), I have no problem to write/speak in english but if you are spanish you have 10 extra points :).

If there is a team looking for a Unity programmer I would be pleased to join you! But I know that this is really unlikely.

Good luck and have fun you all! ^^

yay

*this is my first ludum dare and i am very excited :smiley: *

this is my suggestion: Captura de pantalla de 2020-09-20 17-35-00.png

(i only have one tho :sweat_smile:)

My first Ludum Dare

I never participated in a 48 hour game jam before? Does anybody have any suggestions? Thanks :-)

Developer interested in participating in their first game jam!

Hello!

I'm a novice when it comes to Unity, but I have an Associate's degree in Computer Science and I'm pursuing a Bachelor's degree at UMD College Park! I read that Ludum Dare has a discord, but I couldn't find the link for it. Does anyone know where I can find the discord link? Looking forward to working with you all!

Developer looking to participate in their first game jam!

Hello!

I'm a novice when it comes to Unity, but I have an Associate's degree in Computer Science and I'm pursuing my Bachelor's degree at UMD College Park. I read that this group has a discord, but I couldn't find the discord link. Does anyone know where I can find the link to the discord? Looking forward to working with all of you!

(Sorry for the double post. It didn't immediately show up on the feed so I wasn't sure I had published it. First time posting on the site haha)

I'm in... sort of.

LD47 will be my seventh consecutive Ludum Dare, but I'm going on holiday on the Saturday it starts, and will be spending the jam period in a caravan in the Cotswolds, with an ancient laptop and an Internet connection that likely won't be much better. I'll still try and get something done during that time - for the Jam, if I have to - but it might be a bit trickier than normal.

I'm willing to team up with someone again, to make life easier for me.

As always, I'll be using either PICO-8 or TIC-80, but most likely PICO-8.

LD47 - 12 Days Remaining

I've said my goodbyes to friends and family, got most of my affairs in order, and now I'm preparing myself for it. 48 hours of absolute madness. I really can't wait. :sweat_smile:

A little early, but... I'm in.

I'm taking some time off work, both before and after. I'm practicing using my tools, and making sure I actually understand how to use Unity's animation suite this time. In short... I'm in!

Coding Environment: Unity Language: C# Sleep Replacement: A palette of Monster energy drinks Graphics: Probably Aseprite, maybe a voxel editor Cheerleaders: Many Music: ??? SFX: sFXr

Can't wait to stream the dev process, and play your games!

Can't Wait Anymore

I wish tonight i sleep for 10 days and when i wake up the might have started :D

A few thoughts on the whole "making a game in 48 hours" thing

As I couldn't finish the game the last time, I'm really looking forward to LD47. I feel like after four LDs and one DJam I more or less understand what's the most enjoyable workflow for me in a 48h game jam.

I'll leave some thoughts on the whole process here. Feel free to discuss .)

1. Scope

I always think too far ahead, making up systems far too complex for 48 hours. I think that's okay, as long as you can keep yourself in check and finish the damn thing, but I tried to make a Darkest Dungeon clone for LD 46 and it didn't go that well. I tried to finish it in time for jam, but it was unbalanced, and the gameplay was hard to understand.

One way that paradoxically improved the overall quality of my work was constraining my timeframe to 20 hours. I did this for DJam4 in 19 hours or so. I used stock audio, so maybe I'll focus more on that this time, since it really improved the overall quality and feeling of the game. In the end, I like that last game a lot more than all my previous submissions.

So this time I'm making something that I can finish in 20 hours or so, and then use the remaining day to polish it.

2. Avoid crunch

This might sound silly since the whole LD is kind of a crunch simulator, but it goes with the whole "constraint your time". I spent the whole 48 hours of past LDs, with about 6-8 hours of sleep, and found that I'm not really able to work efficiently for a month or two after LD. I avoided the burnout after DJam4, and not being strung with anxiety for the whole weekend makes it more enjoyable, not to mention I actually finished the game, and was quite satisfied with the result. Keep the game as simple as possible, and then relax and polisih.

3. Prepare yourself

I'm talking about pre-LD preparations. Like clean your table, stock up on food, and then decide what technologies you'll use. Prepare your libs in a new project (I work with Unity), and practice drawing what you know how to draw a few days before LD, so you can make assets quickly. I've heard it's a good idea to have menus and fonts ready as well, but I think I'm a bit too disorganized to manage that.

4. People and stuff

I like to hang around the LD discord voice chat. I don't talk much, but I like to listen. It's one of the best part of the whole LD. I'd probably wouldn't participate if there wasn't a community this strong. But it's also good to mute the chat from time to time if you want to get anything done.

5. Balance trying new things and doing things you know how to do

I like to try some small new thing on each LD, but also do and use things I did many times before. It improves the overall quality, and takes a lot less time to do what you know how to do.

6. Theme

I don't think too hard on the theme. I make up a few ideas, pick one, and make it happen. Sometimes it's better, sometimes it's worse. I never manage to fully realize it anyway, so I just make the best game I can, and it's more than enough for me.

Okay, enough of me rambling. Let's go already!

THE HYPE IS REAL

My LD Process and What I've Learned After All Those Years

(Extra note: I just realized this is my 10th Ludum Dare event I attend to! Sounds symbolic, I better make it good.)

Inspired by @kuro 's post about his process and thoughs during the event, I decided to do a similar thing and maybe these posts will inspire both new atendees as well as some veterans.

0) Pre-LD Mindset

Before I start the event I already have in mind a picture of the structure of the game. Well, it is easy for me because I make only point and click adventure games. So I know that my game will be an adventure. I also know that my main focus is always graphics and story. I don't try to make any revolutionary mechanics, nor I try to shock people with some out-of-this-world gameplay. I simply want to deliver an interesting story with a couple of puzzles and most importantly fitting mood. So maybe this can give you some ideas about how to approach the progress. Maybe you can decide up front what genre you want to do no matter what theme wins.

1) Theme handling

I almost always use the theme for story purposes, not gameplay mechanics. This gives me a looot of freedom to make something interesting with it.

2) Step by step process

  • I start with a very vague idea (Story about and old man going shopping and something happens along the way)
  • I start making graphics (characters, environment, items...) and because it takes a lot of time to make these pictures, I use this time to think about all the dialogues and the story details on the run.
  • Then I write all the dialogues and story I was brainstorming during my graphic sessions.
  • In the end I just glue everything together.

3) Polishing

Now that I have basically the whole game finished I check for bugs, polish some dialogues, add some minor details and that's it. I know it sounds easy, because it kinda is when you are making adventure games, in comparison to someone working on let's say an RPG fighting game, but that's just how I do it.


So I hope you got some ideas for your own working process now. And don't forget, LD is not about winning, it's about the experience and fun!

Themes Selected

Screenshot 2020-09-21 at 14.01.11.png

First Time Picking Themes.

So LD for me has always been a case of wait until the top ten then hope. But this time around I've actually submitted my own themes for considderation. I thought less about what I wanted or had an idea for and more on what I would look for in the finals. If that makes sense. I wanted something that was open enough that it could inpire but not so constricting that everyone makes the same game.

Under The Sea

This I feel has a potential for an adventure game, Find the golden trident, or an exploration game, similar to subnautica.

A Classic Novel

I think the mixing of the two forms of media could lead to some great game ideas, I imagine a count of monte cristo-esque story driven game for this.

Mythology

The world has amazing mythologies, some are so well known. Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Some a lot less so like the Irish / Celtic pantheon.

Im in, but I have 1 less day

Im in again this time around. Im going to try to make my game smaller in scope to try to have a finished product. My wife is also having surgery on the 5th, so im effectively down a day. Fingers crossed.

I'm in

My second attempt at ldjam. Goals for this time are:

  1. Focus tightly on one or two ideas - last time I tried to make something 'epic' in scope, and the end result was kind of messy and boring.
  2. Introduce some basic animations to the graphics.

I'll be using: 1. Godot Engine 2. Photoshop 3. Spine 4. Logic Pro X 5. sfxr

Greeting + theme suggestions

Hello, this is my first Game Jam! Looking forward to Oct 2nd!

My Theme Suggestions are A living maze Music soothes the... Future Echoes