Rate my suggestions

So

Almost a year ago the LD 43 was happening, I made a game with my friend that called "Electrocuted", we made it with the Game Maker Studio 2 game engine.

It took me a little while but I finally made a text-based demake version of my game in pure C++.

You are very welcome to check out the demake I made (Btw demake is the opposite of remake)

Thanks! :)

The link : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/electrocuted

That's right! We're in for Ludum Dare in 2 weeks! And to get ready we'll be streaming our Game Dev practice. Starting now! https://twitch.tv/cyberlightgames

humps

center stage

so close

Also I'm in, totally! I'll post a tech stack closer to the date as I've not decided yet (I've totally decided already).

Voting must be coming up shortly right? or rather slaughtering :smile:

The 7th Alakajam is starting tonight at 7pm PM UTC, and before that we're hosting a little challenge for fun ; the winner will be awarded Alakajam magnets :sunglasses:

The challenge

Share a tweet-long story as an answer to this tweet, using as many of the 10 themes that remain in the running for the 7th Alakajam theme. The winner will be chosen during the Twitch launch stream to be held by TigerJ :smiley:

LD45 is starting soon. Where are the wallpapers!?

Lots of people complain about the theme suggestions every time Ludum Dare rolls around, here's my two cents about this. First off a lot of people will complain about the theme's being too narrow, I think the cause of this is the suggestion is a mechanic/gameplay aspect and not actually a theme. Examples of this would be "two buttons", "platformer", "you're the bad guy", "10 seconds", etc...These are way too narrow to be a good theme and restrict the game maker to very defined goals. This would be good if the game maker was working on a project, but for Ludum Dare it just doesn't work with so many people working off the same theme. Another thing people complain about is the theme being too broad. Personally, I think the theme being pretty broad is a fantastic idea! A more broad theme would make for more difference in game mechanics and (hopefully) more creativity in the games designed.

When voting for a theme I like to think of all the types of games that could possibly be created using that theme. I know there's a lot of 2d platformers that get made every Jam, but there's so many more types of games that are made. People make puzzle games, tabletop games, vr games, visual novels, and everything in between! I've even seen some posts about these niche types of games being made, like there's a guy who wants to make a game for a launchpad that's usually used for making music! And another person who wants to base their game off their Inktober drawings! We need to be able to choose a theme that will be able to include all of these types of amazing games being made.

With all my talk on what a good theme would include, I guess I'm obligated to include my suggestions in this post. Feel free to take my ideas with a grain of salt and destroy my suggestions in the slaughter round because that's what they are after all. Suggestions!

-Bridges

-Global

-Down to the wire

Counting down the days to Ludum Dare 45!

Here's my theme suggestions. Rip 'em up.

• On/Off
• Some assembly required
• Recursion

So, I made a Ludum Dare text thing using the new LudumDairy Font. Made it in blender as always :smile:

Download PNG file here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uHdjbBCuBou1FB9VKKSMfFP-xCalOe2F/view?usp=sharing

Hi,

First of all, thanks to Extrone (@extrone) for creating the text in this image (see their original post: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/45/$159906/thought-i-would-do-something-while-waiting-for-theme-voting)

I made this into a wallpaper with a quick photoshop edit :smile:

A few years ago I was entering in heaps of Ludum Dare competition (on a different account) using Game Make Studio (and Game Maker Studio 2 when it came out). I have many years of experience with it and it's a great engine, but I never felt like it suited me for game jams. Last Ludum Dare I entered I decided to use pico-8 and I loved it.

At first it felt really restricted and I hated that I had to create my own physics and collision engines, but in the end I felt like the simplicity and restrictions really helped me focus on the gameplay instead of the graphics/sound and improved my overall creativity.

Now my next Ludum Dare is coming up and I haven't done any gamedev in the past couple years. I'm trying to figure out whether I want to go back to Game Maker Studio 2 (which I'd have to buy the licenses again) or if I should stick with pico-8.

Well I had some spare time so if you have use for them, go ahead!

And I guess I'm in for the 3rd time for the jam as well.

The text didn't translate too well into hexagons, but I think it turned out pretty well! Tell me what you think.

For previous Ludum Dares I included some hard-to-read tips in some of the wallpapers I made. This time I will try and expand on them somewhat, with super-useful illustrations. To many of you, these tips will be lessons you've long learnt; if you're just starting out, pay close attention.

Let's get to it!

:one: After you settle on the concept of your game, figure out the absolute minimal requirements for it to work, and make that. You can keep extra features in the back of your head, sure, but get your core completed first.

:two: Remember: most players will only play your game for a few minutes, hook them in early.

:three: If you want your game to get rated, rate other games. Consider a 1:1 ratio; rate 20 games and you will likely receive 20 ratings yourself. Prioritize this over asking for ratings in a blog post.

:four: HTLML5/web games are more likely to get played and rated. Having to jump through hoops just in order to play your game will chase away a lot of people.

:five: Consider your game page on ldjam.com as part of your game. List the controls of the game there. Show some screenshots, but less is more if your game looks the same all the time. Five very similar-looking screenshots take up too much valuable real estate. Don't leave it empty either, though.

:six: You're making a retro 2D game? Cool! But if you rescale 2D art, rescale all assets by the same multiplier. Additionally, scale up x2 or x3, not x2.5 or anything else with a decimal point value, as that will distort your sprites.

That said, there naturally are exceptions to these rules. I have seen differently-scaled pixelart that somehow just worked. But those exceptions usually come from understanding the rules and parting ways with them intentionally in a well thought-out manner.

Now I am off to make a wallpaper that, this time, does not include these tips. :smile: