I decided to do a little analysis of playtimes in my latest entry, Dice Settlers. I only look at sessions that completed at least 1 turn of the game, and my analysis is basically just done based on the timestamps of high scores being submitted. Yay for lazy analytics ^_^.

First the high level stats: * 39 people played an average of 25.9 minutes * 18 of these won the game in an average of 42.6 minutes * 21 of these quit after an average of 11.7 minutes * 22 people played more than 20 minutes * 17 hours of "fun" were had

If I restrict this to only players coming from Ludum Dare (ignoring my friends and players of my other games who might have played), I see these stats: * 24 people played an average of 25.1 minutes * 13 of these won the game in an average of 32.2 minutes * 11 of these quit after an average of 16.6 minutes * 16 people played more than 20 minutes * 10 hours of "fun" were had * With 21 ratings at the time of posting this, I guess 3 people didn't rate after playing * 3 people played less than a minute and played only a single turn (let's hope these are the same 3 people!)

Some takeaways: * This is a meaty game (I knew that upon submitting it ^_^), can easily spend more than 20 minutes, and 6 people even spent more than an hour! Almost everyone put in at least 15 minutes. * Rolling dice can be addicting, who knew? (Answer: the whole gambling industry) * My total hours of fun for this game is approaching the amount of time it took to develop it, that's a good sign for a jam game, right?

Want to waste a half hour rolling dice and exploring slightly obscure mechanics? Go play Dice Settlers.

Anyone else have a really meaty game I should sink my teeth into? Post in the comments!

I was looking at a few of my old submissions, and some of the images are broken now. This one in particular is broken, and I haven't fixed it yet. Taking a glace at the page, if I edit my first line to be ![cover](///raw/dd3/z/ac6e.png) instead of ![cover](///content/dd3/z/ac6e.png), it works. Not sure where the difference came from, if it was something I did weird years ago, or if this might be a general issue, but it used to work, and now the pages are broken. I've fixed all but that one of mine (was just a few older ones, all the new ones seem fine).

Just winding down after the Dungeon Crawler Jam 2023 (we came in 4th!), and another Ludum Dare is already here. Well, I said I was going to do every one of these as long as I'm an indie dev, so here I am!

Tools plan: * Custom JavaScript engine: GLOV.js * Sound: Probably Bfxr * Music: 1BITDRAGON * Graphics: Aseprite, Photoshop * Lots of Mtn Dew

Mock-up in Photoshop complete, time to write some code...

Works pretty good on mobile devices, a good game to chill on the couch with ;).

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/shapes-delivery

Anyone else have nice some favorite mobile/touch-friendly entries?

Working title: TIS-8829

Basic layout, code parsing and error checking, output validation complete. Next up: evaluation and debugging tools!

This game is probably not for everyone...

My jam entry is set on a obscure (fictional) computing device from the 70s. I made a rather technical, possibly a little humorous manual to go with the machine as part of the jam, and then obsoleted the need to read the manual by adding a (much less humorous, due to lack of space) in-game tutorial. Though the tutorial was definitely the right idea, I'm slightly sad that no one reads the manual. For fun, inspired by TIS-100, I've made a more "authentic" feeling version my manual. Here's a page:

And, if competitively writing multithreaded assembly programming for a ridiculously limited piece of hardware sounds like fun for you, check out my entry, QPCA-77A.

...unless you think competitive multithreaded assembly programming sounds like fun? (edit: AND you have an hour or two to spare...) Slight optimization "spoilers"/hints later in the GIF below.

I've spent way more time playing this particular Ludum Dare game than any of my previous entries. Can you beat my (and the other competitors) crazy optimizations in QPCA-77B?

The goal in my game is supposed to be to meet the various geometric requirements in the lower right... but instead I decided try to make my magic circle look like a cat. And then modify it to meet the requirements... success! And probably more fun than the actual game as designed ^_^.

Post your prettiest magic circles in this thread, or on my game's page.

Big news, all! A full and expanded version of my LD54 entry is coming to Steam as QuantumPulse 2A. If you didn't get a chance to play it during the jam (or did, and want more content!), add it to your wishlist now!

Also, I'm in for the next jam!

Will be doing the compo as usual, using my custom engine, GLOV.js, and probably 1BITDRAGON for audio again.

Also, did I mention I've got some big news! A full and expanded version of my LD54 entry is coming to Steam as QuantumPulse 2A. If you didn't get a chance to play it during the jam (or did, and want more content!), add it to your wishlist now!

As usual before Ludum Dare, I took the morning off to go for a hike and go through the list of final themes, and brainstorm a few ideas I could do with each of them. Now after that, I have to adjust my votes, it always amuses me how some theme I really didn't like inspires some game idea I love while brainstorming, or a theme I like leads to no games I want to make... Basically, my conclusion is: the voting is probably basically random in the end, if everyone's brain works like mine ^_^.

Also, don't forget to wishlist the full and expanded version of my LD54 entry coming to Steam as QuantumPulse 2A, if competitive multithreaded assembly program optimization sounds like your kind of thing.

Took me literally hours to decide on what kind of game to make... but now I've got a mockup and it seems like my usual un-decipherable kind of game, so let's go for it!

Gameplay loop is just about complete... now to figure out how to do Gameboy-style audio...

https://dashingstrike.s3.amazonaws.com/LD56-gameplayloop.mp4

But first, a quick word from our sponsors...

A full and expanded version of my LD54 entry is coming to Steam as QuantumPulse 2A. If you didn't get a chance to play it during the jam (or did, and want more content!), add it to your wishlist now!

Post-jam DWARFS Update

My entry for this Compo, DWARFS, was ranked in the top 10 for audio and graphics, my new personal best in both categories, thanks for that! The Fun rating, however, was close to my personal worst (around the 50th percentile) :laughing:. However, I realized that was the case basically immediately upon sitting down to play through the whole "campaign" immediately after the Compo ended. I liked all the pieces of my game, but they just weren't meshing together. Thanks to some detailed feedback and players trying out various iterations I made on my post-jam version, I think I ended up with something way more fun, almost entirely by changing the glue that holds things together so that it feels like there's a reason for you to play the minigame, and that you feel rewarded for doing better in the minigame.

The general changes are: * Progress is saved between sessions * You now get bonus cash for completing the minigame well (4x for being nearly perfect, 2x for being good), which encourages playing aggressively / makes it more rewarding and therefore interesting * Greatly increased the match weighting for which exotic is found and their value (higher weight for DW/ARFS for which/value, and now the square of the match is used for the weight instead of just the raw match), so your configuration tweaks should have a more direct impact * The pattern of danger now loops (about 2 times if you're doing well) when doing the minigame, so if you're paying attention you can use that to your advantage * The pattern of danger is now pre-determined for each Exotic, so you can probably notice which exotic is "on the line" as well and use that to your advantage when hunting a specific one * Cash is now the stated primary goal (instead of just "18 probes launched" to finish a planet), so doing better at the minigame should feel even more rewarding * The Survey Bonus is now given per-Exotic when it gets to 100% knowledge instead of a single big payout, and increases with each bonus you claim * Moved affinities to the seeded random, so everyone should have the same difficulty (only the positive/negatives are flipped in a way that doesn't change the distribution), and ensured a better spread (should generally be at least 1 of each pos/neutral/negative for each affinity somewhere, and the closest two Exotics will never be very close) * If you start mining by clicking, time doesn't start passing until you actually hold down space/mouse again * Improved gamepad controls and informational tooltips

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/dwarfs

This will be my 25th consecutive Ludum Dare. I'll be using my custom web-based engine as usual. Debating sticking to GameBoy-style visuals and sound since I did near my personal best with those in the last event, but I'll probably force myself to try something different and score worse. If "Doors" is picked as the theme, I might stretch the theme a bit and make a text-based BBS Door styled game, even if almost no one here will know what that is :laughing:.

Also if you haven't heard, a full and expanded version of my LD54 entry now has a demo on Steam as QuantumPulse 2A. If you played it during the jam, you've already played most of the demo, but if you liked it, add it to your wishlist now!

I've got a near-final version of a puzzle game, and am almost considering not even including the help screen, but I'm not sure anyone would figure out what the rules are :laughing:.

I'm slightly curious if people can figure out how it works and win a game without even reading the help, or if even the in-game help is not enough!

Play blind here. You can also view a bunch of tips and additional instruction here if needed.

I'm really excited to announce that the full version of QuantumPulse 2A, my Zach-like programming puzzle game is now available on Steam, and according to the reviews, people are loving it. If by "people" I mean "nerdy programmers like myself." This game started as my LD54 entry, and after seeing multiple people (including myself!) spend 5-10 hours playing the game (read: competitively optimizing for better scores) I knew it was something I'd enjoy making (and playing) a full version of.

It's super niche, so if you don't like games that involve programming (e.g. TIS-100 or Shenzhen I/O from Zachtronics, which were my biggest inspirations), it's probably not for you, but if it sounds like your kind of thing, please check it out (and share with other relevant communities - I'm a 1-man studio so don't have much reach ^_^).

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3175190/QuantumPulse_2A/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSZN8WbtT8o

Yup, I've overscoped a bit much... as usual =)