Bit of a late start to my first ludum dare, but better late then never!

Right off the bat I knew I wanted to try a spherical gravity based platformer with this theme, and this being my first Ludum Dare I wasn't been too hopeful I would get there; but I picked something and I was going to stick with it!

After 6 hours I finally got it working.

and then I proceeded to break it again....

After a long day, a lot of work, and maybe a little bit of hair pulling, I managed to get this put together; it still has a really long way to go but the basic gameplay is there and I am excited to see if I can finish my plans in the time I have left. I think I've found my new favorite event!

Moon Dash is done (mostly) and is ready to be played. I was working on it till about 8:50 PM before I finally cut what I was trying to accomplish and finalized my build; with 2 minutes to spare I submitted at 8:58 PM.

Man that was super stressful at the end, but I am glad I got pretty much everything I wanted to in it done, I will do a post covering my whole process with a timelapse tomorrow.

Go play over here

Moon Dash was a hell of a game to try and make in 48 hrs; the spherical gravity was a true pain to get working and, even still, could be vastly improved upon. Looking back I would have gone for a simpler solution, probably more along the lines of my original idea with a "block-y" planet that had 4 directional gravity rather then full spherical.

Towards the end I spent a lot of time that wound up being wasted on trying to implement a fancy ship-flying level transition, I scrapped it when it wasn't yielding results at 30 minutes left in favor of a simple alpha transition.

I also spent too little time on the sound and music, I would have rather spent more time on it and made something much nicer than what I published, but given that I've never worked with Bosca Ceoil before this so I was worried I would waste precious time.

All in all I think the game came out too simple, I would have loved to add more mechanics or expand the gameplay a bit; but you do what you can in the time you've got. I can't wait for LD39 and hope to take what I've learned here and make an even better entry next time!

What I've learned * Spherical Gravity is cool but sucks to build * Spend more time on sound, it makes a difference * Simple games are really simple, a little bit of complexity can make for a lot more fun * Animations are a pain to get right * Box2D likes to break the JVM, a lot

Here is a timelapse of the game being made:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3VdZSuWSgc

Its been awhile since I did a game jam, got super busy with life and didn't really have the drive to do the weekend sprint. BUT I am coming back in 2 years after (wow, that long?) my first entry. Let's see how this goes!

So I decided to do something crazy and learn Godot while I do the jam, I am really enjoying the engine so far but it is taking some getting used to.

As for the theme I had an idea on doing a platformer with an "ally" chained to you that you must navigate with, avoiding obstacles and such. I have the basics of movement, hit detection, and the chain all set up. Next up is to add in the actual levels and camera movement.

Time to get some sleep, but so far so good! Back to the grind stone in a couple hours.

I wasted several hours today working on a feature I wound up scrapping (ouch!) but I made some serious headway in everything else. I have some 2D Lighting going, some bare art, scene transitions, and a new trap. Tomorrow I am hoping to get a menu done and animations complete within a few hours, hopefully giving me enough time to get some levels going and polish the mechanics out. Jumping still feels a little bit clunky and I want to see if I can make the physics on the chain a bit more interactive rather than just being simulated.

Totally forgot about the submission hour and panicked at 10 minutes left when I noticed the time. I never got the chance to finish up my animations or even get any audio what-so-ever into the game. The time wasted on scene transitions yesterday really came back to bite me in the butt.

I'm not really all that happy with how the game turned out, it lacks more than a few levels, has clunky physics and animations, and has no sound at all. But I think that is partly because I chose to learn Godot at the same time as competing, leading to a lot of wasted time. I plan to continue experimenting with both the engine and this prototype and hopefully get it more fleshed out in the future.

You can check out my game over here

48 kinda snuck up on me, wasn't expecting it this weekend but excited none the less. On the bright side though I have been doing a lot of side projects and experiments using Godot so I should be more prepared going into this than I have in previous events. I always try to participate in every LD since I started doing them, and even if I am not able to join the actual jam at the time I always try to make something in a later weekend just to do the challenge. Fingers crossed I'm able to submit this time!

I can definitely work with any of these themes, but a few of them I think would be much more interesting to deal with. I don't want to start thinking too much about any one theme until the votes are done, but I have a couple ideas for my +1's

As soon as I got the theme I started work, I instantly was struck by the idea for a mining themed match-3. I’ve got the basic gameplay loop practically done, wasted way too much time struggling with algorithms, but got it to work regardless. Tomorrow I’m hoping to buckle down and really get more going. My current plan is to have the gems reverse fill the screen (bottoms up) as your drill is “mining down”, a indicator showing each “depth level” you pass as semi-score system, a “power bar” that charges as you score, which will unlock some form of skill tree/power ups. After that just polish I hope.

So I have enough of something that I can actually show it off, still a long way to go though. I have the bare essentials of my Match-3 completed with some nice animations. I've got the code written for "mining down" and scoring, just need to connect it to the gamestate and get something to make it look nice. Time for a food break before cracking back into it.
It also runs on mobile FYI

Honestly I feel like I wasted quite a lot of time. I got the main mechanics and a working game done early on, so I thought I had plenty of time to experiment with different things; almost none of which made the cut at the end of time. I didn't even have a way to lose the game until the last hour left! Had to spend the last bit of time I had crunching in a panic to get things done. Luckily the only things I had planned were cosmetic stuff so the game is functional, if not a little unpolished and with a couple of bugs.

I'm generally happy with how the game turned out, it has enough game there to keep playing and after you get all the unlockable powers it just becomes an endless game with a highscore to chase. I'd have loved to add more powers, unique special tiles, and some better animations and graphics to really make chains feel better. Overall though I would say that this LD was a success.

You can check out my game over here

24 hours before the madness begins 🥳