Usually in past Ludum Dare competitions we grouped together with work colleagues using office space as our temporal Ludum Dare headquarters. Nothing is a better teambuilding than jamming and sleeping in the office :) But as time goes by, many of us no longer work for the same company. So we decided to take the Ludum Dare experience to a new level - we've booked a cabin in the woods. Excited and loaded with food and drinks, we started the jam in this cozy cabin. There was nothing that can distract you, not even internet connection and when you feel like you need a break? Just grab a beer and take a walk in the forest. We didn't take the competition too seriously though, making larger breaks in the evenings to just chat, drink or play games. Overall the experience was superb and I can highly recommend it.

I'm actually quite proud what game we've created there. It is sort of strategy/survival game, where you have to build a raft from trash in the sea and survive against enemies. Give it a spin and let us know what you think. Ahoy!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/45/ahoy

Hey guys, so I thought I could do a little wrap up of my Compo entry called Chicken Luck. It was my fifth Ludum Dare game and since game coding is my job for several years now, I thought I'm adequately prepared for the challenge.

Graphics: I do have small graphic design background but it was some time since I created any 3D model or graphics of any sort so I at least tried some things in Blender before game jam started to not struggle with most simple tasks. I must say I was very happy how Blender evolved in time and user experience was actually quite good. I've used single file for all models relying heavily on collections. Export to Unity was without issues. I even had some time to do some rigging and animations. This was most surprising to me as my previous experience with rigging was some poor human autorig few years back. But guess what? It's not that complicated and with Blender's Auto IK feature it is actually possibile to get useful results with just very simple rig.

Coding: This was my first entry where I didn't use any custom code base on top of standard Unity libraries. Oh boy, what a freedom! No unnecessary UI codes, game managers, loaders, tweeners and what not. Just a blank page and the sensation to start from ground up.

Design: I feel like I still have much to learn in regards of design. First I wanted to have a lot of physics environment interactions which would make the game more interesting and easy to make. For example some animated blocks could push chicken to empty space. Oh boy, what was I thinking? I literally killed several hours trying to figure out how to combine physics interactions with player controls. After I got something finally working I realized that result is not smooth so I threw it all and redesigned the game to current state.

Sound: I think this is my weakest point now. Although I borrowed a recording device from my friend and I'm quite happy with sound effects, I was not able to add any music. I do not have the skill needed to put together something ear-pleasing in like two hours. That is definitely something I would like to work on in the future.

Overall it was again a great learning experience and motivation for future development. I love Ludum Dare!

P.S.: I would be very happy if you have time to play and rate my game:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/chicken-luck

Hey guys, check out our game :pick: :fire: :bug:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/mine-shift

Get ready to defend your field of dreams in Poppy Defense 🌱, the ultimate top-down tower defense game. Build a garden of defenses and stop the enemy forces from harvesting your precious crop🐛 Can you protect your poppies and come out victorious? Play now to find out!

Hey guys, thank you all for another awesome jam!

Our tower defense game is about protecting your poppy flowers against all enemies - from small bugs to large harvester machines. You have to plant poppies to increase your seed income and all kinds of defensive flowers to deal with increasing amount of enemies.

Btw. current max wave is 80, can you do better? :upside_down: Play now to find out! (WebGL) :v: