I hope everyone has a good night's sleep tonight, because tomorrow is when the grind begins!

About a day ago, I posted some ideas for every theme except Folklore: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/$371557/ideas-for-each-theme

Here are some more ideas!

• Build traps to keep enemies from entering your shelter

• Same idea as shelter, but with continuous waves of enemies and an end goal of protecting your shelter so that no enemies can ever enter

• I don't really have much else to say on this one... you could take almost any other theme and apply it to an underground setting

• Defend against waves of unfamiliar robots

• Level-based game where you can skip levels by taking certain paths

• Keep defending yourself until you see/hear the signal? (It's pretty basic, but I don't have a lot of ideas for this theme)

• The player and/or enemy has extreme muscles

• Same idea as shelter

• You are stuck in space and must find a way to get home by salvaging the remains of the rocket

• Narrative about self-reflection

• Same idea as paths but with the addition of keys

• Enemies only spawn in darkness, so use your light to keep them away

• The main enemies are tiny insects with the power of murder hornets

• The level design prevents you from dodging attacks, so you must use your skills and items and can't rely on movement

• Your health goes down by itself, and you must regain health from sources (like plants or creatures)

In the meantime, if anyone needs a stream to vibe with before waiting for the event to start, or while coming up with their idea, you can find one from the LudumDare tag:

https://www.twitch.tv/directory/all/tags/LudumDare

This is one of the themes I was hoping for the most!

My idea involves completing levels and overcoming obstacles in an increasingly shrinking space. You start off with more room, but it gets smaller as time goes by.

My game is a platformer where you must get past obstacles while the lava rises, shrinking the playable space.

Things have been going really smoothly so far. I'm hoping to have the "Minimum Viable Game" finished tonight, or at least close to finished. After that, I'll focus on additional content and polishing.

Previous report: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/$371557/progress-report

I've been up all night working on my game for LD54, so it's time to get some sleep!

Turns out that trying to get the entire MVG done in just one night was a bit too ambitious. Nevertheless, things have been going very smoothly and I'm confident I can get it done tomorrow. The only major hiccup I've had so far was with navmeshes, and I solved the problem relatively quickly.

I've finished creating all the levels and adding all the core features, now it's time for some polish!

Edit: I have removed the screenshot as I just realised the lava could be misinterpreted as... something else. I'm going to fix that.

Edit 2: Posted a new screenshot with updated lava.

Fellow Ludum Darers, which of these UI designs do you prefer?

My entry for the Jam is complete. Check it out! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/inferno-collapse

The option to rate games doesn't seem to be on any of the game pages. Also, all of them have "Ratings received: 0" and "Ratings given: 0" so I'm guessing I'm not the only one with this problem. Is there a bug or something?

And since I have your attention, please check out my game! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/inferno-collapse

I was curious about which filters others use, so I created a poll.

https://strawpoll.com/BDyNE5pmkZR

For me it's mainly Danger and Feedback, although I do occasionally check Smart.

Is anyone else having this glitch where the "Games" tab shows games from past LDs when first clicking on it? Switching to a different filter then switching back fixes the problem.

For LD54, I made Inferno Collapse, a 3D platformer with 2D billboarded sprites.

This year's game will probably use a similar cartoony style, but significantly improved thanks to both feedback I got from the last one, and having improved my skills since then.

Looking forward to my third Ludum Dare!

I wasn't originally planning to take part in LD57. In fact, I only just heard it was coming up a few hours ago, so this was a last minute decision.

The last Ludum Dare I took part in was LD54 more than a year and a half ago, where I made Inferno Collapse. My game dev skills have improved a lot since then, so hopefully I can make something much better this time!

The last two times I took part in Ludum Dare, I reused base code from my in-development commercial game. This is allowed by the Jam rules.

I was going to do the same this time, but I had a chance of heart and decided that this time, it will be truly from scratch, starting with only the engine (in my case, Unreal) default project.

On one hand, I won't be bogged down by code that was originally written for a different game. On the other, I won't have as many pre-existing systems to use. It will be interesting to see how it goes. I might end up learning something along the way.

This is also the first LD where I intend to make my own music and sounds.

Technically, those differences would qualify me to enter the Compo, although I'll probably stick with the Jam because 48 hours is an extremely strict deadline.

I have to admit, I'm really disappointed by the recent announcement. I was really looking forward to taking part in LD59. I spent about a month preparing... just to hear it's closing down forever :'(

Ludum Dare was like a convention where game developers got together to view each other's work, and I'm very sad to see it go.

I wish all of you good luck in the future.

For those who haven't already seen it, the Ludum Dare YouTube channel posted a really heartwarming farewell video about the history of Ludum Dare: https://bit.ly/4cjihDN

Hello, fellow Ludum Darers!

About a week ago, I made a plugin for Godot that adds a "Workspaces" bar to the top of the editor, similar to what is in Blender. Aside from the basic layout switching, it also allows you to hide parts of the editor, filter files in the FileSystem (experimental), set per-workspace themes, sync FileSystem navigation with the open file (scene, script or inspector) and more.

Thought you might want to check it out!

Link: https://github.com/Zerbu/Workspaces-V2

As we all know, Ludum Dare (and most game jams) require creating art, audio and other assets in 48 or 72 hours, but sometimes there's a grey area on whether something counts:

Obviously, you don't just take artwork you previously created and edit it. That would be cheating. But what if you were to reuse your signature "style" or use your non-LD art as inspiration for LD art? Where would you draw the line?

Also, the Jam allows you to use base code you already have, but sometimes, the line between "code" and "art" is blurry. For example, you could have code that generates visuals.

What are all your thoughts on this?

With just over 24 hours until Ludum Dare 59 starts, I'm looking to play some LD games for some inspiration. If there's any game you want to share with me, or others reading this post, post it in the comments!