Join us on Twitter and IRC (#ludumdare on Afternet.org) for the Theme Announcement!
Thanks everyone for coming out! For the next 3 weeks, we’ll be Playing and Rating the games you created. You NEED ratings to get a score at the end. Play and Rate games to help others find your game. We’ll be announcing Ludum Dare 36’s August date alongside the results.
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What is Ludum Dare?
We're one of the largest and longest running Game Jams in the world
Rules and Guide
What you need to know to take part in Ludum Dare. Tips and advice too
1910 games have been made during the LD36 jam, and in the weeks that followed, they gathered no less than 1898319000 comments! Congratulations everyone. While there’s no winner everyone is a winner due to the lack of ratings, we just unlocked for you a couple new ways to browse the LD36 entries:
Hello. So, having the usual LD craze ended, we’ll have yet another MiniLD coming this month!
Theme: “Determinism” (i.e. no randomness)
In this MiniLD, we’re going to make a game without using any randomness. A game that feels deterministic. Random number generators (RNGs) are often indispensable parts of video game mechanics, but here’s the challenge: Can we make a fun experience without relying on them? The idea has been long in my mind, but now it’s time for trying out this idea!
Rules!
A game with no random element.
Team works, using assets are allowed.
Choose whatever genre/topic you may please.
Here are some ideas: Racing game, Rhythm game, Clairvoyance Gambling (e.g. You know the results in advance), A “detective” game (You find the cause of an event from its consequences), Unconventional strategy game (e.g. a turn-based platformer), Space golf, etc. etc.
Can’t we use any random number at all? – Well, I don’t mind if you use random numbers for particle effects, etc. But the core game mechanics shouldn’t rely on randomness.
How do you define (pseudo-)randomness? – If a player feels something is random, I’d say it’s random. Whether if it’s actually predictable or not doesn’t matter. What matters is the user’s perception.
Edit: a little clarification: I think the game should encourage a player to exploit its non-randomness. Just using a fixed seed doesn’t qualify as a good deterministic game.
This sucks! I hate a mechanics theme! – I’m sorry, but hey, I’m just offering an idea for experiments. Because, after all, we all love experimenting with radical new ideas, right?
Hi. I’m still away, but I’ve been getting a number of people contacting me that weren’t able to submit, or had issues submitting, so I’m going to send them here. Please leave a comment here if you had issues submitting.
If it’s an account/activation issue, I’ll take care of those. You can contact me directly.
I’ve finished a Post-Compo version of my LD36 game. Check it out if you have a Vive, and tell your friends. It’s free (or rather pay-what you-want, tips are appreciated), but I’m mostly after getting as many people as I can to play it. I’m working on another VR game right now and I’m hoping to learn from this one about marketing, discovery and what works for players. If I get enough downloads, I’ll add some more levels. (If you have any ideas for good levels, let me know).
Help me spread the trailer far and wide!
Thanks again! This game wouldn’t have existed without LudumDare!
Now that Ludum Dare 36 is definitely over, I thought I would compile a top 11 list of my personal favorite entries – opinions may, of course, vary.
For this little Ludum post, I decided to keep things brief and simple, if you’re interested in a little more detailed version of it, with pictures and some comments, feel free to check it out on our website.
It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Since our post-mortem post, we’ve been spending days doing some renovations to Colossorama 36, the hack and slash arcade game we made for the now past Ludum Dare 36. We hired more gladiators, bought more weapons, prayed to the gods for more Pantheon Techs, and much more! We spared no expense! Well… except that we couldn’t afford to keep the 36 on the title. That thing was not cheap.
Behold! Colossorama! Our brand new update to the original version with most of the feedback issues addressed and a bunch of extra new content!
We got a lot of feedback during this past month, most of it thanks to the Ludum Dare community and everyone who played our game. Taking from it as much as we could, this update added and changed a lot of mechanics to make it a more gratifying beheading experience. Among the most received feedback, here are some of the issues we tackled:
People wanted more potions. Not only are they more common now, but Maces also have a draining property, so you may consider to get one as soon as possible.
Spears got a buff. They’re longer now, which means you’re safer when using them, unless your enemies are jumping.
Physics have been reworked, so it’s way harder to get stuck above a wave of enemies without being able to touch the ground.
Axes got relatively nerfed. Actually, no one weapon can 1-hit gladiators anymore, but axes are still effective against the largest enemies.
The instructions are now on their own screen and can be read at your leisure.
And that’s only the changes made from feedback. We added more content and made sure there was even more juice in this version!
New weapons! Scythes have a chance to poison, which does wonders against the buffier enemies. Hammers have great knockback, which can help you with crowd control.
There are some Fun items that are not super strong on their own, but their properties make them excellent side weapons. They’re rare, but well worth it.
New utility items! There’s an alternative for the grenade, and a few more with curious effects.
These new additions don’t make the game much easier, because there are new enemies! Face the resilient Champions, the fast Lions and the bouncing Hawkmen.
Don’t like the new additions? You can choose to play the Classic 36 mode, which only spawns the Ludum Dare version weapons and enemies.
There’s now a Push property on most weapons, which increases their knockback, giving the player more space to breathe.
Almost total graphic overhaul. Most UI elements were remade from scratch.
Rebalancing of waves for meat-ier and longer game sessions.
Controller Support! In case you get disoriented by aiming with the mouse, you can also play with an Xbox controller now, even on the web version!
Sound options together with some new surprises here and there.
We have actually posted this new version on itch.io a few days ago, but we’ve both been really busy that we were only able to make this post now.
In other Colossorama news, there was this Portuguese Game Development event, the Game Dev Camp, which mostly consisted of talks and showcasing the games that the Portuguese developers were working on. And Colossorama was one of those showcased games! There were quite some people playing the game and giving us brand new feedback on what to improve next. We’re always happy to see more people playing the game, having fun and enjoying it!
But that’s not all! The reason why we were so focused in making a new build right after coming out of the jam was so we could improve it in order to submit it to a jury and maybe get the chance of being able to showcase the game at Lisboa Games Week, another event in Portugal. However, in contrast to Game Dev Camp, this one is actually for the general public, which means if we pass, we will be able to showcase the game to an even bigger amount of people!
Lastly, an acquaintance of us, Tibblewinkles, did a playthrough of the latest update. If you don’t mind being spoilt a pair of surprises, go check it out!
Thanks a lot! We hope to bring you more news soon, and hopefully to participate again in the next major Ludum Dare! Of course, we’re also looking forward to play what you make, so let’s get developing!
I decided not too long ago that I would make my first mobile game. It’s an arcade space game that requires the player to travel from planet to planet by stoping the orbit at the correct time. I have a little gameplay video and I would love any feedback about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbyEGzWdKNQ
I made it in Unity but the finished version took a little longer than a single weekend:)
Missed the voting period slightly. Not that it matters much, deadlines were made to be broken.
Bug fixes, AI improvements and usability tweaks ahoy! Also added in a new feature: morale. Troops in a tough stop will panic and scatter for that extra layer of reelism!
Hi, nice game and congratulations ! Simple mechanics that still offered a decent amount of challenge.We’re realizing a video with several games of the Ludum Dare #36. We made the same thing at the previous jam.
Can you add your game on indiexpo.net ? (it’s free)
So we can include also your game in the video 😉
p.s. write #LDJAM in the game’s description.
Starting last weekend and spilling over into this week I successfully ported my Ludum Dare entry onto html5! At first I wasn’t sure what to expect, I knew there would be many problems to solve, but I thought it would take a lot more work to figure it out than it actually did. Also unexpected was that most of the problems I encountered were specific to each website I ported to (Itch.io and Newgrounds). Overall it was an easy experience thanks to Gamemaker and Humble Bundle. If you’re familiar with Gamemaker, but haven’t coughed up the dough to buy those expensive modules, now is a great time! Alternatively, if you’re new or newer to game dev, Gamemaker is a great place to start. Especially for people like me who hate most programming languages. You can get Gamemaker Pro, plus modules(HTML5, IOS, Android,Windows UWP), plus several games w/source code for only $15! If you are even only mildly interested in Gamemaker as your main engine, I suggest you take this deal! This is seriously a great act of generosity from YoYo games and Humble Bundle. In addition, Shaun Spalding has created a list of very good 3rd party tutorials for Gamemaker to help all the new people. I recommend the one by Tom Francis to start if you’re new to programming.
Edit: Bundle is Over. When I first wrote this the bundle still had like 4 days left. Not sure if this is normal but it took almost 7 days for my post to get published. As for the other part of my post, game is still running HTML
My name is Cody Mitchell. I make music at home and was looking here to see if anyone was looking for music for anything. Completely free. Not looking to charge for anything as I would like to build a portfolio. Feel free to comment or send me an e-mail at [email protected] if anyone is interested and I can get you a download link. Thank you!!!! Here is the link to my Soundcloud where I post all my music.
I’ve been overhauling pretty much everything in Artifact Hunter and updating it enough so that I will be able to sell it. I’ve only done 2 updates, but just from this gif, you can see that I’ve made a lot of progress. 😀
I’m expecting to sell it within two months or so. 😛
My first LD entry was not so good (really, I don’t like it at all), but I’ve got a lot of feedback from people, saying something like “Hey, that’s cool! Just keep doin’ the thing” (thank you, guys! There’s nothing more motivating in the world, than your feedback). So I’ve decided to use every little chance to get better in making games. That’s why I’m in for MiniLD70!
The last LD theme wasn’t inspiring for me at all. I just spent the first day frustrated and trying to get something great from “Ancient Technology”. Now I feel different: MiniLD theme looks interesting. I’ve got an idea to make just a clone of a tabletop game for two persons (yes, multiplayer again), that is absolutely not random-driven (like Go or Chess). But it will not look like a tabletop game. Let’s see how cool can I do!
This is a terribly addicting rate-management sim with glorious pixel art. If you’re anything like me you won’t stop playing it until you win, and maybe not even then (I played for 3 hours).
This is a clever and very satisfying quick-play highscore game where you have to pack wildly-shaped artifacts into boxes as quickly and efficiently as possible. The gameplay is smooth and the art’s not bad, either.
A play-til-you-die game that looks good and is just a solid experience all around. Moment-to-moment gameplay is just satisfying.
Of course, I also think you should play our game, I am the Destroyer, if you’re a fan of those humorous old-school point-and-click adventures. But I’m biased.
