Ludum Dare 56 has just begun! Participants have 48 hours (or 72 hours, in a particular category) to make a video game from scratch. I’m tremendously excited to taking part this year. Because of this, I’ve decided to take a look back on the games I’ve made as part of previous Ludum Dare competitions.
Ludum Dare 29 – Dungeons of Dragorath
My first Ludum Dare game was a dungeon crawler with pseudo-procedural generation (as in very poorly implemented) made in Game Maker. The theme for this jam was Beneath the Surface. I was fairly proud for getting this one out the door, as it was my first time making a finished game of any kind, it certainly inspired me to learn more about the tools, which is something I commonly got out of many of the following jams.
Ludum Dare 30 – HackNET
The theme for this jam was Connected Worlds. This one was a mess that went nowhere. The “gameplay” involved clicking on nodes in a network in order to hack them, perhaps inspired by the hacking minigame in Deus Ex Human Revolution? But ultimately there was nothing satisfying about making or playing this game.
Ludum Dare 31 – Harvestier
This was my first time using Unity 3D! The theme here was Entire Game on One Screen. To this day I’m still very satisfied with how polished this game turned out, with an entire scoring system, three levels, and a main menu. The gameplay was exceedingly simple, navigating a UFO around small planetoids in the Kuiper belt.
Ludum Dare 32 – Chessboard Death Race
I got ambitious with this one. The theme was An Unconventional Weapon, which I took to mean cars with guns! What’s more is that I turned this into a multiplayer game. I have fond memories of staying logged in just in case anyone that decided to give the game a go would have someone to play against. Yet again I love using these jams as an opportunity to explore tools that I’ve never used before and throwing myself in the deep end.
Ludum Dare 33 – The Island
This one was a bit of a strange one. The theme was You are the Monster, but I decided to eschew it entirely and instead build a game about wandering around a small playspace picking up strange rocks that build up the music more and more (similar to Sound Shapes). A fun experiment, but not my best work.
Ludum Dare 34 – Nationbuilder
The theme for this one was Growing, which I immediately latched onto a Civilization-esque game. Unfortunately the core loop of the gameplay wasn’t thought out well enough and it ended up becoming a “click on the thing, get more money, click on more things” much like the previous HackNET. I did enjoy the low poly art style I had managed to come up with for the tiles.
Ludum Dare 35 – ShiftShape
This is one of the more unique ones I came up with, and I’m quite proud of it. A puzzle game with the theme Shapeshift, which I interpreted rather literally: the world spins in a new direction every time you press the shift key. It effectively became a 3D version of a ball-in-a-maze puzzle. To this day I still really enjoy this one, it’s polished, it’s visually distinctive, it’s unique.
Ludum Dare 36 – L.M.V. Edison
Here is where I learned a very important lesson about not prioritizing content over gameplay. The theme here was Ancient Technology, so I set out to make a game about rescuing a derelict mining vessel and using it to return home. The idea was that the player would have to solve various puzzles and engineering tasks to achieve this. Development quickly ground to a halt as I became too focused on an interactive computer terminal. Ultimately not very enjoyable to play.
Ludum Dare 39 – Oculus Guns
This one was an experiment! My first VR game, and again taking the jam as an opportunity to learn a new tool: the Oculus Rift SDK. This was in July 2017, so it must have been soon after I acquired my first headset. The theme was Running out of Power, which I took to mean the power on the laser guns (of course!). Ultimately little more than a mediocre shooting gallery, but I still really enjoyed making it.
Ludum Dare 40 – Tavos Mining Corporation
Politics? In my games?
The theme for this one was “The more you have, the worse it is”, and I chose to make a strategy game about failing to keep your workers happy on a distant planet for a mining operation. Ultimately the gameplay isn’t really very fun, as it mostly centers around watching a pretty animation and playing with some sliders to make the budget make sense. Too simple, too little going on, but the art was fairly nice.
Ludum Dare 46 – Keep the Vibe Alive
I returned to making a VR game, this time much more successfully. Instead of using the Oculus toolkit I instead took this opportunity to learn SteamVR. I built a fully interactive record player, and a room full of furniture to interact with. The theme for this one was Keep it Alive, so it became about keeping the good vibes going by playing music! Each of the four records would play a different song I had composed, and if you managed to figure out the secret you would be able to find the secret fifth record.
Ludum Dare 48 – Antrum
Making stuff is often more fun with friends! This was my first time participating in the 72 hour jam instead of the compo format, and I did it with a team of five people. The theme was Deeper and Deeper. Having a group of people was a very interesting change of pace, and overall I found having that many teammates really made creating a strong sense of style and a great gameplay loop much more achievable. We made a fairly conventional Descent-style 6DOF shooter. I’m still very proud of how this one turned out.
Ludum Dare 51 – Blast Shifter
Blast Shifter on the other hand shows some of the issues that can come with working with a team. The theme was “Every 10 Seconds”, so we decided to make a game about changing genres between a 2D shmup and a 3D railshooter every ten seconds. It was a really neat idea, but execution fell somewhat short. I was hamstrung by being less familiar with the tools we chose to use this time around. My teammates really did far more on this one than I did, but I’m still glad to them for participating with me.
I’m very excited to see what this new Ludum Dare will hold in store for me! The theme has just been announced as Tiny Creatures and I’ve already got several fun ideas buzzing around my head. I’ll report back in 48 hours!