Here is a list of Ludum Dare 29 entries by local members.
Infection
A man lies on a hospital bed. Will he succumb to his affliction, or will his body triumph over infection in the battle that rages beneath the surface?
No Hawking
Enter White Holes to collect globules of purple-orange Hawking Radiation.
The Natives of the White Holes might take offense at your presence.
You only have 5 probes so make them count!
Arctic Antics
You are an arctic researcher. You have accidentally dropped your life's work on orcas and its pages are blowing across the ice.
Collect as many as you can before you are murdered by the ravenous orcas you love so dearly.
Moby-riDickulous
This is Explosive Friends's first Ludum Dare, or even any game jam. Hope you enjoy our game.
ps. Try throwing a swordfish at a seagull...
Captain Amy of the Underground
Dig through the earth in search of gold titanium sapphire eggs that will one day give birth to lava dragons. As the beloved miner dog, Captain Amy Chutney, fight your way down against swarms that you might disturb while you tunnel further into the depths using your trusty pick axe. No two maps are the same. Search, plunder, pillage, and dig your way down to fortune. You are Capn Amy. All hail.
Yojimbrawl!
A 2 player fighting game. We ran out of time, but it was a nice start.
We tried to bring in a concept of death and help from beyond the grave (or from below the surface). After dying you return slightly buffed, until your graves are filled up. We wanted to give it a seedy *underground* fighting feel, but the game ended up too pleasant.
LAIR M.D. - @Manikin, @Pomb, @Kalekin & @niX
LAIR M.D. is a fantastical investigation game in which the player controls a doctor whose job it is to keep an army of goblins physically and mentally healthy. To do this, the player must use his eyes, wits, and bizarre diagnostic tools to unearth symptoms from a goblin patient. Curing patients quickly is good for business, but rushing the job and diagnosing the wrong ailment could kill the patient and your practice.
The Compression Problem - @raxter & @damousey
Use various organs and arteries to power your limbs.
The 'heart' oxygenates blood (i.e. turns it red)
Power the limbs with oxygenated blood by connecting to it.
Use valves to control the flow of blood.
Alien Lobotomy - @SUGBOERIE & @DraughtVader
Your mission is to dominate the earth!
To do this you need to lobotomize 4 of the earth's 6 major leaders.
You have the power to re-wire the neural pathways within an earthlings brain, use it to make them vegetables!
DeepSeaBombing - @Thelangfordian
The theme inspiration was thinking of submarines that are under the surface of the deep sea, and the ships that hunt for them. The end result was something a bit more silly and fun, with sea critters.
Super Landshark Missile Attack - @Tuism
You are a SUPER LANDSHARK WITH MISSILES. You're a stealthy super agent working for... Who cares?! So what if you can stealth? (and you can!) Enjoy bullet-time homing missile carnage and mayhem as well as bloody chomping runs in perfect invincibility!
Scratch Quest - @Fengol
Scratch Quest is a casual RPG quest like Puzzle Quest or Dragon Era, where you use scratch cards for combat. You play a random hero on a generic, self-aware adventure. While in combat, buy scratch card and play them to attack enemies, earn gold and unleash other special abilities or win prizes.
Either PM me or comment the thread with your entry and I'll update this first post.
Infection
A man lies on a hospital bed. Will he succumb to his affliction, or will his body triumph over infection in the battle that rages beneath the surface?
No Hawking
Enter White Holes to collect globules of purple-orange Hawking Radiation.
The Natives of the White Holes might take offense at your presence.
You only have 5 probes so make them count!
Arctic Antics
You are an arctic researcher. You have accidentally dropped your life's work on orcas and its pages are blowing across the ice.
Collect as many as you can before you are murdered by the ravenous orcas you love so dearly.
Moby-riDickulous
This is Explosive Friends's first Ludum Dare, or even any game jam. Hope you enjoy our game.
ps. Try throwing a swordfish at a seagull...
Captain Amy of the Underground
Dig through the earth in search of gold titanium sapphire eggs that will one day give birth to lava dragons. As the beloved miner dog, Captain Amy Chutney, fight your way down against swarms that you might disturb while you tunnel further into the depths using your trusty pick axe. No two maps are the same. Search, plunder, pillage, and dig your way down to fortune. You are Capn Amy. All hail.
Yojimbrawl!
A 2 player fighting game. We ran out of time, but it was a nice start.
We tried to bring in a concept of death and help from beyond the grave (or from below the surface). After dying you return slightly buffed, until your graves are filled up. We wanted to give it a seedy *underground* fighting feel, but the game ended up too pleasant.
LAIR M.D. - @Manikin, @Pomb, @Kalekin & @niX
LAIR M.D. is a fantastical investigation game in which the player controls a doctor whose job it is to keep an army of goblins physically and mentally healthy. To do this, the player must use his eyes, wits, and bizarre diagnostic tools to unearth symptoms from a goblin patient. Curing patients quickly is good for business, but rushing the job and diagnosing the wrong ailment could kill the patient and your practice.
The Compression Problem - @raxter & @damousey
Use various organs and arteries to power your limbs.
The 'heart' oxygenates blood (i.e. turns it red)
Power the limbs with oxygenated blood by connecting to it.
Use valves to control the flow of blood.
Alien Lobotomy - @SUGBOERIE & @DraughtVader
Your mission is to dominate the earth!
To do this you need to lobotomize 4 of the earth's 6 major leaders.
You have the power to re-wire the neural pathways within an earthlings brain, use it to make them vegetables!
DeepSeaBombing - @Thelangfordian
The theme inspiration was thinking of submarines that are under the surface of the deep sea, and the ships that hunt for them. The end result was something a bit more silly and fun, with sea critters.
Super Landshark Missile Attack - @Tuism
You are a SUPER LANDSHARK WITH MISSILES. You're a stealthy super agent working for... Who cares?! So what if you can stealth? (and you can!) Enjoy bullet-time homing missile carnage and mayhem as well as bloody chomping runs in perfect invincibility!
Scratch Quest - @Fengol
Scratch Quest is a casual RPG quest like Puzzle Quest or Dragon Era, where you use scratch cards for combat. You play a random hero on a generic, self-aware adventure. While in combat, buy scratch card and play them to attack enemies, earn gold and unleash other special abilities or win prizes.
Either PM me or comment the thread with your entry and I'll update this first post.
Comments
Yeah not an original title, but hey. Lots of bugs, and would have liked to get more polish in. But I am glad I learnt a lot from the experience.
Take over the world, one brain at a time. Alien Lobotomy
Here is mine and @damousey entry: The Compression Problem
So at about 6pm on Saturday I ditched my other idea and started fresh. Could only work half of Sunday and half of Monday so it's *very* incomplete. It is playable but has no endgame and no tutorial nor instructions... yeah so gl with that then :p. This said I'm quite happy with how it's looking and feeling and I want to try more things in this area (fleshy based engineering puzzle games, to be exact). This was originally a game mechanic based around steam pressure and managing that. @damousey decided that she didn't want to do straight lines so we went for a medical textbook vibe. This was after considering cyberpunk, helium-6 gas, crowd control, passport processing, and crowd 'processing' (evil futuristic people processing plant vibes).
I actually like the way it went in the end and I'm thinking of reimagining the mechanics to actually use that medical/blood flow feel (rather than the steam presure systems, which simply do not fit).
P.S: original idea was 3 separate attempts at a turn based side-on fighting game... all of which tanked hard :p
P.P.S: original game mechanic heavily based on The Bureau of Steam Engineering by Zachtronics - hoping the reimagining will be more my own ideas and less of a clone :p
HOLY COW FOR THE GRAPHICS OMG.
(is that beholder spud supposed to lok like a bear/sloth face? Cos it does :D
Lair M.D. Looks GORGEOUS. I'm going to give it a try as soon as my internet allows me.
For our part we made a game called YOJIMBRAWL. It's a small thing. In hindsight I might have preferred spending less time on the polish and more on sweet new moves.
It's a local 2 player fighting game. Myself and Dawid desperately wanted to try our hands at intuitive fighting game combat. I think we gave it a good shot, and definitely learnt a LOT in the process.
Credits:
@BlackShipsFilltheSky Programming
Dawid Strauss: Art
Deon van Heerden: Music and sounds
Stu Coukes: Additional Art
@Raithza: Additional Programming
All the good folks jamming with us: Invaluable feedback and good times
Yojimbo = 用心棒, which is really weird cos that kinja translates to errrr. "stick who uses precaution". But apparently means bodyguard or bouncer :P
So "棒" = stick, and is pronounced "bung". So you can try... 用心鬥... what? "The battle that uses precaution". Lol :P
Different kinds of terrain
I want to know the names of the people I kill.
Somersaults
Lady Land Sharks (or Man Land Sharks if you like men more)
Lazer Beams on the missiles
Diplomacy
Sharknadoes
LAND SHARKS!
http://www.tuism.com/postmortem-my-ludum-dare-game-super-landshark-missile-attack/
Man what a ride. Ludum Dare for LIFE :D
Some interesting translations… that I remember...
Street Fighter = 快打旋風 = "Fast Hit Tornado"
Mortal Kombat = 真人快打 = "Real People Fast Hit"
So... Don't take translations too seriously :P
Basically the rules are, if a ball goes over the middle line, it splits. If you miss a ball you loose health. The balls are drunk, and every now and again a powerup will spawn that if you eat it it will reverse all the balls that are coming towards you on your side of the court.
Download:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/u5p2ggu2mny953b/DangerZone.exe
Yojimbrawl
Holy crap that looks epic. Slashy-fighty-whoa. Movement feels slick, dashing feels OP, not sure if it is though (back dash seems very short range), I enjoyed infinite air-dash. Until I died. I could up-sword to the moooooooooooooooooooon. Mwahahahaha, moon. This sort of game is going to be about range control and movement baiting a lot, you could totally pull that off and keep the movesets very condensed. I like that idea... What does the glowing do? Would put the health balls on an arc under their feet - that area is rarely obscured by weapon effects, so it's less "important" information-wise. The health globes are a neat concept though, very cool - what about globes appearing on the level as you play so they could be picked up? Also, what if you only die when you hit the floor? Could still do air moves and then land... *gush* die argh.
Lair MD
What a sweet name. What an awesome setting. What a cool look... Damn. Feedback lets it down though - very difficult to tell what a tool's response actually means and relating that back to the text on the side. There's a lot of potential for this though, especially if hilariously animated. What about different cures create different symptoms as well? So you'd give someone Eel-Eyes to solve a grotesque neck problem, but they'd get swollen eyeballs so then you'd give them Kraken Dander to fix both that and their wandering butthole, etc. So the order of cures could be a thing too.
Alien Lobotomy
Puzzle took a while to figure out what was going on and why. Could be made a lot more obvious with a simple "amount of change" appearing over the final total whenever you link/break nodes. On that front, I'd make breaking a link have a distinct button that appears on the link itself, easier to manage the feedback then. Little "+6" or "-18" signs would help make it a lot easier - it's not actually a hard puzzle in itself and it looks really neat when you get it working. Glows FTW :)
Deep Sea Bombing
Couldn't figure out where the bombs were going to spawn from at first, got it eventually once the subs stopped insta-killing me. Felt like torpedoes were moving upwards incredibly fast so the best strategy was to slide over near a sub and then drop a bomb as I flipped around so that no subs ever got underneath me. Once I hit that strategy, I only died when I tried to kill a sub that had physics-derped out all the way on the left edge of the screen (all I could see was the blue smile slowly rotating every once in a while). Subs seemed to be able to fire at me from off the bottom of the screen too... They got there when other dead subs pushed them down, maybe? Seeing the subs go all derp was pretty funny though.
Super Landshark Missile Attack
I. What? How does controls? Oh right, the shark doesn't turn with the mouse. Why missiles? ... Hang on, HOW missiles? Oh right, missiles. Missiles don't actually target anything, I see. The shark felt very strange to control (physics problems? Big floaty collider above shark is what makes it pitch up oddly when jumping, yes?) so I'd tune that more. People were funny, but not much reward for doing shark-like things. Some sort of combo mechanic maybe? I eventually swam all the way up a wall and fell sideways off the top of a building in Silos. Then I saw a field of more people and somehow got to them - was that the people repository/graveyard?
The Compression Problem
I think I see what you were going for and the graphics work well (yay for things tiling when you rotate them, etc), but I'm really not certain what the play goal is here. I got the colours to kinda oscillate a bit and the arm went all the way to one side, but that's it. There was a lot of purple. I kinda feel like the grid isn't needed here - the slowest part of the game was putting down all the 1-length pipes needed to make stuff connect across the expanse of the playing area. If the goal is going to be building freakish creatures, then you're going to want to see those off a grid anyway... Would be interesting if you couldn't "go back" when something didn't work - you'd have to keep adding. Maybe end up with stuff like the giraffe's laryngeal nerve or an appendix... Could be cool.
@dislekcia Yeah I think many aspects of the game needed much more polish - the levels were thrown together in an hour, so I definitely could have tuned it more. The missiles are because... heck I haven't made up a story yet, so it's mostly a case that I WANT BULLET TIME MISSILE BARRAGES A LA MACROSS :D Actually they were gonna be homing lasers. But then my technical expertise (and google) came up a bit short. The movement and physics took me FOREVER to implement, but yes I definitely agree that it could be much more tuned. Though I kinda liked the absolutely chaotic way you could double and triple jump and launch massive air like space tony hawks :) But yes I need a happier in-between medium :) I also did want a combo mechanism in... But yes I ran out of time :/ The three levels were an attempt at variety - the second field of people was to try and give the game a bit of a strategic variance - it was a high score game, so I wanted to see if the strategy of not spending a lot of time on one field and then going to another "fresh" field would score bigger - though now I realised the second field was placed WAY too far to impact meaningfully on the score :P
I'm going to be tweaking the glow-swords mechanic. It has an effect when clashing with an opponent, but the effect isn't quite working as pronouncedly as it should. I'll bring it to the meetup and maybe have some new moves! Thanks for the suggestions!!
I definitely think we need:
1) A longer time limit, especially early on. It currently penalizes slow readers, if you choose to read the history files.
2) A good tutorial, largely for the feedback issue. We didn't want to do anything like highlight symptoms the tool is showing, because we wanted the player to bridge that mental gap. But there are definitely some discrepancies in our symptom naming that make it difficult for the player to work out what the symptom could be. Gut rot, for example, can be smelled by the sniffer imp, but stomach worms kinda mentally imply the same thing, whereas they need to be detected by the beholder spud.
I also love the thing about different cures. We did originally want something like this, where it wasn't just enough to find the right ailment, but it was about how much money the player wanted to spend on the *right* cure, when they could instead buy a cheap patch that causes other ailments down the road. We'll explore it if we delve into a meta game element.
@BlackShipsFillTheSky Yojimbrawl is really cool. I'll admit I didn't really discover a particular strategy to getting the upper hand, but everything felt really responsive and meaty. I liked it when my Yojimbo died and apparently manifested his new mortal form in a tree :D I'd love t see where you guys take this gameplay/combo wise, because it already feels very fluid.
@Tuism Land sharks are awesome! We we in awe of the amazing missle trajectories and the effect they created, and its a pity you couldn't get the music and sound in, but its still fun to play. The bullet time looked a bit finnicky too, but I'm sure you can sort that. Btw, post-compo version just refers to a version submitted after the compo, with a few fixes and additions. One marks it as a post compo version, so people still rate the version submitted for the LD deadline.
Re: the bullet time thing - I may be totally off base here, but perhaps try setting your Time.fixedDeltaTime too, which affects the physics step.
Eg.
void EnableBulletTime() { Time.timeScale = 0.2f; Time.fixedDeltaTime = 0.02f * Time.timeScale; }As far as I'm aware, the default physics time step is 0.02, so that multiplies it by your new timescale. Other unity devs please correct me if I'm wrong here - my success rate with coding suggestions is shaky :P
I know, holiday tomorrow is the perfect day to do some post-compo-version work, despite only just recovering from zombie tiredness. Then again, hearthstone... :P
Lair MD: I think Dislekcia gave some great feedback. The game is visually stunning, and I really like the animation technique. The objects feel very alive and reinforce the setting brilliantly.
I didn't work out immediately that right clicking would drop an object, I tried putting them back in their original places (like I would in Papers Please) and nothing happened, then switched to picking up a different object to drop the first. I assumed that right-click would not work because it was a webplayer.
I'm a slowish reader, so my approach to winning on my second playthrough became picking up each of the detectors and seeing what happened and trying to match the results with the chart. I felt I was missing out on some of the game, especially because I enjoyed the Ankh-Morporkian flavour of the writing that I read, but there was nothing I could do about that.
Obviously your team was experimenting in the vein of Papers Please. I think this is a really interesting space to work in. It seems to me that a lot of casual games do these sorts of interactions, but very few Indie games, and I'm not sure I understand it well enough to give advice. That said....
Some suggestions: When playing Lair MD it seemed like the lists of ailments and their symptoms was randomized (or at least changed). This was probably a decision designed to extend the content of the game, but it has the side effect of the player's knowledge of the diseases not remaining useful. In Papers Please (by contrast) the player was only expected to remember a little bit at first, and then new criteria was added over time, but the knowledge the player gained in the early stages always remained useful. The three illnessnes of the day, and their symptoms is a bit harder to remember than the 6 countries at the start of Paper's Please... Although all of this might be a factor of my slow reading and the brief time limit.
An analogy might be starting with just one tool and then getting a new tool and more complicated illnesses each day.
The other thing I wanted to suggest (that might be on your wishlist) is for the end of level your-practice-finances screen. This screen should serve a similar function to the Papers Please, but I don't feel like it achieves this in Lair MD. In Papers Please the concern is of your family, other people who rely on you, whereas in Lair MD it is your practice and so essentially yourself, and since you already know your progress (and the progress on the screen is a lot of numbers that don't relate exactly to the actions you took) the screen doesn't introduce new drama (which ideally it should).
I thought that instead of your practice in jeopardy, maybe it could be the physical health of the Lair (like goblins are dying with outbreaks of new deadly and colourful diseases). I think it could keep the light-hearted tone, but still provide a thing outside of your MD interactions that you care about, that isn't entirely under your control and that raises the stakes of the MD interactions.
In any case, I'd like to see you experiment with this some more.
Also, smart suggestions @Manikin .
Honestly I was quite worried on Monday afternoon, when we still didn't have the basic game loop happening.
@BlackShipsFilltheSky Wow thanks for your feedback man!
I really wish we had play tested before submitting, we totally agree that the time issue is nasty. There's a bunch of things that aren't coming through right now, specifically the use of dialogue and the history file hints on ailments that can't be diagnosed through the other tools. This I think is some of the more interesting parts of the game, which we didn't get to nail down in time. In the 11th hour I was changing ailments possible symptoms willy nilly and probably screwed up some diagnosis possibilities.
Personally I'd like to see the timer disappear all together and see how it plays.
Your suggestions on the meta game are also welcomed, there's something there to be played with!
Thanks for playing guys!
Yojimbrawl! : So, I played it with @DraughtVader on a laptop which wasn't the best idea but it was really fun. All the vfx worked brilliantly. Only thing that bugged me was the flying off screen. You don't know whats happening and someone just ends up losing. I'm not sure if it's because we went to far or one of us defeated the other?
Lair MD : Undoubtedly the best visuals I've seen out of the games I've played from LD. Don't have any feedback that hasn't been mentioned by either @BlackShipsFilltheSky and @dislekcia. I'd just like to reiterate the point made about slower readers. The game seems too fast.
Super Landshark Missile Attack : EXPLOSIONS, MISSILES, A SHARK! Like you've mentioned a few polish wrinkles that need to be ironed out otherwise a very cool game for what it is.
@dislekcia Thanks for the feedback on Alien Lobotomy. We really found it hard to explain the game with words and didn't have time to build a proper tutorial. It seems to be a reoccurring theme that people don't get how to play it initially. The puzzle like you said is actually pretty simple once you get a hang of it. We're exploring different game modes that incorporate a combination of
- number of moves
- getting an exact number
- time
Since we don't actually create the levels, we just need to get a good algorithm going.
The visual cue you mention is a good idea. We've also thought of having numbers drop off and fade from your total from a disconnect and vice versa for a connection.
@BlackShipsFillTheSky @Tuism
Eek! Mouthless kisses :P Glad I could help - I hope it works.
@BlackShipsFillTheSky In terms of the strategy in Yojimbrawl thing: The health and everything made perfect sense, and I could see who had the upper hand at any point. But, it sometimes felt as if we both slashed at similar times and it wasn't apparent why either one of us got the hit, if that makes sense. I proably need to play it again and work out how a strike is deemed as being successful. This could of course just be me bitching about being beaten by @Pomb. I'll give it another go and give you some more feedback.
Ah, sorry, just took another look at your response: I don't think a dominant strategy would be a good idea either, and I didn't feel a lack of agency - the issue seemed to be more of a mechanical one, like a felt as if I should've scored the hit, but he did instead kinda thing. I'll definitely give it another try, I'm pretty sure I wasn't properly paying attention to how to strike with success.
Oh and btw a gif of it haahaha:
[told you most of the following at the meetup but posting here as a mini post mortum]
Yeah didn't actually get far enough for it to be a "game", it's hardly a toy at best! Just put it up because I was happy with what we did in the 1.5 days we worked on it. That said there are plans to actually change the mechanic to actually incorporate blood flow, rather than shoehorn a mechanic from another game into that. Worth a shot I feel!
Reflections: working with an artist basically gave me the kick up the butt to create my own mechanics and game dynamics, rather than copy or "by heavily inspired by" other games. The basic story was that I was just copying another game for the lulz. Steampunk was overdone but I just kept hitting a brick wall in terms of how to take that idea/area forward. So when the suggestion from @damousey came of a totally different art style I was all in on that! After LD my thoughts were that I want that look and feel so I've been thinking of all sorts of different mechanics and methods to match it. I'm reeling at the idea of an engineering/open puzzle game about blood flow to various organs and designing a creature to do a simple task. And best thing is it's not a clone or 'clone', kinda feel like it's getting more of my own stamp this time around \o/ (and there will be a metagame/overgame/subgame involving an actual creature walking around on a separate screen/environment, and the environment in that 'metagame' will affect certain organs in the body - eyes, adrenal glands that sort of thing, which will affect the dynamics of the puzzle solution... this was always the plan!).
Re grid comments: Essentially I love the aesthetic of making a body and the exploration and challenge of creating the inner workings of a body (or system), so to that end I want the grid to stay because it allows for a larger solution space (though thoughts of a node based vibe are ongoing too). That said if I'm going grid, DEFINITELY a drag to paint-place pipes UI rather than painfully dragging each 1x1 piece individually! There were 3x1 pieces in the game but they couldn't be coded in... for reasons... they weren't square... this was important... for additional reasons...
also props to @bevis for Danger Zone! Talking about (my rudamentary knowledge of) feedback loops and MDA and such has lead me to researching it and other design tools/theories more keenly as a result. So shot, bro! He didn't mention the best feature of the game though! when you start the game you are greeted with vibrant chromatic awesome and Highway to the Danger Zone blaring. Honestly that by itself... SHIP IT!
It's got an 8 bit Pirates of the Carribean theme and plenty of screenshake! Give it a play :).
I'm quite happy with how it turned out, and people seem to like it. Lots of positive responses so far!
Norton says there's a Trojan in Moby-riDickulous :/ Wouldn't let me disregard :/
(Edit: OH I DID, just saw the description, haha ok. Too bad all the pages went with him to the bottom of the orca's belly :P)
If you've got a few minutes to spare, take a look at my jam entry Infection, which I created with DanielSnd (from Brazil).
Here's the link: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-29/?action=preview&uid=37445
@BlackShipsFilltheSky - Yojimbrawl = 2 player joy. I am a huge fan of anything that can be played multiplayer on 1 keyboard. Love the whole ninja scroll ambiance going on too. Awesome!!
I can't actually play it though. My framerate drops to about 20fps and my bullets pass through enemies nearly always, so I can't get enough cells even to buy more ammunition. I'm not sure I like the idea of buying ammunition to begin with, but I can't really judge because the gun doesn't work as intended on my computer. If you sort out the hit detection I'd love to give it another try.
In any case, the game looks extremely classy and really complete for a jam game!
@SebastianL Where in South Africa are you based?
I definitely think this could turn into a really fun TD/Crimsonland-style game, but I would remove the whole player death ending the game thing, rather giving the player lives or something. I've seen games where death presents the penalty of being out of action for a few moments, allowing more enemies to get through, which could work as an alternative.
Anyway, awesome entry!
@BlackShipsFilltheSky Thanks, glad you like the look of it! We're working on a post-compo version right now, and doing some heavy optimisation as well as adding in optional levels of quality. I'm from CT.
@Manikin Haha I hope so! Thanks very much for the feedback, I'll discuss it with Daniel for the post-compo.