Community Ludum Dare

Nyarlathotep

The Crawling Chaos
Apr 18, 2019
190
494
63
The next Ludum Dare starts in just under a week.
Anyone else enter these? If you've ever been interested, but always been reminded too late, well... you got a weeks notice this time!

What is Ludum Dare?
"Ludum Dare is one of the world's largest and longest running Game Jam events. Every 4 months, we challenge creators to make a game from scratch in a weekend."

I'd love to, but I can't code / art / sound / music
Yeah, don't worry too much about it, its technically a competition, but you're (probably) not going to win it first try, and everyone else is in the same boat for at least one of those categories, and will be super supportive about that when they're scoring you

No, seriously, I just want to play things instead
Hey, you can do that too; all entries are playable by anyone, and you can score peoples entries without having an entry of your own.
If your tastes in gaming skew towards indies doing unusual things, a lot of games you might recognise, or indeed already own in your steam library, made their debut as Ludum Dare entries including Hollow Knight, Broforce, Gods Will Be Watching, McPixel, Tiny Hawk, Pony Island and Stories Untold.

I'd love to, but I have a question...
Hey, fire away. I've entered more than 10 times so can help with any setup or procedural type info, or link to helpful resources, but I've never won anything so can;t help on that front.

Fairly minimalist OP as I don't know how much interest y'all have in making games in addition to playing them.
 

lashman

Dead & Forgotten
Sep 5, 2018
30,370
85,147
113
i always wanted to ... but i'm nowhere near a level where i'd actually be able to develop anything, no matter how simple ... unfortunately :(

but i always like to browse through all the submitted games and see what people are making! :)

great idea for an OT, though (speaking of which - maybe you'd like to change the prefix to OT? or nah?)
 
OP
Nyarlathotep

Nyarlathotep

The Crawling Chaos
Apr 18, 2019
190
494
63
I assure you, having entered a bunch of these now, that there is basically no skill floor for entry; honestly, its cool to just dive in and try even if you don't even finish anything in the time allowed :)

Dunno if it needs to be an OT because like I say I dunno how much interest there is in this, and I don't want to be that guy bumping my own topic for myself every 4 months

e:
Like, the rules are that you are allowed to have scripts and libraries prepared for reuse in advance, so a weeks time is plenty to get something like a working platform game template pre-built in something like Unity, and then spend the weekend making a few levels, the graphics and the audio for a solid first entry (and people will always be extra forgiving on a first entry)
 
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gabbo

MetaMember
Dec 22, 2018
3,506
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Toronto
I'm much like lashman. I have always wanted to jump in on one, but my coding skills aren't nearly good enough for such a thing
 

lashman

Dead & Forgotten
Sep 5, 2018
30,370
85,147
113
I assure you, having entered a bunch of these now, that there is basically no skill floor for entry; honestly, its cool to just dive in and try even if you don't even finish anything in the time allowed :)

Dunno if it needs to be an OT because like I say I dunno how much interest there is in this, and I don't want to be that guy bumping my own topic for myself every 4 months
oh, i know about "no skill floor" ... but i wasn't talking about "oh, i'll just make a shitty game" ... it's more a case of "i can't make a functioning game", like on a technical level :p (programming is my kryptonite)

but yeah, we could use an indie dev thread anyway :) i know CynicatPro is doing some pretty great stuff with gamedev

plus - self-promotion is allowed in here anyway (no one reads ToS, lol)

I'm much like lashman. I have always wanted to jump in on one, but my coding skills aren't nearly good enough for such a thing
yeah, exactly ... same for me ... like the best i can do is open up Unity, plop the default first-person controller in there and maybe model an environment or something :p

i did do this once upon a time, though:

 
OP
Nyarlathotep

Nyarlathotep

The Crawling Chaos
Apr 18, 2019
190
494
63
Honestly, if its fear of failure stopping you, the LD community are super helpful and welcoming; if you have a couple of hours spare you can have a game template ready after watching a few YT tutorials, and thats okay, and allowed in the rules.

Like, that gif you posted is already at a higher quality than 99% of the entries I scored last jam.

Don't be discouraged by the fact the winners are usually all vets of the indie scene and their entries come with a pre-loaded fanbase of their YT subscribers and Twitch viewers, or the fact that the Jam entries are usually by professional dev teams using LD as a cross-promotional opportunity for their other projects, or as a launchpad for their IOS games.

The 'below the water' iceberg of LD enties are super bare bones 'babbies first unity project' entries of the type that people who don't use Steam think are what comprises the Steam library.

Like, honestly, if you have an interest in making something for yourself, Ludum Dare is a really comfortable safety net environment to do so :)
 
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Nyarlathotep

Nyarlathotep

The Crawling Chaos
Apr 18, 2019
190
494
63
Do you have to sit 48 hours straight to code something?
the rules are:
(for the Compo)
  • All assets have to be made during that weekend
  • You're allowed to use existing codebases
  • Everything you make is made by you*
  • You have to post your source code (so others can learn from what you made)
*and even thats pretty flexible, you're totally allowed to use existing art or music, you just have to opt out of being judged on it if you didnt make it

(for the Jam)
As above, except;
  • You have 72 hours, not 48 (so if you're going for a compo entry, miss the deadline, but still want to enter, you can change to a Jam entry)
  • You can work in a team
  • You don't have to provide any source code (so professional teams with existing codebases don;t have to share)
I'm not self promoting my stuff because its not for sale and I made it for me, not because I didn't read the TOS, but I'm happy to post my crappy entries if it will help y'all feel more confident about entering
 
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Deku

Just nothing
Oct 19, 2018
4,261
8,615
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20XX
www.seikens.com
I always wanted to get into game development. But the lack of time, motivation and inspiration stop me a lot :(

Not sure if ludum dare is motivation enough to start making games. I should check the old entries to see what kind of games are spawned
 
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Nyarlathotep

Nyarlathotep

The Crawling Chaos
Apr 18, 2019
190
494
63
oh, you should ABSOLUTELY do that ... there's some really great stuff in there!
also all compo entries have source code provided, so if you're wondering "how'd they do that?" you can find out for yourself
 
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Nyarlathotep

Nyarlathotep

The Crawling Chaos
Apr 18, 2019
190
494
63
I am blind, where do I find the entries? Do they state which engine they used?

Edit: found it.
Filtering is kind of a mess, and everything under the GAMES tab is pretty much everything thats ever been uploaded; as I saw one of my old entries on the frontpage when I loaded it, I'll just link it as an example:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/lost-planetoid

as you can see, its ass, but it still got rated in the top quartile of all entries, and also as you can see all of the comments were extremely kind and supportive.
I also like to explicitly list my engine and tools used, so others can learn from it - especially freeware tools that are super useful for gamejam purposes, like BFXR

e:
I also almost exclusively do webbuilds, because I'm not downloading some random dudes executables off the net then running them, and I extend that courtesy to others