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TheIndieJar: Ludum Dare 23 Roundup
Last weekend (April 20th-23rd) was Ludum Dare 23, which celebrated the 10th anniversary of its beginning. Let me explain, Ludum Dare is a 48 hour game jam where anyone can make and submit a game around the theme (this time it was ‘Tiny World’) and enter it to be judged. An amazing 1402 submissions have made this LD48 the biggest yet! You can hop over to the Ludum Dare website to judge the crazy creations.
As I looked around randomly I only played ones which are available in the browser (to save on hard drive space) and must have played about 70 games. These are the ones that stuck out for me either in quality or fun. All the games on there deserve a try (especially the shit ones) so go and click through them.
Faelanx By Arkeus
First one I clicked on, and it was great. Shooting fireballs at little blobs and making earthquakes underneath statues that shoot at you is lot of fun. You collect gems to unlock and level up spells, like Blink and a frost AoE attack, while murdering a multitude of baddies who drop loot. After you get bored of the level you are on you can drop down a hole to the next, which has more of everything in it. There are achievements that are awarded for the number of levels you get through all the way up to level 43.
The Traveller By Thotor
As a man in a snowglobe you have to travel through a door at the opposite end of a jumping puzzle. It isn’t very long but has an interesting mechanic. You shake the snowglobe to drop down blocks that fall on the floor to make a path to the end. Each new level has a different scene behind it like the Eiffel Tower or underwater! There is also a secret level which I have yet to find. Don’t get squished and don’t trap yourself!
Housefly By Dacap
Flys are stupid. They buzz around your head, make the cat go crazy and generally piss you off. Playing as a fly however, has taught me that they are devious and cunning. Every strafe at my face is an attempt to undo their entrapment. You are a fly trying to get out a window. Its rather satisfying smacking into the window then buzzing round to solve this short puzzle. It’s quite funny too as it shows exactly how things seem to go wrong when a fly is there.
Snow Globe Kerfuffle By j_peeba
This one is quite fun but gets hard quickly. Shooting bullets at catapults as you glide around the edge of the glass works well. You have to simultaneously get rid of the enemies and stop their bullets from reaching the glass which gets knocked away, stopping you from moving over that area. The story doesn’t make much sense (something about peasants), and your character looks like a face in a green crystal ball. That isn’t really a problem when you have to get a catapult which is on the wrong side of the level and your glass path has been shattered!
To What a Mountain? By ilo
This one is here for the amusing writing. The mechanics are pants, the graphics are pants and it is very easy. It begins with a Monty Python reference and only explains the title at the very end, so make sure you keep playing. The cries as you (a giant) stomp obliviously through a town to see the king are bizarre nonsense which makes it rather funny. I don’t want to tell you much else because that would spoil it. Safe to say that you can jump around on people and buildings for the expected results and it is great.
Alongside these, Pale Blue Dot gets my award for basic but fun-ness, Alien Archaeologist gets my award for not understanding what an archaeologist does, Trees of Life gets my award for best jumping and best trees and last but not least Quark Shark gets my award for speedy time challenge-ness.
Congratulations to all those who entered and if you do have a spare few minutes look through. Let me know in the comments if you find any gems!
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