[Coda]

The next Ludum Dare is Ludum Dare 44, starting Friday April 26th at 9PM EDT (6PM PDT) and ending 72 hours later at Monday April 29th at 9PM EDT (6PM PDT).

I figure it's probably a good idea to get a head start on figuring out who's going to be working with me. Would anyone be interested in joining my team? Espy, what about you?

Who's on my team will also determine what tools we use and what role I'll be playing. Last jam I was solo, used Javascript, and discovered an unexpected talent for pixel art. Ludum Dare 40 was with one other person, used Unity, and managed to come up with acceptable 3D graphics by bashing together polygons. But Unity with 2D graphics is the most common -- LD36, LD38, LD39, and LD42 were all built this way, with the first three being team efforts and the last one being a solo effort.

[Espy]

1.) was that an actual serious question
2.) that’s finals week for me
3.) I bet Voidbarker has some good ideas

[Coda]

1. Yes.
2. Aw.
3. I'm listening.

[Espy]

3.) Would require Void to log on at some point.

[Coda]

Theme voting is live! The first two rounds are up right now, and the third round will be going up tomorrow.

Round 1:

• Space exploration
• Everything has a price
• No upgrades, only downgrades
• Color changes everything
• Four elements
• Mutation
• Floating worlds
• Limited memory
• Your life is currency
• Symbiotic relationship
• Control the environment, not the player
• Old technology
• You have 30 seconds
• Unusual magic system
• You can't kill the enemies
• Parallel worlds

Round 2:

• Cards are your weapons
• The butterfly effect
• Only one enemy
• Light as a weapon
• One room
• Regular jobs, but in Space
• The environment is a weapon
• Change the genre of a classic video game
• Decay
• Stay in the dark
• Side effects
• Two-button game
• Time is the currency
• Risky powerups
• Permanent damage
• Don't let it escape

[Espy]

Ooh. “No upgrades, only downgrades” could make for some interesting mechanics. Same with “One room”, “Only one enemy”, and “Permanent damage”.

[Coda]

Round 3:

• Ridiculously overpowered
• You're the final boss
• Everything is a weapon
• You are a side character
• Shelter
• The more you die, the more the world dies
• You can't save them all
• You are the quest giver
• Contagious
• You control the enemies
• Alchemy
• Break the cycle
• Underground
• Nontraditional boss battles
• Two characters, one player
• Tiny town

[Espy]

Everything is a weapon.

Being a quest giver sounds fun. I don’t have any good ideas for any of these themes though.

[Coda]

I've got some ideas for a few of them. I actually did "Contagion" for LD42.

Honestly, "everything is a weapon" doesn't sound especially fun to me. I think I'll probably go the Super Mario RPG route for that one -- the characters are anthropomorphic weaponry.

"You're the final boss" could be fun. There's a quest in World of Warcraft that's a decent example of how it could go.

"Two characters, one player" is one my team has had ideas rumbling around for for ages; there's been a theme in that general vein in most jams we've done. Switching between perspectives to set things up for each other.

"Alchemy" (and in the earlier round, "nontraditional magic system") is one I'd be excited to do because I've had a magic system rolling around in my head for YEARS. It's vaguely inspired by Secret of Evermore.

[Coda]

35 hours into the jam and I've got a world generator that can produce this sprawling cavern system to explore. I'm excited! This is by far my most ambitious jam project.

Now... um... to put some actual gameplay in.

[Coda]

Finished!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/watt-balance

And my son's:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/game-over

[Coda]

http://greenmaw.com/webgames/WattBalance/ Web build!

I've been working on polishing up the game after the end of the jam. I've redrawn about half of the graphics so far.