With just 8 hours left to finish and submit your game, Ludum Dare 23, is winding down. On the 10 year anniversary of the renowned gamejam, their theme was, aptly, dubbed “tiny world.” It has collected over 1100 games in 72 hours, and now we’ve got three weeks to play (and if you participated, rate) them all before a winner is announced.
I’m certain that I won’t make it through even half of these games, but I will try nonetheless. And you should too.
So how did this crazy process begin? It was ten years ago when Geoff Howland founded a game jam called Ludum Dare, latin for “to give a name.” The idea being that participants are given a theme and timeframe in which to create something from scratch by themselves. The first one was a 24 hour effort, but moved to a 48 hour race after the first jam. Since then, a team of dedicated indie-dev’s have taken over its curation and have grown it into a true event to watch and set aside time to investigate every time it happens.
Recently, there have even been some monthly “mini-jams” for teams of developers which offer a generous 72 hours in which to work. Most of the other Ludum Dare requirements are maintained for these, and even though they aren’t true Ludum Dare events, even they produce some great work worthy of play.
As for Ludum Dare 23, there are plenty that look promising but nothing big to report as a must play in my own time there. Hopefully we can get around to enough in time to give you a heads up about what to definitely check out before the 20 days fly by and a new indie champion is declared. If you find something that has to be played before we do, sound off in the comments so we can all follow you to that indie gold.
Edit: I’ve been playing a lot of these, but here are a few worth checking out:
- Tiny Island Adventure: beautiful presentation with smooth controls.
- Ra Ra: Extreme Star Boxing: solar system fighting game for you and a friend!
- Planet 161: pixelated shooter/platformer
- Scape: puzzle game where your little astronaut has to fill the field with plants
- ANtopia: you are an ant trying to save your queen
- Tiny Civilization: it’s a tiny civ game that generates a world based on your browser size.
- Asylum: the voices tell you to fight the monster
- A Super Mario Summary: classic SMB levels condensed into one screen.
Source : Ludum Dare 23
