Game Development Jams are a great way to see the inspiration coming from developers all over the world. Whether it is someone’s first time trying to put a game together or a seasoned veteran wanting to test a new idea with a theme to see how it plays, it is always a motivating and inspiring time when a Ludum Dare event is on.
Ludum Dare or “Game Dare” in this sense is a bi-yearly event that generally takes place in April and October each year. Their 46th event just recently ended, at the time of this writing. There are two events you can decide to enter. There is the Jam, which consists of a 72-hour challenge to build your game. The rules are also slightly more relaxed such as derivative works and using assets and code before starting the event. The Compo, on the other hand, is a 48-hour challenge with more strict rules. Generally, assets are created during the 48-hour window, and code brought in is limited to frameworks and common sense inclusions, mainly enforcing that you do not write something ahead of time and then use it. This way, it makes it fairer for other developers. After the window is closing, they give a final hour for you to package and submit the game. But you can wrap up and submit any time before the last hour. There are no prizes or anything, regardless of your placement in the end. This is a challenge to test game development skills and make something new for the world.
Random Theme Shake Up
Ludum Dare helps to make things fun by having a random theme chosen by the community. There is a system on the site that helps to determine the idea by having theme suggestions by the community begin five weeks before the actual event starts. Then two weeks before the start of the jam, the community commences on voting for the theme. Later only when the event begins is the theme revealed. This theme system helps a little to prevent people from starting ahead of time. But it is more just for the fun of anticipation. Most of the Jams I have seen and have been a part of generally begin roughly on a Friday evening USA Time. I believe the competition starts at midnight UTC.
Ludum Dare 46 theme ended up being Keep it alive, and a lot of amazing games have been created. If you check out https://ldjam.com/games you will see a”load more button” at the bottom of the page that just loads more and more games. It is almost impossible to check out all these games. But I will cover my favorites on an upcoming Indie Spotlight.
A Personal Challenge
There is no million-dollar prize or any prize for that matter. The event is all about being a personal challenge to become even better and make the game a reality around a theme. You do get bragging rights to say you completed a game in just 48-72 hours from scratch, and if you can manage it, you could be part of the top 10 games created.
It is a great way to learn some time management skills or at least enforcing a schedule to prevent you from trying to create the perfect asset or the cleanest code ever written. You have a limited time to show the world your vision, and time waits for no one. It is also an excellent way to see how you act under pressure. For some, stress is a requirement to make them perform at their best, and you can see some fantastic results from it that would otherwise never had to happen.
The Jam
There are two events you can enter. The first is the Jam; it is a great way to ease into this event if never have before. It is open to everyone, and you can work with a team of people or individually. You must create your game within 72 hours. You can use any tool or library to create the game. You are even allowed to start with any code you have set up before the start of the competition. Perhaps you have a template code you use for all beginning projects, that is allowed.
You are even allowed to use third-party artwork, music, sound effects, and assets previously created. If you do, you should opt-out of categories for graphics and audio when you submit the game to ensure it is fair for everyone. Be careful with third-party assets because they still need to be in the public domain or created yourself that you have the rights for, Ludum Dare takes no responsibility for developers infringing on any company’s intellectual property. The risk will be on the original developer that submitted the work.
The Compo
The Compo is very similar to the Jam version except imagine you set the difficulty mode to hard. This one is recommended for a seasoned developer looking for a challenge. You must work alone, yes, solo. The game and all of the content must be created within the 48-hour time limit. This limit means all the music, sound effects, art, assets, are created within that window and not downloaded from an asset store. And lastly, source code must be included. You are still free to use any tools or libraries to help create the game. Things like the Unreal Engine or the Unity Game engine, which helps jump-start game development is fine. As is any base-code already created, you will just have to share this code in the end.
The Compo entries are reviewed harsher than Jam games so if a game is just a recycled tutorial game it probably will not get a good score. It needs to be unique and show that a lot of good work went into the development of the game.
The sharing of the source code might seem like an odd one to include, why work so hard to just give it away? It was a way of ensuring fairness, but now it is all about giving back to the community. It becomes your chance to inspire the next game developer that it is possible. The ability to create a fantastic game is at their fingertips, and all it takes is to dive in and maybe look at some reference game code to see how it was accomplished.
Voting and Supporting Amazing Developers
When you submit the game, you will upload screenshots to the website, but the game binaries themselves will need to be hosted somewhere else. Other than Ludum Dare as a Jam doesn’t want to have to pay for storage that would become impossible to manage over time. The game is yours, not the Jam’s, and you can host it however you want just as long as there is a way to play the game. Check out this hosting guide if you need help finding a place to host your game. https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/hosting-guide
The voting system is a great way to ensure more participation; every one that submits a game is allowed to judge. The games are given a rating of 1 to 5 in each category, or if it does not apply, you can select N/A. The categories are Innovation, Fun, Theme, Graphics, Audio, Humor, Mood, Overall. A unique addition is that as you rate games, your submission will have an increased “coolness” factor that allows your game to be more visible to others for rating. Think of this as you promote others by rating and giving feedback, and in return, you have a higher chance of getting your game reviewed in the same manner.
The Next Jam
The next Ludum Dare is October 2020, check out https://ldjam.com/ for more details there are generally only two Ludum Dare events per year. Considering how much is needed to get through it, I think two is enough. There are other Jams as well if you need a Jam sooner.
I wanted to give a huge shout out to Mike Kasprzak for running the Ludum Dare site and competition. Please think about supporting him on Patreon to keep this Jam maintained.