Ludum Dare1 is one of the most well-known and longest-running online Game Jam events. Participants make a video game from scratch in 48 hours (the "Compo") or 72 hours (the "Jam," which also allows collaboration between multiple creators). I participated in the Jam for the first time last April, but didn't get around to writing a blog post about it.
This year, I entered the Compo. The theme was "deeper and deeper," so I made a little match 3 game inspired by the song 16 Tons. You can play it online here, or use the widget below (which might be blocked by some ad blockers):
I think it turned out pretty good, considering the 48 hour time frame. The balance isn't great, but that's partly because I had the conflicting goals of making a game that's fun, but also about inevitably going deeper and deepr in debt.
I'll probably post in more detail about this later, likely once the final scores for the jam are released 20 days from now.
- Latin for "to give a game," hence the article title ludum dedi, meaning "I gave a game." ↩