Our fifth Ludum Dare was our first attempt at making a simple online multiplayer games. How did we do?
hack.source.net (Ludum Dare 34)
Above average. Fun, innovation, and overall stands above the 20% standing. Innovation in particular stands at the 5% mark, and we certainly ranked within the top 100 in that category, so we’re very proud of that. Our score stands smack in-between 3 and 4 stars out of 5, so it could have been improved. Still, considering what a mess it was trying to develop this game, we’d say it’s pretty good.
How does this compare to our other Ludum Dare games? Let’s check them out in reverse order.
Can I Haz Monsters? (Ludum Dare 33)
Can I Haz Monsters? did do better than hack.source.net in comparison. Seeing that development went much more smoothly for this game, this isn’t a major surprise. A lot of players commended the dialog system in the game, explaining the rather high mood rating.
Star Driller Ultra (Ludum Dare 32)
Star Driller Ultra is easily the highest ranking game we’ve developed. The graphics above should make that pretty obvious. This is also the second Compo game (solo-only), so perhaps the ratings are more reflective of the impressiveness of that accomplishment.
Unconventional Stick Swinging Simulator (Ludum Dare 32)
Joke entry Unconventional Stick Swinging Simulator is naturally the lowest ranking game. No surprises here: it’s made within 12 hours, with a portion of that time devoted in light-baking.
Our attempt to make fun of free-to-play games with Laundry Day is…well, reflective of exactly what we expected people would react to the game. It’s not surprising a deliberately badly made game would get some mild scores.
The Sentient Cube (Ludum Dare 26)
And the first Ludum Dare game has…no ratings, so there’s not much to talk about here.
Removing The Sentient Cube and Unconventional Stick Swinging Simulator, score progression for each game looks like this:
Overall has been dropping since Star Driller Ultra, since we admit being more interested in experimenting in Ludum Dare than making a polished experiment. Still, innovation and fun remains very high, which is fantastic. The rest…well, hasn’t been our focus, really. The same trends can be found in the rankings progression as well:
