Ludum Dare Play-a-thon Part 1
By Miodrag Kovačević | December 19, 2011 | Editorials | No comments | Share
Ludum Dare submissions are closed and there are over 700 games with their own take on the theme “alone”. Of course, it’s easy to miss some entries when you’re dealing with such a high number, so let’s try a challenge of our own? I’ll be playing through each game and doing a one-paragraph write-up of my experience. Whether I can actually achieve that within the next three weeks, which is how long it will take before judging ends is a different matter altogether. That’s why we urge you to check out the submissions on your own and see all the things people can make with only two days at their disposal. Keep in mind that all of these titles were made in less than two days, so they’ll likely be very rough around the edges. The blue headers are links to their respective games.
A.L.O.N.E. by KunoNoOni
The genius of A.L.O.N.E. is the actual story. You play as an alien who is the last of his race, and to power his spaceship, he needs to collect an element called aloneium from Earth. How does he do this? By committing genocide upon humans, who then drop the aloneium. Do you see the symbolism here? Deep down inside, humans are all alone. Brilliant.
ALONE by WITS
In ALONE, you play as a crowd running away from a small, gray dot. You must avoid contact with the 
gray leper, while at the same time collecting giant circles. It is a nice take on the theme, because the moment you realize that the gray dot is very lonely, you know that this game is a criticism of society shunning others for not adhering to modern fashion trends. You play as the colorful “popular” crowd, not wishing to be friends from the gray “boring” dot. Amazing.
Alone in the Blue by Armageddon
While visually calming with its choice of blue and white, it is only ironically serene. The game absolutely murders your ears with the most vile of DOS-inspired sounds whenever you move. Oh, but you play as a wizard, so I guess that’s good, too.
Alone, the Game by Colinchocolate
I am glad Alone, the Game was kind enough to tell me it was a game, because it reminds me of those 
old shareware applications that were supposed to act as virtual desktops where you ran around a virtual house and the looked at screens representing your icons. I’m not the only one who remembers those, right? Right? The game Alone, the Game uses the Unity engine, so it’s 3D, which is quite fancy. You enter paintings and teleport around. The floor is also lava.
Bomb Defuse by Kaphonaits
Great Scott, a game without the word “alone” in its name! OK, this is actually amazing. You defuse bombs, but that’s not the brilliant part. Microsoft Sam supplies the background music. I am not joking, Sam is actually beat boxing while you are disarming explosives. Best game ever.
Cat Match by Mitchell
You set cats on fire with matches. Actually, wait, that’s Postal, nevermind. No, in Cat Match, you have to match two cats of the same color so they leave your home. It’s a cute little puzzle game with a cute little narrative.
Copy Killer by Perilous Pete
You play a clone who has to kill all but one of the other clones and then kill himself. The mechanic is actually very witty and the puzzles require that you sit down and carefully consider a solution. I fully recommend checking it out and I hope the author expands upon this idea.
Ending Messages Suck by Rusky
My brain is going to be in pain after this play-a-thon, isn’t it? Well, it’s not EMS’s fault that it’s the third puzzle game in a row. It’s actually a fun little peg solitaire game, with a bunch of smiley faces being all happy before devouring each other. Be sure to give it a look.
Expecting a Call by devwil
You play as sixteen people frantically answering the phone in the middle of the night. I do know that if I was their neighbor, I’d cut off the phone lines. How many times can you get a call in one evening? It’s an alright base concept, I’m only sad it has no win or loss objective that I’ve noticed.
Go Find Some Friends by xl2l
GFSF proves that not everyone has the capacity for leadership. You play as a bloke who needs friends in order to survive. There’s a friendship bar which kills you if it’s either empty or full. That means your ego is deadly: if it is nonexistent, your life ends, if it is too great, your arrogance brings upon your own end. Poetic.
Hewwo 1, 2 & 3 by KniteBlargh
Alright, this is brilliant. My favorite entry so far. I’m not gonna spoil anything. There are three games, play them in order. I admit, I laughed. Well played, Knite, well played.
I Was Wondering on Floating Islands by MarkSkyzoid
You play a blocky man in a blocky world collecting blocky treasures. It’s kinda like boulder dash, only you seem to have a pneumatic drill and no enemies. Oh, right, the theme is “alone”, that’s why.
Locked Away by MoltenMustafa
Color me impressed on two accounts: MoltenMustafa is the best username ever and his game is really, really 
good. You play as a robe-wearing figure locked away on Christmas Day. Of course, he won’t stand for not spending Christmas at home with his family, so he makes a daring escape from the dungeon of doom. The gameplay, the level design and the aesthetics are all really good. Dear MoltenMustafa, please make a full game out of this.
Lonely Thought by Awennor
You play as a boy attacked by his inner thoughts of loneliness. You overcome this sense of dread by clicking the words that come 
at you until they disappear. The author says they aimed for a still and songless design. There are ways to make this kind of approach work, but sadly, it doesn’t work here. The game would be easier to play through were it not for the awful choice of sound effect when you click a word coming at you.
Loquere by AndyRoth
I’m not sure how the list I’m going by is categorizing the games, but hey, two “deep” titles back to back. 
You’re playing someone who is alone save for an obviously Glados-inspired narrator. It’s really short and quite rough, even for Ludum Dare standards. I hate using the phrase “It has potential”, but expanding on this idea could easily work if done right. It is also in dire need of some audio.
Rubber Ball in a Dark Room by OdedS
Alright, let me put my serious hat on. We’re not going to argue whether games are art or not, that’s silly, 
but here’s some general advice: never tell someone how they should feel. As in, you can tell the character, but never tell me, the player. When I started playing RBiaDR, I got a message telling me I must feel very lonely playing with a rubber ball in a dark room. My reaction was actually “Wheeeeeeeee!” while I messed around with bouncy physics.
Solitude by dastry
I have no idea what just happened.
Terra Dua by lectvs
Blimey, that took a while. Alright, you suffer from amnesia, you are all alone and you walk back and forth 
between various locations. Most of the effort seemed to have gone into the narrative, at least from a player perspective. It’s not really fun, since it’s mostly go from point A to point B on the same map. I think the author spread the game a bit too thin.
The Maze by KillerCanine
Since there are no adventurers to commit genocide upon slimes, the slimes have decided to do so themselves. 
The red slimes have eradicated all but one green blob, controlled by the player. You use the mouse to control your slime ball and avoid enemies until enough time has passed. It’s a neat idea, but controlling with the mouse is really awkward. Another gripe I have is that there’s no indicator as to how much time you have left at any given moment. However, there’s a level editor included, so points for that.
The Place by Snuffypot11
You are alone in some place with no idea how you got there. Obviously, you want to get out of the maze, 
since there’s no Internet in it. It’s a neat little game, but the fact that most lasers don’t damage you (likely an oversight) makes it quite unchallenging. I’d also like to ask all future Ludum Dare participants to never use pop-up messages for dialog or monologue. Please.
Zomrilla Tactics by Pixel House toast
This one gets the award for “Most Weird-Ass Visuals of the Day”. It’s a shame there was an oversight which leads to only a slight chance of making progress, but otherwise, it’s definitely worth checking out. I mean, any game that lets you play as a gorilla is at least worth a glance.
You Can’t Go Through the Door by Trollamor
And here’s an interesting entry to wrap the day up. There’s no plot that I know of, you just use eight 
keyboard keys to play music whenever there’s a crystal above them. I sadly wasn’t able to make progress beyond creating some neat tunes, but at least the presentation was quite enjoyable. As there was no documentation I could find, I don’t even know whether you really can’t go through that door.
That’s it for the day. Twenty-two games in and already it’s obvious that the entrants have some interesting ideas. It’s also interesting to see the obvious and not-so-obvious influences, as well as the various takes on the theme “alone”. Again, we urge you to browse through the entries, play a few games and vote for those you like.
