Ludum Dare Play-a-thon Part 2
By Miodrag Kovačević | December 20, 2011 | Editorials | No comments | Share
We continue the Ludum Dare play-a-thon with a new batch of games. If you’ve missed the previous article, you can find it here. Remember, the blue headers are also links to their respective games.
Oh Dear, I’ve Lost My Hat by Andre Nanninga
This one is done by our very own Andre, the tech-wiz behind the DeltaGamer site. You play as a guy who lost 
his hat in the forest. Of course, losing your headwear is a great tragedy, so you must find it in order to feel complete. The gameplay boils down to navigating the forest by clicking on the squares you want to move to. However, it makes good use of the limited graphics, like letting you only see a few squares in each direction and managing to use the same tree type with subtle variations. It’s short and cute, so be sure to give it a go.
A Strange Story by nickfla1
The strangest part of this game is the gravity, since you will be brutally pulled towards the ground 
whenever in the air. It’s a short platformer where you take control of a nameless protagonist escaping a ghost town. I’m not sure whether a part of the story was to have an error message after the desert level, denying any further progress, but it really lacks any charm, vision or point, sadly.
Alone by DivideByZero
You fly around in a crudely drawn spaceship shooting at crudely drawn aliens. It’s a bit too slow for my tastes, but otherwise, typical basic top-down shoot ‘em up.
Alone in the Universe by zlaper
Aww, this one is quite adorable. You are helping humanity answer the question “Are we alone in the 
universe?” To do that, you need to help the communication beam reach its target by aligning asteroids so the signal can bounce off of them. It has quite relaxing music and a very nice mechanic. I would like seeing this evolve into a full game.
Can’t Survive Alone by revilossor
I think there is a typo in this game, as it surely needed to be called just “Can’t Survive”. It is quite 
difficult. Brutally difficult. From what I can gather, the game doesn’t feature universal gameplay, but rather different mechanics for each level. You play as a bird that’s supposed to guide its flock to safety and protect it. Sadly, the world despises your birds. Bigger birds will try to eat you and airplanes will throw wrenches at you. I’m sorry, black bird, but you will die alone. The world doesn’t take kindly to your ilk.
Candy World Dream Realm by Maple
It is like the ungodly offspring of Audiosurf and Nyancat, with the addition of eating poop. Yea, it’s that kind of game: the awesome kind. Go check it out.
Cat Vend by devinmoore
A cat is stuck in a claw vending machine and you need to get it out using the claw. Like the real machines, 
it is impossible to grab anything. Or rather, I know it’s possible in the real ones because I have dozens of plushies obtained by playing them during city fairs. I couldn’t get this cat though. I think it’s rigged. Maybe that’s the joke? It does have an awesome song at least.
Dark and Alone by Keehan12
There is really no need to use the actual word “alone” when making your game, folks! Really, it’s ok, we 
all know what the theme is, just go with your vision and don’t spell it out. Dark and Alone is your standard platformer: go from left to right, jump on enemies and reach the other end of the screen. Everything is dark and monochrome, because black is lonely, remember that. Give it a look if you can, at least for the aesthetics.
Farrokh by Doktor Ace
Farrokh’s spaceship has crashed on the Moon. You need to help the cat gain enough speed so he can launch himself back to Earth. This one is really well made, both graphically and gameplay-wise. The clear advantage the author had with making a one-button game was that they could focus more on other aspects. Definitely check it out.
Fatward by joekinley
I didn’t like this, but you should play it. It takes less than 10 minutes. Why should you play it? Because 
I cringe every time someone attempts to write a sob story about kids being ostracized. But that’s just me since I’m a heartless bastard. You, on the other hand? You’re not, so give it a go. I won’t spoil anything beyond that. Only objective gripe I have is the poor visual overlay.
Furever Alone by Waynetron
You play as an old man who doesn’t want to watch Matlock alone, so he’s going to capture some cats friends to keep him company. That’s about all there is to it.
Glibber Alone by haubna
You play as a slime-thing searching for his friends. It’s a bit on the longer side for Ludum Dare standards, but enough to keep you interested. You can shoot other slimes and see them explode into goo, which is always a plus.
I Wish the Theme Was Kittens by Doft
You fly a spaceship throughout the endless, lonely void of space. There are four things to find, but I’ve only ever found two of them. Obviously, this game is a statement against the chosen theme of “alone”, since it plays it straight to a fault. But hey, space!
Josh the Fan-Tastic by Th3dz
I think I can get serious with this one for a moment, as it managed to do enough things right for it to 
warrant some proper criticism. You play as Josh who has to navigate various environmental traps by jumping or using fans. All this is done so he can catch up with his friends who have left messages of encouragement for our hero across the levels. It is nicely done and has a solid presentation, but my main gripe is about too many leaps of faith in the later levels. The first ones did a very good job of letting you really on timing your jumps, since the speed at which you jump and fall make it impossible to create reactionary challenges. However, later it turns into a trial and error game, which really disappointed me. It’s a solid entry I recommend you try. I also hope the author expands on it after Ludum Dare is over.
Mountain by voxel
And just as I was complaining about trial and error gameplay, I encounter Mountain. This is easily the wittiest entry I have come across so far. You try and scale a dark mountain, your vision quite limited, making death a frequent occurrence. To put it simply, almost anything that isn’t the ground can kill you. 
So what’s the catch? Whenever any player dies, they leave their “last words” as well as their soul which provides illumination for all future players. Even if the last words are senseless drivel (which most of them are), the light they provide is invaluable. While I could name a few games that were likely inspiration, I am still, in all honesty, impressed with Mountain. Not to mention that this was the first game that actually made me feel lonely. Excellent job.
I think this might be a good place to stop for today. Mountain has left too good of an impression on me that it would affect my opinion on any other game tonight. I’ll try and make up for it in the next installment of the Play-a-thon. Again, do not wait for us before you try a game! There are some real gems in Ludum Dare, so we urge you to go dig through them on your own.
