I’m not sure if I’ll reach my goal of playing at least 100 games from Ludum Dare 27, but I’m getting pretty close. All the same, I figured it would be a good time to give a shout out to some of my favorite games that I’ve come across so far. Here they are!

Keg Quest (Jam Entry)

I thought this game pulled off the whole “simultaneous actions performed asynchronously” mechanic in a brilliant way. I had seen several other games that played around with a similar thing, but Keg Quest framed it in a way that was easy to work out the puzzle through trial and error and then easily reset everything to “perform” correctly once you had mentally solved the puzzle.

The Exploratite Mitae (Jam Entry)

This was a great moody piece. The mechanic is simple enough to be represented without UI, so they were able to focus on the beautiful art and use that to convey all the critical game information. I think the storytelling moments in this game are absolutely fantastic, especially (SPOILERS) the moment at the end when you start encountering dead mites near the surface. If you had just reached the top without them it would have been kind of frustrating, but that tiny detail gave juuuust enough of a foreshadowing moment that reaching the surface nailed that sense of despair.

ONEMOC: 1 MINUTE OF COLORS (48 hour comp)

I thought the mechanic in this one was very clever (and very simple). It wasn’t quite like anything I’d encountered before, though something about the “walking” feeling from square to square reminded me a little bit of InnerCube. The interface for how the desired color changed over time merged with a timer bar was really nice.

The Ones You Love (48 hour comp)

This was like a fast-form adventure game. I enjoyed it because it had nice puzzle and story elements without all the extra fuss you have to deal with in a standard adventure game (I’m not normally a fan of point-and-click adventures). Like, there is still trial and error with things, but the framing around 10 seconds really makes it efficient and fun. Plus it’s a nice, touching story.

So, there you have it, my favorite 4 of LD27. Even still, I’ve played a ton of other games that have done impressive work, so fantastic job, everybody!

Lastly, if you want to check out my own 48 hour compo entry, 10 Second Dragon Feeder, you can view it here:

Thanks All!