By Jim Rossignol on April 27th, 2012 at 2:00 pm.
Game jams are proving to be one of the most fruitful phenomena of the current era of gaming. Ludum Dare constantly throws up a bunch of fascinating stuff, and it’s tough to keep track of it all. So much of what is created – the window for making is just 48 hours – is so small and unassuming that it is likely to be missed. Tinysasters is one such microcosm, but it’s a beautiful, perfectly formed gem of an idea: terraforming an 8×8 tile based grid, while natural disasters roll in every thirty seconds to undo your work. Worth a look, if just for a moment.
27/04/2012 at 14:13 f1x says:
Thats nice, to be honest gaming needs new ideas, new gameplay concepts and what comes from this jams seems to be quite fresh
27/04/2012 at 14:27 SanguineAngel says:
yes yes yes. I would really love it if a decent chunk of these concepts got picked up by larger devs/publishers and fully fleshed projects produced.]
Once concern I always have with that though – and with any project that has lovely new concepts – is that the single exciting concept ends up being so much a focus of development that the game is too much a one trick pony.
27/04/2012 at 14:37 f1x says:
Yes of course, but one trick ponys can be fantastic, like Super Mario Bros,
but that was combined with good level design aswell of course
27/04/2012 at 14:19 andytizer says:
Having some trouble interacting with the game- it seems to be mouse driven but all I can seem to do is highlight a tile and that’s it- what am I supposed to do?
27/04/2012 at 14:25 Bluerps says:
When you click on a tile you should get a list of building options in the top right.
27/04/2012 at 14:33 andytizer says:
That’s not appearing for me, I must need to update my Flash or something.
27/04/2012 at 14:19 DanPryce says:
That was a great little distraction. I’d love it on my phone, please.
27/04/2012 at 14:28 Bluerps says:
Cute little game. I like the terraform mechanic, where not only the terraformed tile changes, but part of the rest of the world does too.
27/04/2012 at 14:29 Gemberkoekje says:
#ShamelessSelfPromotion http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=preview&uid=5952
27/04/2012 at 14:39 Tom Walker says:
Kind of reminds me of Populus.
Oh wait, I’m incredibly old.
27/04/2012 at 14:57 RedViv says:
I doubt the incredibility of your oldness. Mine seems credible enough, and this here reminded me of the very same game.
27/04/2012 at 14:59 sneetch says:
I had a sad/happy nostalgia moment about populous too if it makes you feel any better (I am old too though).
27/04/2012 at 15:01 abraxas says:
The words I’m sure you were looking for are “Oh wait, I like incredibly good games!”
27/04/2012 at 15:12 Tom Walker says:
Well okay, I’m not *old* old. Just slightly *too* old.
Okay, how about this for an assertion:
Like the original Sim City, Populus was best on the SNES.
Senile dementia?
27/04/2012 at 15:16 kibertoad says:
Better than DOS version? Why?
27/04/2012 at 15:21 Tom Walker says:
Well, I only played the DOS one years later, so it’s not exactly a fair test.
But it felt as if because consoles are ‘for kids’, the SNES one gave you more clues as to when important stuff was happening.
Maybe I was just cleverer as a kid…
27/04/2012 at 15:25 kibertoad says:
Ah, I see :). Same with Sim City? Or gamepad was actually more convenient than mouse for it?
27/04/2012 at 21:50 terry says:
Populous was actually best on the FM Towns :-)
29/04/2012 at 22:15 wodin says:
Populous and the next was Powermonger.
Incredibly innovative games, we don’t get innovation like that anymore.
27/04/2012 at 15:02 hypercrisis says:
reminds me of Wetrix
27/04/2012 at 15:46 Harlander says:
Oh, man, Wetrix!
27/04/2012 at 15:10 MadTinkerer says:
That’s one of the best Ludum Dare games I’ve ever played. A little too easy even on Hard, but otherwise very polished for a 48 hour game.
27/04/2012 at 15:14 kibertoad says:
LD48 seems to get all the press :). Which is a shame, as there are some pretty awesome jam games like http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=preview&uid=8502 and http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=preview&uid=11521
27/04/2012 at 15:48 adonf says:
Not played yet, but the graphics remind me of This Precious Land that was mentioned in the comments of the last LD post and that I enjoyed quite a bit:
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=preview&uid=8804
27/04/2012 at 19:16 Randomer says:
Good fun. Does mana actually do anything, though? I could acquire it via shrines, but I couldn’t see any way to spend it.
27/04/2012 at 22:24 eleion says:
If you click on a tile there is a button called “Generate” and from there you can terraform the map yourself using mana. A nice concept, but I never found it useful.
27/04/2012 at 19:42 Llamageddon says:
Loving the music, simple but very toe tappingly endearing. Something similar could be said of the whole game really, simple but endearing. A perfect Ludum Dare example.
27/04/2012 at 21:21 LionsPhil says:
Hmm. Easy really is pretty easy. As in you can almost directly buy the things you need to win.
Guess it’s time to face the horrors of…NORMAL.
29/04/2012 at 13:44 ekuurh says:
LOVED it.
Maybe it didn’t have great graphics, plot or even gameplay (hard difficulty gets very easy once you place shrines everywhere), the idea was awesome. Gaming NEEDS these ideas. this is as good as 48 hours can go. I just wish there was a program that puts 500 programers/innovators/anything a game needs to be made, and gives them a whole month to make games.
It can’t be ludum dare style, because people won’t be psyched up by it for a whole month, but just think how all these great ludum dare games would look like if people kept working on them for 28 more days.
AWESOME, right?!
(inb4 “didn’t read, but…”)
29/04/2012 at 18:44 KinoftheFlames says:
Playthrough:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owmM437n0d0