Ludum Dare 52: Ten entries worth harvesting
Ludum Dare 52 has wrapped up, drawing 1,632 game submissions built around the theme "harvest." As the name suggests, the jam challenges developers to design a complete game from scratch over a single weekend, with every entry constrained by that central theme. The results run from conventional farming sims to horror takes on possessed machinery and abstract puzzle approaches. Below are ten standouts from the event, each available to play and with source code open for inspection.
Boba
Daniel Mullins' entry took first place overall, favoring a compact, incremental-style loop over flashy mechanics. It is built in Unity with C#. Mullins has history with the jam: his Ludum Dare 43 entry, Sacrifices Must Be Made, eventually became Inscryption, the first title to win Game of the Year at both the GDC Awards and the IGF Awards in 2022.
Ether Warp
Collect Ether Crystals while dodging space pirates in this Unity/C# effort. The movement and chase dynamics carry the action-forward take on the theme.
Fallowtide
A Python and PyGame entry that pairs crop growing with selling and deck-building mechanics. It is a compact loop: tend fields, make trades, expand your options.
Harvest Season
This Unity/C# entry turns harvesting into horror, telling a short story about a combine harvester possessed by an evil spirit. The tone draws from B-movie horror conventions rather than the usual pastoral setup.
Billiard Hero
A straightforward game of billiards takes an unexpected turn. Unity and C# power the twist on a familiar physics setup.
Squirrelativity
This all-JavaScript puzzle game leans into grid-filling logic with an organic, low-stress presentation. The name is a hint at the unconventional ruleset that emerges as you play.
Neighborly Love
Plant, water, sell, and expand in a TypeScript and Phaser farming game. The humor lies in the less neighborly activities that become part of your economic strategy as the loop progresses.
Settlement
A resource management angle on harvesting: gather materials, trade with other parties, and grow a settlement over the run of the game. Unity and C# are the underlying stack.
Iris's Scrappy Rumble
In this Unity/C# action entry, the harvesting is of a different sort: destroy robots and collect their components to craft progressively stronger weapons and keep fighting through the battlefield.
Orchard Alchemy
Unity and C# blend automation and mathematics here, matching fruit to numeric output. The combination of production chains and arithmetic creates a distinctive puzzle-management hybrid.
The full list of submissions is browsable on the Ludum Dare site. The next jam, Ludum Dare 53, starts April 28, open to newcomers and veterans alike.
