Category: New Releases & Updates

Jazzy Beats is now playable on Newgrounds!

Posted on | by JorgeGameDev

This first week of judging has been incredible! We’ve received an overwhelming amount of feedback and support for our game, Jazzy Beats, that has already surpassed the reception we got with our previous game, Petty Puny Planet during Ludum Dare 38‘s judging phase. From the bottom of our heart, we don’t have a way to thank you enough for it. We’ve been trying our best to respond to the feedback we’ve got so far, but know we can still do much more! ?

It is our belief as a team that the 72 hours we spend creating a game during Ludum Dare is only the beginning of the game’s lifecycle, and everything that follows from documenting the game’s development, to getting the game onto the screens of more players is when the true challenge really comes into play.

As such, part of our goals with this Ludum Dare was that we’d try to branch out our game into more and different platforms beyond those which we’ve always published our game on (such as itch). With that said, we’ve released the web version of our game, Jazzy Beats, over on Newgrounds as of yesterday!

Many of you probably know Newgrounds from the early days of the internet, being one of the most popular flash games portal back in the late 2000. However, even after all these years, the site kept growing, and has since started accepting HTML5 and WebGL, keeping Newgrounds as a trustworthy portal even on our current days. Their support when we had Colossorama, one of our past Ludum Dare games, ripped from us and published in their site without our consent in the past was phenomenal, removing it straight ahead, and when we were finally ready to republish the game there ourselves, they immediately accepted us open-armed. ?

And once again, with the release of, Jazzy Beats, they’ve have featured us on the site’s front-page! Those guys are some sweet honey-buns. ?

If you’re interested in the game, give a look over at our game page! Although Newgrounds only hosts the web versions of the games, we also have links for the game available on all major operating systems over at the game’s page!

During the upcoming days and weeks we hope to release the game on even more gaming portals we never took the chance to try to publish our games on. We believe it’s going to be a great learning experience to understand what it takes to have our game on multiple sites at once.

Once more, in behalf of our team, we once more thank you for all the reception we have gotten this far, and during the next days, we hope to publish more insights into the development of our game. If you’re looking for some chit-chat, we also have a Discord available, where we all talk everything from game development to overall gaming! Thank you once more! ??

Ready to Jazz? Play Jazzy Beats!

Posted on | by JorgeGameDev

Congratulations to everyone that has made it through this Ludum Dare! I still haven’t had the opportunity to play a great deal of games yet, but I can’t wait to see what some of your bubbly wacky minds came up with! If you weren’t able to make it to make it to the finish line this time yet, don’t push yourself too hard. We also weren’t successful on our first jams, but it was a matter of keep trying until we got there!

After having skipped Ludum Dare 39 in August, we’re proud to say that Whales And Games is back! And this, time, during our fourth Ludum Dare as a team, we’re proud to present you to Jazzy Beats!

Well, if that title card doesn’t already tell you what the whole deal is just by looking at it, then let me just tell you straight ahead what the whole game about – Being an Jazz-centring idol (appropriately named Jazzchan) and about capturing your rival’s fans hearts and turning them into your fans! The fastest way to get around doing that? Using the power of music, of course! Oh, and punching the living ? out of them too.

Why would you want to do that? Well, because that’s what your rival told them to do in the first place!

Why don’t you just get over her and settle matters with her person-to-person then? Well. Because solving business like that is professional-y questionable, you see.

So, get ready to Jazz and for some beat-em-up action! Make sure you score up on those combos together with your fans! You can check out the game over at our game page. You can either download it and play it on your desktop, or even play it on the browser directly! Yes, even with controller support! The more fans you get on your side, the worse it gets for the opponent idol. Make sure you convert as many fans as possible! ✨

We also have to thank all of the feedback we’ve already got by some great folks over at our game page, and we’ve been trying to return them as much feedback possible to their games as well (and will reply to the ones they left on our page soon)! ? If you got a game that’d you like to get some feedback on, make sure to post a link over in the comments that’ll make sure to play them the first opportunity I can get! ?

On behalf of everyone over at Whales And Games, thanks a lot for the whole experience that this Ludum Dare has been so far. Sure, we’re still on the beginning of the judging period, but just with all of the action from these last four days, we already know this is going to be one we’re not going to want to forget anytime soon. Thanks! ??

Petty Puny Planet 38

Posted on | by The 'Moski

Another Ludum Dare, another game done! It’s been awhile since our team worked so thoroughly on one of these. Even with different timezones, blackouts and time displaced samurai-themed cartoon breaks, we somehow managed to put it together.

Let’s keep it tidy and simple, after creating and developing Colossorama (LD36) and Hyper Holomayhem (LD37) on past events, we would like to present you Petty Puny Planet 38!

Why have a pet rock when you can have a pet planet? (Technically the same. The planet is just a bigger and cosmic rock). As some bigger-than-life entity, it’s your job to take care of a tiny small world – and the tiny people that live on it – and take it for a spin. Decide every century on how to further develop it. Give the people reaches! Teach them about fire! Mutate them if you must!

However, take in mind that being in charge of a planet is hard work, so you’ll have to take a hundred years long break after every choice. Just hope that the tiny people are still around when you’re back. They’re smart people. They’ll figure something out.

And of course, there wouldn’t be choices without consequences! Take the right decisions and your people can be prepared for the worst. Certain decisions branch into others. Some could make them richer and happier, while others can have the opposite effects! With 8 endings, it’s up to you to put the Plan in Planet and take the people onto a new era!

Or if you don’t want the responsibility, then just go and make the wildest planet that you can. Most choices and events have a visual impact on the planet, making this one of the most outlandish dress up games you’ve probably ever played. If you decide to player the desktop version of the game, at any point, feel free to press the camera button and a screenshot of your planet will be saved on the game’s data folder.

In case you don’t really like desktop versions, you can also play it on your browser, or download it for Android devices! We hope that you like it, and that your feedback can help us add more features in the future! Hopefully, any post-jam updates will take less than a hundred years to be developed! We’ll update you with a post-mortem in the coming days, so I hope you keep us in your sights for a while.

Well then, what are you waiting for? We’re looking forward to see what kind of small world you’re going to have in the end, and we hope you share your screenshots with us! Go on now, you can create your own planets over on itch.io, and don’t forget to leave us a comment over at our Ludum Dare page!

In behalf of team Whales and Games, enjoy your pet planets!

Colossorama • The Colossoral Update

Posted on | by JorgeGameDev

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Since our post-mortem post, we’ve been spending days doing some renovations to Colossorama 36, the hack and slash arcade game we made for the now past Ludum Dare 36. We hired more gladiators, bought more weapons, prayed to the gods for more Pantheon Techs, and much more! We spared no expense! Well… except that we couldn’t afford to keep the 36 on the title. That thing was not cheap.

Behold! Colossorama! Our brand new update to the original version with most of the feedback issues addressed and a bunch of extra new content!

We got a lot of feedback during this past month, most of it thanks to the Ludum Dare community and everyone who played our game. Taking from it as much as we could, this update added and changed a lot of mechanics to make it a more gratifying beheading experience. Among the most received feedback, here are some of the issues we tackled:

  • People wanted more potions. Not only are they more common now, but Maces also have a draining property, so you may consider to get one as soon as possible.
  • Spears got a buff. They’re longer now, which means you’re safer when using them, unless your enemies are jumping.
  • Physics have been reworked, so it’s way harder to get stuck above a wave of enemies without being able to touch the ground.
  • Axes got relatively nerfed. Actually, no one weapon can 1-hit gladiators anymore, but axes are still effective against the largest enemies.
  • The instructions are now on their own screen and can be read at your leisure.

And that’s only the changes made from feedback. We added more content and made sure there was even more juice in this version!

  • New weapons! Scythes have a chance to poison, which does wonders against the buffier enemies. Hammers have great knockback, which can help you with crowd control.
  • There are some Fun items that are not super strong on their own, but their properties make them excellent side weapons. They’re rare, but well worth it.
  • New utility items! There’s an alternative for the grenade, and a few more with curious effects.
  • These new additions don’t make the game much easier, because there are new enemies! Face the resilient Champions, the fast Lions and the bouncing Hawkmen.
  • Don’t like the new additions? You can choose to play the Classic 36 mode, which only spawns the Ludum Dare version weapons and enemies.
  • There’s now a Push property on most weapons, which increases their knockback, giving the player more space to breathe.
  • Almost total graphic overhaul. Most UI elements were remade from scratch.
  • Rebalancing of waves for meat-ier and longer game sessions.
  • Controller Support! In case you get disoriented by aiming with the mouse, you can also play with an Xbox controller now, even on the web version!
  • Sound options together with some new surprises here and there.

We have actually posted this new version on itch.io a few days ago, but we’ve both been really busy that we were only able to make this post now.

In other Colossorama news, there was this Portuguese Game Development event, the Game Dev Camp, which mostly consisted of talks and showcasing the games that the Portuguese developers were working on. And Colossorama was one of those showcased games! There were quite some people playing the game and giving us brand new feedback on what to improve next. We’re always happy to see more people playing the game, having fun and enjoying it!

But that’s not all! The reason why we were so focused in making a new build right after coming out of the jam was so we could improve it in order to submit it to a jury and maybe get the chance of being able to showcase the game at Lisboa Games Week, another event in Portugal. However, in contrast to Game Dev Camp, this one is actually for the general public, which means if we pass, we will be able to showcase the game to an even bigger amount of people!

Lastly, an acquaintance of us, Tibblewinkles, did a playthrough of the latest update. If you don’t mind being spoilt a pair of surprises, go check it out!

Thanks a lot! We hope to bring you more news soon, and hopefully to participate again in the next major Ludum Dare! Of course, we’re also looking forward to play what you make, so let’s get developing!

Colossorama 36

Posted on | by JorgeGameDev

What a weekend this was! We’ve been wanting to make a new post showcasing our project ever since we started, but every day we were so into what we were doing that there wasn’t any time left to actually make said post!

But now that the jam is over, and we finally got our breath back, we wanted to show you our project which we worked during the past three days. When we first set out to make it, we we’re a little worried the theme wouldn’t translate that well, but gladly, we believe that we managed to get the theme into the project pretty well.

Without further ado, we would like to present you Colossorama 36!

As a gladiator, you will die in combat, so you might as well take some people with you. Slay, chop and stab until your name is remembered in the Pantheon of Gladiators! The more heads you chop, the more pride and honor you deserve!

Gameplay is simple. You have to slay fellow enemy gladiators by using an arsenal of weapons and tech. These have mostly different stats and effects, which can determine the outcome of each wave.

Although you only start with a weapon and an item, at the end of every wave you are prompted to pick between three Pantheon Techs, and it doesn’t matter if the three options are worse than your current weapons, you must choose one!

The game and gladiator run ends whenever you run out of health. And when you’re done, we made it so you can even brag about it on Twitter!

Give Colossorama 36 a try! You can even play it in your browser! We are looking for any possible feedback so we can get a more proper idea about how to improve the gameplay and deliver a better game next time. We will be playing and leaving feedback on other games as well, since that’s the true spirit of any Ludum Dare. Gotta make those Feedback Friends, eh?

We are also planning on making a Post Mortem, but that will probably happen towards the end of the week. Of course, we’ll be making it public and post about it! Any knowledge is good knowledge for others!

Now, now, go on. Keep smashing skulls and rolling heads. Remember, gladiator blood is not going to spill itself.