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[reallyjoel]

Hi folks,

I wanted to announce an initiative we've.. initiated.. here at Ludosity. We have a new guy (Juha Kangas, who's also made Backworlds) working exclusively on prototypes. We call it Ludosity Play.

Every 1-2 weeks he puts out a new prototype for everybody to play. The games are entirely free, and can be played in the browser. We have 9 games up now, so we're starting to build a library.

The "big idea" is to make our R&D public, so as to get feedback from the players on it. We hope that the game we will develop after our current projects will have stemmed from one of these prototypes.

Personally I'm super excited about this venture. It's the first real "investment" we've made, in the sense that we're spending money on something we have no idea will lead to anything specific. But I can already say that it's a success since the energy levels at the studio is much, much higher now, and that alone is worth it.

Check out the games here: http://ludosity.com/play-webgames/
I'd love to ehar your thoughts! Both on the concept and on the games themselves.

[reallyjoel]

Come on, folks! You should check them out, some of them are gems.

[PompiPompi]

I played 3 of your games.
The Christmass game was just a gimmick, feels like a 5 minutes game, only it felt more like a 30 seconds game. I don't know, even these type of games can be made good somehow.
The second game was the DoTA thing. Well I must admit I never played a DoTA game, so maybe I didn't get this game. But it seems a bit simple with little gameplay as well. Or it feels like it's not designed to build up the experience.
The last game which was probably the most fun, was the Smashnoid. However, I didn't have anyone to play it with me.
Seems like not a lot of effort and thought was put in those games, they are way too simple.
A prototype doesn't mean super small game. You need to  make the minimal game that delivers the idea, but the prototype might still be a medium sized game.
So even in a prototype you need polish and playtesting, it's not enough to just create something playable.
On the other hand, I am not doing much gaming prototyping myself, but I always felt that working very few hours on a prototype is not enough. I guess now I know why.
I guess some talented people can make a fun game in 48 hours, but they probably have tons of experience in designing games.

[Udderdude]

The shadow one was an interesting concept, although I couldn't even get past level 2.  It seemed there was never a safe path away from the starting area.

Tried the frozen swimmer one next.  Some of the game elements like the flies didn't seem to do anything, wondering why they were even in the game.  I got up to World 4 before I lost interest.  It had gotten stale, with no new game elements being introduced, and the puzzles weren't getting much more complicated.  The same depressing music being used the entire time didn't help much, either.