Okay... 4th LD in a row. Time to get my thought straight, and what better way to do this than to throw them on a paper... virtual one at least.

So firstly - I am going to take part in 48-hour contest. I don't have a luxury of not going to work on Monday... So all my thoughs below are aimed at this timetable. If you are going for 72-hour version, some points might not be for you.

This time one thing is going to be really different for me. I am not going to be alone. I mean I am going to be working on the game alone, but my family is going to be around in the process. On one hand this is obviously going to be a distraction. Especially from my 8 year old son. But on the other hand I will have some help providing some basic needs - like food and drinks. And I wouldn't have to scrape time for other house chores. Hopefully.

Another thing I want to try is to make a game more action-based. All my previous entries (both published and unpublished) were puzzles. And while they got some positive feedback, they as a class seem to be less... well... exciting. So this time I am going to aim for something different. And yes - I am not going to aim high on the theme-relation score. If I can think of a suitable theme application for an action game - good. If I can't think of any clever way - I will just roll with it and shoehorn it in and not mourn too much over it. ((Not that I am going to be the only one in that department anyway))

Now what I am going to do similarly to the last event:

Don't wait for theme announcement. I live in a timezone that is poorly suited for witnessing the theme announcement (and associated website spontaneous DDOSing). So I will just get my healthy sleep and check the theme in the morning. Yes I could check the theme and go to bed hoping to dream up some clever game-idea in my sleep, but my first two LDs indicated that this will end up either in me being too excited to have good sleep and thus poorly fit for work on Saturday. Or I will simply sleep late into the Saturday to compensate and waste more valuable hours.

Remember 80/20 rule 80% of work is done in the first 20% of time. And mote importantly - final 20% of work will take you 4 times longer than the first 80% did. So don't get stuck polishing stuff! If it is 80% as good as you imagined it to be - roll with it. You might have some time later to polish it a bit... but if it is not functionally holding you back from progressing the game overall - just let it be. And if it is already past mid-Saturday and you don't have a fully functional prototype (which is likely to be true) - this is 90% clear sign that you don't have time to polish and you'll end up with some half-assed assets. Don't stress about it though. The event is not about making AAA-level game in 48 hours. And stressing wouldn't help you anyway...

Actually I think it is important enough to put it into a separate point - Don't get stressed. Stress leads to anxiety, anxiety leads to rushed decisions and rushed decisions lead to poor results and wasted time. And a good way of not getting stressed is to keep as much info as you can outside of your head. Plans, Ideas, Sketches - put as much as you can out of your head. No matter which way - electronic notes, paper drawings, audio logs. Anything. But don't keep things in your head.