It's that special time of the year again another Ludum Dare! I'm seeing lots of posts here of people announcing that it's their first Jam or Dare. I hope these tips will be of use to you :)

1: Challenge yourself: *Now this actually has less to do with, "Oh, why do you join the Jam if you're not going to challenge yourself" and more to do with "The best part about Game Jams is that you can see what your faults are and what you can improve on". Game Jams are a great learning experience, you aren't learning *anything if you're just coasting on your previous knowledge. Have you never made a platformer before? Make a platformer!

*2: Make a schedule: *It may sound trivial, but in reality a schedule is very, very important. I'm sure you know that feeling of really getting into one part of your game (maybe the animations or coding individual enemies). You can't get tunnel visioned during a Jam. You have 48/72 hours. Making a schedule forces you to manage your time and resources so you can fit your goals in that time frame.

*3: Themes: *Let's get this out of the way first. The theme WILL suck. You WILL hate it. And it WILL be a burden. However, there are ways to manage and still come up with an interesting idea. There are many methods which help with coming up with an interesting idea. Here's some sub-tips to help you out 1. What does it actually mean? Google it. Read about it. Knowing as many implication of the theme as possible will help greatly with coming up with an interesting idea. 2. Don't use the literal definition of the theme. You want to stand out among the rest. Among the giant pile of "obvious" ideas in your head is that one amazing, perfect one that will take the world by fire. 3. WRITE YOUR IDEAS DOWN. I'm sure you can keep one or two ideas in your head perfectly fine, but any more and you really need to start writing your concepts down. 4. Don't get too attached to your idea. This is where people start making mistakes. You'll be brainstorming for like 15 minutes and the third thing you come up with makes you go "THAT'S IT! The winning idea!". Yeahhh... no. Just because one theme tickled your fancy in particular doesn't mean you just stop coming up with ideas. I hope it's self-explanatory why. This is another reason why you should keep a schedule. Brainstorming should NEVER last 15 minutes.

*4: Finish the damn thing! *"Game dev is harsh. It's harsher than movie-making or writing. You spend weeks, months making your game. Spending days making a basic prototype, battling bugs. By the time you reached the half-way point, you hate your game, you despise it... BUT YOU STILL FINISH THE DAMN GAME. Remember, 48/72 hours. And that's without subtracting, sleeping, work(sorry) or any other responsibilities you may have. Your game WILL be incomplete and it WILL be wildly different to your original vision. That's fine! You can always keep working on your game even after the Ludum Dare has finished. I had to battle a huge flaw in my programming for my LD41 entry that cost me HOURS of time for polish. By the time I had finished the game it had around 8 - 10 bugs, glitches or design faults. I was still proud as I could ever be.

*5: Record your progress! *"Very, very, very, very important. Remember, learning experience. You need to be able to look back on what you did. Keep your brainstorming sheets or docs. Record your progress and make it into a timelapse. Bandicam is great due to tiny file sizes. Keep your projects, whether it's in a repo or just sitting on your desktop. It's also a great "Let me look back and laugh how bad I was at ---" tool for the future.

*LAST TIP: Stay Organised *I spent an hour setting everything up when LD40 started because I didn't prepare properly for it. Seriously, creating your repo, creating your scene or even getting some libraries set up does NOT break ANY rules in either the Compo or the Jam. Don't get bogged down on this kind of stuff. Clean your work environment, buy your supplies (pizza) ahead of time and do any other preliminaries before hand. Be frugile with your time, you'll thank yourself at the end.

Well then. That was quite a list! I hope you, fair reader gathered some knowledge of this which will assist you in your Jam journey. Don't kill yourself over the Jam. By many people's standards my previous entries did poorly. That's fine! I'm still here! I know I learnt yuge amounts since then. And I KNOW I can do better. And I know YOU can do great things as well.

Good Luck!