Fan art

This year, I decided to draw a character from every game I played during play and rate. Here's the group picture!

Special shout out to the games that won medals! - The Sandwicher got 1st Overall and 2nd in Fun - Thunderstorm got 2nd in Mood

Was it worth it?

Absolutely! This has been a blast, and I'm highly considering doing it again for future events. Here's a summary of how things went this time:

• Rating games takes much longer. For past events, I could play through many games in a sitting, since it took maybe 15 minutes on average to play through a game. By adding the illustration, I'm often taking 45 minutes to an hour on each one.
• I rated fewer games, mostly as a result of the first point. I only played 17 games this event, which makes me feel a little bad for being a net "drain" of ratings (I received 36 on my game).
• There are some really fun characters out there! I was afraid it might just end up being a bunch of generic people, but I had lots of fun drawing every character on here. I did take a few creative liberties for some of them, like this inspector drone from Among 'Em by @william-derksen:

• People are super appreciative. I received multiple messages here and on Discord expressing gratitude for the doodles. A few folks expressed how much it mattered because they had never seen fan art of their games before. This was very heartwarming, and made me think we should be encouraging these sorts of projects more.
• Speaking of "these sorts of projects..." It wouldn't be fair not to shout out to @brainoid's music covers... they're incredible!

List of games

Here are all the games shown in the picture, if you want to play any of them:

• 10 Seconds or Less by @kleinzach
• Among 'em by @william-derksen
• Bear's Home Repairs by @zuhairghias, @quantumcalzone, @4ahizon, @axlplosion, @mahad420, @gnahzanit, @deathhound, @makhan, and @amastryukov
• Beardadette and the Eternal Hiccup by @brainoid, @spacey3d, and @honest-dan
• Between the Gap by @bluesand and @fragile-star
• Dragon Slayer Ultra by @retrosaurdev and @mothense
• Farming Fatigue by @halleester, @benstar, @thcgourami, and @disomikron
• Floppy Fish by @psypher9, @badgerbee, @ethan-hair, and @jesseww
• Karl Åke by @bottlecreep, @dingdingding, @jorunn, @bacilika, @jimter, @dudum-lare, and @persikan
• Raidar by @paul-merkamp, Lauren Merkamp, and Alex McGrath
• Sneak Guy by @bwalter
• Ten Seconds to Midnight by @wiredoverload and @alchemic
• Terra Nova by @n4tticus
• The Sandwicher by @antti-haavikko
• Thunderstorm by @paul-nadan
• Watch the Cat by @chispalbc
• Windy Mountain by @initialposition
• And my game, Eleventh Second

Eleventh Second post-mortem

Also using this post to talk about my experience this jam making Eleventh Second.

What went well

• Making a sequel - This game isn't only a standalone game, it's also a sequel to my LD50 game Eleventh Hour. I think I hit something close to the sequel rule of thirds, keeping the game's kunai-throwing protagonist, time travel, and visual motives but changing the gameplay to a vertical grappler.
• Art and atmosphere - I'm really happy with how the game looks! I got to play with some fun visual tricks I hadn't really used before (such as squash and stretch on the "dust" particles to simulate motion blur).
• Juice - The game felt pretty nice to play! I'm particularly proud of the grappling hook animation for the player.

What went poorly

• Ideation - I was really not inspired by this theme at all. The theme was announced at 5pm on Friday, and I went to sleep that night not having touched any code and without knowing for certain what game I wanted to make.
• Music - Since losing my student license to Sibelius, I've floundered a bit for getting good-sounding game music on reasonable timelines. This time I waited a bit too late in the process and just recorded myself playing keyboard straight into Audacity. I got mixed feedback on the music, but definitely think I could have done somethin more with enough time.
• Scope and innovation - I definitely think this was a "safe" jam for me, especially given my trouble coming up with ideas. In the future I hope to think more outside the box and make games that are more unique from a gameplay perspective, and lean less on my art, audio, and juice skills.
• Gears - I wasted at least a few hours trying to get the gears to mesh with each other. Turns out my math was right, but I accidentally had two very similarly-named variables that I was messing up. That's what I get for using a language without explicit variable declaration!
• UI - I had a lot harder of a time making nice UI in the "sidebars" of a vertical game. Last event, I had the timer shown visually with a setting sun, which I liked a lot. This time, I just had a ten-second countdown, which felt less organic and was harder to notice in the thick of the action.

Results

Wow.

Thanks everyone who took the time to rate and comment on my game. It means a lot, and the community and feedback are what keeps me coming back every event.

So how do I reconcile these results with my how well I thought I would do?

• As expected, Graphics and Mood were some of my best categories. Obviously getting 4th in the Compo in any category is crazy, and exciting, and almost certainly as much due to luck as any actual merit, but I thought it would likely be my strongest category.
• I did better than expected in Fun, especially given feedback that some of my code for spawning platforms made for some frustrating moments. I think having a short "tutorial" and satisfying graphics might have made the game more accessible and helped with this category.
• I did much better than expected in Audio, which I thought fell short of some of my previous entries. It's possible the final product was just better than I give it credit for after the frustration I had being rushed creating it, or it's possible other parts of the presentation like graphics and juice bled into this category, and raters were more generous as a result.
• Innovation was my worst category as expected. Definitely room for improvement here, and next Jam I might have to really expand my thinking and make something cool!

Bonus fun fact

The clocktower in Eleventh Second is 1000 feet tall. If it was a real clocktower, it would be the second tallest clocktower in the world (behind the Abraj Al Bait in Mecca) and more than triple the size of Big Ben!

Until next time!

Thanks everyone for making this community great, and look forward to Ludum Dare 52 in January!

And if you made any sort of fan content like art or music covered, I'm super interested in seeing it!