So I’d been hyped about entering my first LD for a long time. I had my code base ready and released in the public domain so it could be used and everything was good. The theme stuff came along and there were some good stuff as well as some terrible ones too as expected.

I woke on Saturday morning at 7am GMT, 5 hours after the theme announcement. Seemed a fairly good theme with plenty of scope so I was happy with that. Two hours had passed and I still had no idea on what to do. I pushed on and got some boilerplate stuff down (basic window etc.) but still no idea. I took the obligatory LD shower for inspiration, went for a walk and even played other games for inspiration. Still, no matter what I couldn’t get something to work with. Sure there were the generic ideas that come straight to mind but for me, doing something like a normal platform game and just sticking an odd weapon in seemed like a waste of time. I wanted it to be based on the theme not just a game with the theme smashed in to it.

Anyway, time rolled on and it got to 8pm GMT. With still no idea and time remaining at 36 hours remaining (probably about 28 working hours) I came to a decision to declare myself out. It had become more stressful than fun which goes against everything LD is about.

So I’m sad that my first LD turned out to be a disaster but I live in hope that it’s not just me and that it won’t be the same in August. Hopefully it was just a bad weekend for me and that you can’t always work with a theme since everyone is different.

I look forward to playing as many of the entries as I can though.