The best thing for me about Ludum Dare is competing against myself, and trying to do better than last time; not just in rankings, but also in the quality of my game and in my own personal satisfaction. Looking back at my first three Ludum Dares, there’s a clear progression visible.

The first was JavaScript and canvas2d, primitive geometric graphics and no sound.

The second was CoffeeScript and WebGL, still primitive geometric graphics but OMG PARTICLES! and included some awesome sound effects from Bfxr and braindead but catchy music from LMMS.

The third was CoffeeScript but back to canvas2d, home-recorded sound effects, music written by a professional 18th-century composer (but butchered by me in LMMS), and animated sprites done in Inkscape.

Each of these has helped me hone my skills in a particular area. This time, I’m raising the bar again. One thing I suck at is level design. Of my three games, only the first had real levels, and they were bad; in the later two, I cowardly sidestepped the issue by dumping increasing numbers of enemies into the same boring rectangular area. So this time, I’m aiming for a game that will force me to practice level design. I’m even reading a book about it!

I’m also going to try my hand at pixel art and pixel animations. In GIMP, if I can’t find anything better that works on Linux. (Any recommendations?)

As preparation, I’ll be looking into how to use SoundManager 2 properly, because HTML5 audio still sucks.

The community is what makes Ludum Dare awesome, and it’s thanks to you. So good luck to you all, and may the code be with you!