1. (WebGL) When working with custom shaders, test in a browser as early as you can

We used a custom curved world shader that looked great in the Unity editor, but when we deployed to itch.io around 7pm Sunday, we realized each browser rendered it differently and incorrectly! We had to nix that but if we detected it earlier we could've swapped out the shader.

2. Add difficulty options to your game

I know this is something we all want but never have the resources to achieve, but with an audience as diverse as LD you get a wide range of responses in terms of difficulty, especially in action games. You want to hold everyone's attention so make sure to set aside the time or even add some surge support at the end to add difficulty options.

3. Hold the player's attention through novel environments

In the past we've always relied on upgrades and a single game loop to hold the player's attention which is a bit of flash game design influence (launch games that just keep repeating). This time we dedicated more effort towards making new art and music per level to drive the player forward and found we didn't have to rely on that upgrade crutch as much anymore. This freed up further game design decisions as we weren't tied down to a single experience.

A survival dodge em up - Meteor Jam

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/meteor-jam