Once upon a time, I challenged myself to participate in Ludum Dare 35. Alas, I spent half of the first day just trying to decide on an idea to work with, and it all went down from there. That was two years ago. Now I've come back and given Ludum Dare another shot, and it looks like I may have redeemed myself.

Maybe it was luck, or maybe I learned my lesson from the first time, but I came up with a concept to work with within minutes of seeing the theme. I had two ideas, actually. The first was having the play area shrink over time, which was what I eventually used. The other was having a memory space for powerups that shrank as you took actions in the game. I gave myself until the end of the first hour to decide on a concept, and until the third to brainstorm the mechanics.

Which is where the next thing I learned about doing a game jam comes in. I was going to be working solo, like I often do on little game projects like these, and that meant leaving myself time to conjure up sprites, sounds, and music, none of which I even have any real expertise in. So to make sure I would have something, anything finished within the time limit, I would have to really limit my scope. I aimed for something small and short, something that can be played in the ballpark of about 5 minutes, with the bare minimum of features I could reasonably get away with. I had to remind myself to constantly think about whether the little feature I wanted to work on next was absolutely necessary, or if it could be pushed back for later (if the time allowed).

And now here we are, a game completed. Despite having only started studying Godot about a week and a half before the start of the jam. And only learning how to work Bfxr and Bosca Ceoil on day 2. And a near-catastrophic game-breaking bug on the morning of day 3. But we did it. Completed a challenge, and maybe even picked up a few skill points along the way.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/claustrophobia-the-walls-are-closing-in

I added Mac and Linux versions to my game. I haven't been able to test that they actually work, so I would appreciate feedback from anyone running those platforms. Thanks!

I've fixed some things that needed to be fixed, and even added a minor feature that didn't make it to the original submission. I talk about the various changes I made to the game in more detail over on this itch.io devlog post.

And if you haven't played Claustrophobia (the walls are closing in) yet, the Jam version is still available alongside the updated 1.1 version on the itch.io page.

Finally, unrelated note, go help some games in the Danger filter reach 20 ratings if you can. It's not too late!