I completed my first Ludum Dare last night; submitted it around midnight local time (BST). The first issue was that the theme was only announced at 2AM my time, after a full day at work. I stayed up for it and brainstormed until I had a workable idea and a whole load of elaborations. This meant I didn’t sleep until nearly four and only started coding in earnest at midday on Saturday. I’d planned to sleep as little as possible but the way it played out, I had two full eight hour nights.

I had decided ahead of time to aim simple, not use a framework and just get something working by the deadline. I did not shoot far enough, most of the work was done on the Saturday and by Sunday I was pretty pissed off with it. Turns out I love coding but not so much level design, also I got quite lonely. In my professional life, it’s all big groups and large teams. I need that more than I realized.

I think next time, I’ll plan a couple of hours out of the house with other people for the Saturday night. Saying that, I had a friend on google plus which helped more than I thought it would. He play-tested for me and also when I was convinced my game was pants told me to just do it. Which helped, as I did.

Next time, I’ll work out how to make some noises (or at least organize a microphone) ahead of time. Also plan some levels out properly before I get bored of it.

I stayed up till 0400 on Friday night/Saturday morning (I’m in the UK) and failed to come up with a good idea. I had a not terrible idea on Saturday morning (well midday!). At 1600 another ludum darer came round; he’d got a lot further. I couldn’t focus and nothing worked. At 2000 he had a game you could nearly play: I was no where near.

At 2200 I decided my game idea was terrible and started again. I’ve not looked back, everything is flowing now and it was nearly playable an hour later (it’s a really simple stuff appears and you have to click on it typa game). It was a good idea, let’s see what I have by 0300.

So I was up at 8:30 local and surprise, surprise “10 seconds won”. I’m going to do a lemmings clone in polycode, wish me luck!

Also I had a massive, veggie breakfast, yeah!