What? Where am I? Ah… right. El Dorado. No wait, I mean Ludum Dare. I’ve finally found it! I’ve entered the fabled city. Or rather just opened the door to its hallowed halls. My mind is willing, but is my body ready? Guess I’ll just have to find out. My first Ludum Dare, so help me God.
I had intended to wake up at 6.30AM (IST), sharp in time for the LD event to begin. But I slept at 2AM after watching OG vs Secret Dota2 series (what an amazing performance by OG!), and woke up only at 8.30AM. I jumped out of bed, made coffee and made some pancakes, and spent an hour racking my brains trying to come up with an idea for a game that would match the theme. Zilch. So I spent some time going through the twitter feed, facebook and other distractions. And that's when a germ of an idea took hold in my brain. So 5 hours after the jam has officially started, I have an idea and that's about it. Let's see if I can do better in the coming hours!
Have had a rough start to the jam. I had to chuck out my first design after I found it to be not fun. Then office work intervened (on a bloody weekend! Grrr!). So have the spent the second day of the jam, revising the scope and - since this is my first jam and I do want to complete it - I'm going for an unoriginal but achievable goal instead. I feel like I'm copping out from my original goal for the jam, but I think I'll feel a lot worse if I didn't see the jam through. On the upside, I did have some fun coding the second iteration of the design. So it's not all bad! Game on folks!
This being my first game jam I was a bit apprehensive about the feedback I would get and was anxious about whether someone will even bother playing my simplistic game. However, I needn't have worried because this community is amazing! I'm extremely thankful to all the people who gave my game a try and more importantly gave me some feedback, no matter how small. I look forward to LD 47 where, hopefully, I will be able to do a better job. :)
After having spent 1.5 days chopping and changing ideas and code, it was a mad rush to get a game completed in the remaining time. I mean I spent an entire day just writing a level editor that no one else will see (maybe one day...).
There was a time when I thought I wouldn't be able to a) come up with a decent idea that's playable b) complete it in time c) won't be able to get any sound in d) create more than 2 levels.
Well screw that. I've managed to get everything in except for d) where I've managed far more than 2 (thanks to the level editor) but still less than I would have liked. Oh well. Can't have everything I suppose.
Anyway, enough of self patting on the back. Please do have a look and let me have your feedback kind sirs and ladies!
10 mins after uploading the game, my game has received just a rating with 1 in all categories. It's like they didn't even bother playing it. :( Why would someone do that? Anyone else had this experience? Genuinely curious.