I really had my problems getting something out of that theme (after all, it applies to basically every game with a "death" lose condition plus a lot more things), but in the end it was fun, a great learning experience and I'm fine with how my game turned out. Thanks again for the feedback everyone, I'll remember it next LD. :)

But that's not why I'm writing this: The overall #1 games of both the compo and the jam are named "keep it alive" and I (for some reason) find it ridiculously cute. Like the theme named it's first-born children after itself. The results for LD46 will certainly look fun on Wikipedia. :D

(I wouldn't recommend it, but you can get stuck yourself at https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/the-magic-hat)

Started off with a character idea, did some drawing but eventually I ended up without an idea of what kind of game it's going to be. After I woke up and had breakfast I realized I was starting to not have fun, so I'm gonna ditch this little dude and start from scratch with a new idea and a new engine. Time to learn how to pico-8.

Press F for little Ra, though.

So we're trying to do a:

Medieval-themed,

cardboard-inspired,

puyo-puyo-controlled,

tower defense game

...with original music.

Still A LOT to do, but at least it's starting to look nice. :)

We made it somehow. Ain't gonna lie: Especially today I had some "We're so boned and it's all my fault"-moments, but somehow we made it through, even though we had to cut a lot of corners. There was basically no playtesting, no balancing, there's still unintended behaviour, basically all prepared enemy types are missing and so on and so forth.

However, that doesn't matter. What matters is: We handed something in in time that I feel communicates the idea of what we wanted to do. And it looks way better than anything I've ever done before thanks to our dedicated artist. It also sounds better thanks to the sound guy (it's a shame you won't get to hear his honking since the jester didn't make it into the jam version of the game). So: Yeah, it could've needed some more time in the oven, a little more polish and maybe some more code wizardry, but I love it anyways. Especially after not finishing in time for what must've been two or three years straight, handing something in is all I could've asked for.

Takeaways from this jam: - Keep the scale small (I already know I won't, but it'll do for a mantra) - Keep a team of talented, motivated people around if you can (I would've called quits if it weren't for the team tbh) - Prioritise: Having something that barely works is better than ending up with nothing at all. - When the time comes, you gotta kill your darlings. I was SO looking forward to implementing the jester, we had all the stuff prepared but with the puzzle game taking way longer than expected, that just wasn't going to happen. :/ - The biggest one for me this time: Plan your code and don't just start with the most comfortable-looking thing. I thought using a Tilemap for the puzzle-part of our game would make things way easier, but in the end it made polishing nearly impossible due to the constraints it brought, let alone all the other weird, weird things I had to do make things (barely) work.

So yeah... I might not be fully satisfied with the quality of the result, but I'm absolutely happy we pulled through. And I got quite a few lessons from it not only regarding the jam, but also teamwork, friendship and the value of a good breakfast. Andabout Godot, that almost in every way marvelous piece of software that somehow shipped with what must be the most counterintuitive tilemap editor ever unleashed on mankind just casually Pandoras boxed away inside of it.

So yeah... It was an honor pulling through with the team and with all of you guys - whenever we had a short break I looked at the jam page and found someone new to follow. Looking forward to play what some of you absolute madmen seemingly have come up with.

See ya at the ratings!

Shanzhai // signing off