A few days ago, I've uploaded a Ludum Dare game for the third time in my life. But this time was different. [Not really]

The begginning of the Jam

My first reaction after seeing the Twitter post was, obviously:

Peanut butter and pickles? Seriously?!

Then, the search for ideas began. Like for so many others, my mind has been wiped clean by the theme. It itself was not bad, but the creativity was just escaping my brain like water from a bucket with half its area corroded straight through. A Ludum Dare does that to a human; You just have to find a way to work around it. My first idea was a platformer using text as platforms, but I quickly ran into a roadblock that would take up way too much time to fix. So I settled on a roguelike-inspired platformer.

> 8 hours and 44 minutes later...

I actually got the basic prototype up and running pretty quickly, and all the core game mechanics were in place within the first 24 hours! Getting it done so quickly was a first time for me, and I felt pretty good with myself.

The oh, so lovely polish

I'm no artist, but I felt relieved that only minor additions to the game's code were all what was left in the programming aspect. I was wrong. "Art is easy, the game will be done in no time!" - I thought to myself.

Actually, no I didn't. That's a lie.

In the first few minutes of creating tiles I grew more and more aware that there's still a long way to go. After about 5-6 hours of ensuring myself that I have no idea about any form of art, I finished working for the day and went to sleep.

The frantic, eventful, and disastrous second day

Up until this point I was assuming my game was going to be meant for the Jam, like my first two entries(One of which I didn't even finish on time). However, the speed at which I managed to finish the core features of the game actually gave me the oppourtunity to participate in the Compo category. And I decided to take it.

That was stupid.

As usual, in the last few hours before the deadline, the bugs started arising. It got to a point where the engine was breaking by itself, without me even interfering with it in any way. I was considering reinstalling it 2 minutes before the submission hour. The game definitely turned out a lot less polished than it would have if I decided to take the Jam, obviously. However, it was my first LD game I managed to finish on time for the Compo.

Overall, I'm pretty satisified with what I've manged to do in 48 hours. I'm definitely looking forward to the next LD.

Oh yeah, if you're interested, feel free to play and rate my game!