Thank you, gamedev community !

I would like to take a short minute to discuss what my experience in LD41 has been so far. I could be really brief and just state that it was and still is amazing, but that would do all the hard work everyone put in little justice. Congratulations to all that submitted a product, you are all beasts for delivering in 2 (compo) or 3(jam) days ! And for all those that tried, but did not deliver in time... Don't fret, you've started something amazing that still contributes to the world of games and you undoubtedly learned valuable lessons on scope, time management and what not !

I want to provide a short timeline of how my personal progress happened, maybe some of you will recognize the stages of rushed game development !

(https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/bumper-buddies)

1) Waiting for the theme For me this was Friday night at 4am. I had stupidly stayed up late looking up rules and setting up design documents to use... Oh boy... This will be a hard one... What do I make that is fun ? What genres are either rare or completely bonkers to combine? A rythm based golf game? Chess soccerball ? A turn based FPS? Nope... the scope alerts were real and it was definitely not realistic to just slam together game concepts. Kudos to whoever managed to do that !

3) Nearly giving up Nope...this is not going to be my first LD. The theme is killing my brain and I keep thinking in circles. I need a break, a spark, LD41 is already 12 hours underway and I have an empty word document... Time to visit the Twitch game dev community and see what they are up to... Hey ! There are people with the same problem... Maybe ... there is a concept hidden out there ... Blam, enter the spark... Pinball machines ... virtual pets ... happy fun memories... Feasible? Perhaps... OK why not ! Misses Javasaurus? Break out the mint tea, I got work to do !!!!!

5) And so it began... Just go for it... it is now Saturday afternoon, just went to the supermarket and got some provisions. Put my son on my lap and started playing with physics on a plane ! Got the ball rolling... Bumper Buddies is born !

6) Progress...Can we make it? Oh crap time flew by... it is now 11 pm and I finally have the pinball machine up and running...Granted it looks like a truck drove over it and the audio is making my face hurt, but it is generating a score...Might pull this off after all !

7) Late night shows Holy crud, it is now 4am again... the first 24 hours have passed and I have exactly half a game without proper graphics. There is now a very basic virtual pet thing with bars that increase or decrease and it can grow and or die etc etc... For now it is just an egg that turns into a blob, but hey, 20 years ago this was the bomb !!!

8)Sunday Funday Got up, went to the supermarket again...made breakfast for the family (oh that delicious nutella spread should get my cholesterol pumping again...). I earned this... I sprinted back upstairs with fresh enthousiasm and dove right into linking both game mechanics.

9)7 hours to go? Time for bikeshedding ! Hey, I got this... I just need to finish my UI and add a leaderboard. How hard can it be? Dove right into it...Took me over 5 hours to get the UI to display it properly and to actually get a plausible score. On top of that, late jam crashes started to happen and I fixed those urgently ...

10)The last stand... Ok, all systems check...This is ground control... Wait a second... There are no graphics O.o QUICK, 2 hours to go, plenty of time to whip up something... WELL in the end it was very limited but it is playable and does not look like a collection of white sticks and a ping pong ball on a blue canvas !

11)The grandest stage of em all... You may have guessed from my spelling and grammar, BUT I made it ! There legitly is a LD page (https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/bumper-buddies) with my game on it... 4 am again and a working day tomorrow... This is gonna sting ... But we did it, thank you everyone ... To make the analogy to wrestling, we are on the mainstage of game-jamania!

12)The aftermath Quite unexpectedly I am completely stuck in jam mode... It feels like muscle memory at this point to go back to the LD page and play other entries and read the comments on Bumper Buddies. This community is amazing, I love it... MAYBE I will pick up streaming again, since the attention the game dev world gave to me and received from me is sweeter than maple syrup on a large stack of pancakes...Speaking of which, I am hungry ...

Request Well I think I am pretty much obliged to advertise Bumper Buddies here due to the interesting rating system... But that is not really the message I wanted to put across. I want to sincerely thank everyone for putting their heart and soul into a product for me to play and appreciate the opinion I have on it. I hope you all play as many games as you can.

(https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/bumper-buddies)

But above all ... !!! GAME(DEV) ON BROTHERS AND SISTERS !!!