So it's the 22nd of April, and I've had a few days to process my thoughts on my LD46 entry, Remember, Apollo.

The first thing I want to say is how much more positively this compo went, following LD45 last year. I made a point of setting some ground rules about how I wanted to run the compo, and what I would be focusing on. I watched footage of my last effort (I had VODs from streaming the whole thing) and made a list of pitfalls to avoid that I knew I'd be guilty of if i wasn't careful. I also decided to make a point of listing the things I wanted to excel at: goals that I could specifically work towards that would help me make something that I'd be proud of having made later. It feels really positive to have been able to be specific about what I thought I needed to change, and then have the results reflect that so clearly. Already I've had so much positive feedback about the game, and I'm really proud of it no matter what happens with the final scores.

I made some big calls about how I'd run the project, and I did my best to stick to them. I promised myself that the core mechanics of the game would be done in 6 hours, and that the game would be finishable at 24 hours (there were 7 hours of sleep in there). I wanted to allow myself to showcase my animation and art skills, which I never got to capitalise on last year, and I wanted to tell a story that had a memorable moment in it. Something people would think back to that defined what the game is. I'm proud to say I think I hit those points pretty well, and it made for a very smooth 48 hours.

Those who know me know how neurotic I am. I really am a mess of nerves most of the time. When under high pressure, I can be a pretty rough person to be around, and I really wanted to change that this year. Setting clear, achievable goals and sticking to them made me far more tolerable (I hope?), because I knew for the most part that the game was on track. Every aspect of the game was built on things that I knew that I knew how to do. LD is a lot easier if you're not learning how to make a game while making your game. I finished on time and submitted with no stress, even after corrupting an entire external hard drive and also separately corrupting the game's music after I finished it, forcing me to re-compose it from scratch. So I want to say thanks to Danii and Pat for being patient and supportive of me while I worked on the game this time. I hope I was easier to be around.

I'm confident this is the best entry I've ever made. It's not perfect, there are things I know I can fix. I've played other games I think should win LD46, and I'm going to learn from those games to be a better developer for next time.

I think what I wanted to say in this post was that I'm really glad I entered LD46. I don't have any regrets and I owe that to the time that I spent staring past failures in the face and making a conscious choice not to make those mistakes again. I've been reviewing games a lot on stream this week, and I've been thinking about what it must feel like to receive the criticism that I've been giving. It hurts to read negative feedback, and I'm sure it hurts more to hear someone give it in person. But this process is so valuable. Getting feedback on your work is the thing that makes the next work better, and Remember, Apollo would be a worse game if my previous game Contraband didn't receive the mixed criticism that it did.

So thank you to the people who had pointy words to say about my work. Thanks to the people who spent the time playing my game this year and said nice things. If I ever make a career out of this, I have you to thank for making me believe it's worth doing. And if not, I blame you for inflating my ego :P

I might write up some more after the voting is over. Until then, thanks for reading!

Adam