Hey all! Figured I'd share some tips I learned the hard way over the years for all the newcomers starting of their first Ludum Dare in a few minutes:

SCOPE SMALL

Making a game can require a lot of stuff you may not have thought about when brainstorming. Sounds, art, UI, menus, and obviously nasty bugs crawling all over your desktop. Making sure that you scope for a smaller game that you could cook up in a day will help, giving you lots of time to do playtesting and extra polish

PLAYTEST

At some point, get someone to play your game! It's one of the best way to get some usefull advices on where the game should go next, find ways to improve it and give you the chance to take a step back and see obvious flaws in your design.

SLEEP

Did you know that sleep is your best weapon when jamming? Why crunch like a zombie for an extra 7h when you can get the same amount of stuff done in 2h the next day AND be fresh and ready for the rest of the event! Getting a good night of sleep is the true cheatcode

HAVE A BUILD READY

Starting a build in the final hour is quite a reciepe for disaster. Having a build ready "just in case" can be quite useful when all hells breaks loose and stress starts to build up towards the final deadline.

HAVE FUN, TRY NEW THINGS

I love game jams because it's the best opportunity to have fun whith the tools I use everyday, getting to try new game ideas and get them out in the real world. The Ludum Dare community is full of awesome people that'll hapilly give you feedback (and even play your game live on Twitch), so consider trying out that game idea you had for a while, just to see if it works as you hope it does!

GOOD LD EVERYONE, AND GOOD LUCK !