This was my second compo entry in a row recently, and my eighth participation in Ludum Dare so far. Most of my old submissions were way back when it was the old website, and I wasn't able to participate in LD again for about five years because they always conflicted with finals. For Ludum Dare 51 I used Pico 8 for the first time and had so much fun with it I decided to use it again this time.

Aiming for Simplicity

I was really set on making a simple game this time, to try and cram in as much polish as I could. I thought of lots of ideas based on the final round of themes and came up with lots of ideas that I still want to implement. Harvest was the tough one though, and I wasn't able to think of a good idea until after it was announced.

The concept was to plant crystals and have the choice to either harvest them or break them, scattering fragments nearby that grow. On paper I wasn't sure it would be fun, but it seemed unique and interesting enough that I went with it.

Unlike past Ludum Dares, this time I wrote out exactly what I wanted the game to be before starting. This definitely helped with feature creep and while there were still things I didn't have time for, I was able to implement the majority of what I had designed.

Gameplay Programming

Things went much faster than last time because I was able to start with a decent amount of utility functions I've built up over time and from the last Ludum Dare. By the end of the first day I already had the planting and growing working.

I knew I basically needed to have the game done by the second day, and save last minute polish for the third day. After adding the different crystal colors the MVP was basically complete and I went on to add player animations, sounds, UI, and overall game feel additions and ended up with a pretty solid gameplay loop.

What went good

• The mechanic turned out to be fun and more strategic than I thought it would be

• I'm happy with how polished the core gameplay feels

• I was able to do much better on the art this time by locking in my palette at the beginning

What went bad

• My title screen art was so rushed and I think it just looks really bad.

• I ran out of time to add any kind of juice to the game start sequence and results screen

Conclusion

Overall I think this Ludum Dare went better than last time. I'm getting the hang of working with Pico 8 quickly and my goal is to keep using it for jams to build up a good toolbox of utility functions and get faster at making polished games.

If you want to try out the final result, you can play it Here