… even though I didn’t submit a game.

But first, I’ll state the obvious- the theme was a complete disaster. It sucked so bad, and if it didn’t then I suck (which I know I don’t, so it must be the theme). Even if the theme wasn’t so bad overall, for me it was just uninspiring. I kinda knew that it was going to be selected, so I really can’t use the excuse of “couldn’t think of something good in time”. Now, when we look at all the submissions, we can see that it really wasn’t as good as the last two themes (this was my third LD, in a row). There are a lot of games with the “one bullet, recollect and reuse it” mechanic, and although it might be interesting to see how many different people implemented this mechanic in very varied ways, I don’t feel that this is really the essence of LD, or the theme aspect of LD.

OK, so now that I’m done with my little rant, on to the story. Much to my dismay, I couldn’t think of any ideas that seemed interesting enough for me to try out. Either I’ve raised my standards, or I was just completely dry that weekend. Anyway, I didn’t wanna resume work on my WIP game, which I promised myself I wouldn’t touch during the LD, and then I remembered that I had entered this LD with one thing in mind- try something completely new, the harder the better.

So I decided to code a ray casting engine. Sure, it wasn’t that hard, but it was still a lot of fun. And for two days, I think I did a pretty good job, too (mind you, this version was compiled today, but the only improvements I made were bug fixes and some optimizations). The thing is, it isn’t a game, only the skeleton of an engine. That’s why I didn’t submit it (that, and the fact that it would’ve been ugly trying to tie it to the theme).

I really liked working in 3D (well, pseudo-3D at least), it invoked memories of my early childhood, of watching my dad and my brother playing Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. In fact, I liked it so much that I might just end up making a 3D game for next LD. See you then!