Well we did it.  We survived our first Ludum Dare and came out feeling like we accomplished our goal.  So now we are going to go over the experience.

Idea

When the comp / jam started, we took immediately to talking through any idea that we could come up with.  We went from being stuck in a house, to being stuck in a prison and even a few others.  As Friday night dragged on, we went back and forth several time without settling on a game idea.  Sleep, we decided, would help us think.

On Saturday morning, the idea started.  It was very simple at first.  You are in a tunnel and trying to escape.  What you were trying to escape was irrelevant at that moment.  We had a direction.  Immediately the coding began.  At first is was a cube and there was a square corridor.  The movement was the first thing to be put into the game.  The thought was that using physics and gravity, we could come up with an interesting game.  It might not be very deep, but we were hoping it would be fun.

What Went Wrong

Several things went wrong during the weekend.  Things from choosing the right idea, time taken by family, the day job taking time and a lack of play testing.

From the beginning, we wanted to do something unique and original.  We wanted something that stood out from other games for being unique.  In the end, we should have focused on making a fun game.

Family things got in the way pretty quickly.  Most of our time on Saturday was taken on a trip to my Mom’s house.  It happens, but better planning on our end could have helped us to minimize the impact.

On Monday, I had to get back to the day job.  This takes a lot of my time and energy dealing with the everyday IT stuff.

The family and job stuff really came back to hurt us.  There were several game features that we really wanted to do, but we ran out of time to get it done.

The final thing that went way wrong; We did not have anyone play test our game.  This could have helped us refine the controls a little more and ensure that the game idea was fun for other people.

What Went Right

We did a really good job of sticking with a simple game idea that would be easy to finish in the allotted time.  Having been in 3 previous 24 hr game jams, we were fortunate enough to have seen this first hand.

We managed scope creep very well.  There were several planned game features and graphical enhancements for our game.  The smart decision on our end was to get the game play working and then go back and add polish.  Had it not been for this, we could have easily became bogged down in trying to overload the game features.

The art turned out very well.  The models were mostly low poly with the details handled by the textures.  The textures themselves were part of a pack that we had purchased from Dex-soft.  They were purchased early this year in anticipation for a sci-fi game that we had in mind.

The sound and music selections worked well with the art and overall style of the game.  We used sfxr to generate the sounds for the game.   The sounds were randomly generated until it sounded right.  The music came from several music packs that we bought from Artieria.  Again these were bought in anticipation for another game.

Overall

It was a great experience and just getting a game done is more than enough reward.  I’m hoping that at least a few people enjoy the game, but even if you don’t be sure to give us some constructive feedback.  We might choose to continue working on the game idea … only time will tell.