{"assets":[],"author_link":"author\/spliter\/","author_name":"spliter","cat":"LD #29","categories":["LD #29"],"comments":[],"epoch":1397729700,"event":"LD29","likes":10,"metadata":{"p_key":"81133","p_author":"spliter","p_authorkey":"0","p_urlkey":"290250","p_title":"I\u2019m in, and some advice from a failure veteran","p_cat":"LD #29","p_event":"LD29","p_time":"1397729700","p_likes":"10","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":null,"us_name":null,"us_username":null,"event_start":"1398384000","event_key":"22","event_name":"LD29"},"source_url":"2014\/04\/17\/im-in-and-some-advice-from-a-failure-veteran\/","text":"

I\u2019ve been with the LD community for almost 10 years now, entered about 15 times and finished 2 games (and made one joke entry). My track record is further away from \u201cgood\u201d than ISS is right now from me<\/p>\n

There is a silver lining though: I have a lot of experience with failure and the last two times I\u2019ve entered I managed to finish games I was happy with.<\/p>\n

This is all to say that no matter if it\u2019s your first time and you\u2019re nervous about failure, or your 15th time and haven\u2019t managed to finish a game yet, we\u2019re all in this for fun and learning, and not finishing anything doesn\u2019t mean you didn\u2019t learn anything, and it doesn\u2019t have to mean it wasn\u2019t fun.<\/p>\n

Here are a couple of things I\u2019ve learned from my failures over the years and from actually finishing the games:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Eat healthy: Junk food and energy drinks might sound like the programmer\u2019s food but in reality the healthier you eat on those days (as well as the preceding ones) the better you feel during the compo\/jam, and feeling good is extremely important during such a strenuous activity.<\/li>\n
  2. Sleep enough: Also might seem contradictory to sleep a lot, but do not sacrifice sleep on the first two days as it counts to how you\u2019ll feel during the compo. On the last day you can cut back on your sleep.<\/li>\n
  3. Clean yourself: Also very important and adds to the good feeling. I know that you\u2019re probably not gonna meet other people during this period, but your body feels healthier when you\u2019re clean and that is important during LudumDare.<\/li>\n
  4. Think small\u2026. smaller\u2026. smaller!.. Still too large! You have to think so small that quantum tunneling becomes a serious issue when developing your game! (oh wait, I\u2019m thinking of electronics, but it still counts!) You\u2019d be surprised how small you have to make your game to actually be able to make it, and if you\u2019re making it in your own engine or an engine that you don\u2019t use almost every single day then you have to think smaller yet!<\/li>\n
  5. Do not expect a theme: in fact, expect that the theme you will least like is gonna be chosen. This might sound pessimistic but after so many failures I\u2019ve realized that imagining a game for a specific theme I liked would later on put me in a worse mood when a theme I didn\u2019t fancy as much was announced.<\/li>\n
  6. Free your mind: Before the compo start: clean up your desk, your room, your house, do the laundry, wash the dishes, say goodbye to relatives and friends. Having a mind free of the daily responsibilities is very important, and having a clean workplace helps a lot.<\/li>\n
  7. Don\u2019t spend too much time in social activities. I know it\u2019s tempting and jumping onto the ludumdare IRC channel can give you an inspiration boost, but it\u2019s very easy to lose a lot of time there, It also breaks your concentration and trains of thought.<\/li>\n
  8. When stuck, leave your pc and go for a walk: I have a personal theory: our brains have the consciousness and subconsciousness, and while it seems that it\u2019s the consciousness is the one doing all the hard lifting, in reality it\u2019s your subconscious that\u2019s the real problem solver, and after it finishes processing it simply gives your conscious a solution in easily digestible chunks of info. When you\u2019re stuck and start thinking of other stuff you stop feeding it new questions and so it has time to process your current problems. This is what, I think, the reason behind the common \u201cafter I left and came back all the solutions simply fall into place\u201d.<\/li>\n
  9. Prepare your tools: You can use this weekend for preparation and making a small game. Being able to make a game mechanic and putting in some placeholder art is completely different from making an entire game. There\u2019s a lot of things that you usually think take very little time but end up taking up almost entire day.\u00a0 Practice making animations, make a game without any gameplay\u00a0 but walking around. Even this simple concept grows greatly when you start adding the main menu, the credits, the internal level logic for starting and finishing the \u201cgame\u201d, playing sounds on cue, playing the right music and fixing those small bugs in your game engine which might end up costing you many hours during ludum dare. <<<Prepare everything before>>>; This weekend, go, now, go!<\/li>\n
  10. Before you go: Remember why you joined this compo, it will help you keeping your eyes on the target. Now, have fun and I hope you learn lots!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    All that said: i\u2019m in!<\/p>\n

    My weapons of choice:<\/p>\n