Whenever I participate, I like to tack on extra challenges that I give myself, on top of the theme restrictions. If I'm able to find a way to work it into the theme, I'll do it.

For LD39, I wanted to try to program AI for the first time, with unique character behaviors. My game wound up being a pac-man clone, with different colored robots choosing different strategies to follow or get ahead of the player. It worked out somewhat.

For LD44 I wanted a click-to-move and click-to-interact interface to make an adventure game. I wound up completely failing. I tried again for LD45 and did slightly better, so I might give it another shot in the future.

For LD46 I wanted to try my hand at AI again, but with real strategy this time. I managed to make a board game with an AI advanced enough to play against itself (barely). It's still really buggy, but it was a great learning experience and I have so many ideas on how to improve it. I also gave myself a challenge to have a physics-based dice-rolling mechanic. In the end that took too long and probably wasn't worth the effort, but at least I completed my challenge.

For LD47 I mainly wanted decent sounds, since I tend to skimp on them. Having lost a lot of time in development, I think I did decently, but overall my game lacked polish.

I'm not sure which of these challenges I'll try for LD48, but hopefully I can accomplish at least one of these:

• 3D ANIMATIONS - I'm pretty new to 3D modeling, and have never animated a character before. I'd love to get some practice with it.

• UNITY NEW INPUT SYSTEM - I usually make my games with keyboard/mouse support for maximum accessibility, but I put in optional gamepad support when possible. I want to switch to the new system.

• ADVANCED AI - If I do another strategy game, I want to improve on my previous AI efforts.

• LEADERBOARDS AND ACHIEVEMENTS - Yeah might not be necessary, but it'd be fun to learn.

• ONLINE MULTIPLAYER - I've made a game (LD46) that supported AI opponent or couch multiplayer, but I know that pretty much everyone played against computer AI. While probably WAY out of scope for a jam, I think it'd be cool to attempt.

• LEVEL GENERATOR - I wanted to do this since LD39 and have done some experimentation here and there, this is actually probably very doable if I get a theme that fits it.

• PLATFORMER CONTROLS - I've done platforms before, but the controls have always been a little floaty. I want to really get into the controllers and create something very intuitive.