{"author_link":"\/users\/arzi","author_name":"arzi","author_uid":"arzi","comments":[],"epoch":1648576516,"event":"LD50","format":"md","ldjam_node_id":278953,"likes":7,"metadata":{"p_key":"83560","p_author":"arzi","p_authorkey":"1001976","p_urlkey":"294298","p_title":"Looking Back and Ranting (Just a Bit)","p_cat":"LDJam ","p_event":"LD50","p_time":"1648576516","p_likes":"7","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":"1001976","us_name":"arzi","us_username":"arzi","event_start":"1648857600","event_key":"110","event_name":"Ludum Dare 50"},"node":{"id":278953,"parent":278736,"superparent":276397,"author":1976,"type":"post","subtype":"","subsubtype":"","published":"2022-03-29T17:55:16Z","created":"2022-03-24T16:04:14Z","modified":"2022-03-29T17:55:16Z","version":860716,"slug":"looking-back-and-ranting-just-a-bit","name":"Looking Back and Ranting (Just a Bit)","body":"So it's LD50! That's... a lot. My first Ludum Dare was #16 (yes, I had to check) waaaaay back in December 2009 (yup, got that from Wikipedia) and looking back at the archive website, it looks like I did pretty well too, with #12 in Fun! Sure, there were \"only\" 121 participants but it wasn't a bad start. \n\n![1524-f5b9c26119bf83d1871aaa1e7d672b3d.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/8b7\/z\/48b9f.png)\n\nFunny thing, I actually ended up making the game in just around four hours. My original, much more ambitious idea involved building a level from tiles similar to Carcassonne, but I never figured out what the game would be, exactly. On Sunday evening, I just scratched that and quickly whipped up a game based on a very old (mid-90s) DOS game I had started but never finished, where you explore a maze while your torch slowly dies down. I had no time to polish it and it just used Unity's primitives and didn't have any sounds, but it managed (accidentally, I might add) to get a couple of things right:\n\n* It was super simple to learn\n* It was short\n\nThose two are important pillars for LD success, I feel. Even though I did got them right at first, I did not do so well on all the the subsequent tries. All in all, from 2010 to 2014, I only managed to finish two games out of 8 I started. Out of those two, one was kind of a Civilization clone with an evolution theme (LD24), which was pretty ambitious and kinda worked out ok too. \n\nFrom 2015 on I started a working in a team. That helped me make games that actually look good and also frees a lot of time, since even making my crappy coder art is very slow. Out of the Jam games, two have actually even ended up as getting published outside of LD: first Super Snowball Roller Mayhem 2000 in LD34, and second Ignis Universia, for which I'm actually working on a sequel right now!\n\n![1524-3efebc7ec22ddb2ae0cfba59152df603.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/8b7\/z\/48ba0.jpg)\n![capsule_main-cg.png](\/\/\/raw\/8b7\/z\/48ba1.png)\n\nFor several years now, I've strived to play and review as many games as possible, with 100 as my yet unattainable goal. I think my personal best is around 70? The main reason for that being that I obviously like getting feedback myself, but there are always some gems to be found. To be able to play as many games as possible, I really, really, prefer playing web games for several reasons:\n\n* It's the fastest way, as I don't need to download, unzip, etc.\n* I'm antsy about running random stuff downloaded from the net \n* They run on all (desktop) platforms \n\nLast point is a bit moot now since I'm on a Windows PC, but I used a Mac exclusively for years, which prevented me from playing anything that wasn't native or web. So, if you're using Unity or other engine that supports WebGL exports, **always make a WebGL version**. There's really no excuse. Does your built-in-a-weekend jam game *really* need a feature not available in WebGL? Yeah, I thought so too. \n\nAlso, I still think [we should have a story category](https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/47\/hoperemember\/we-need-a-story-category)!\n","meta":[],"path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/50\/$278736\/looking-back-and-ranting-just-a-bit","parents":[1,5,9,276397,278736],"love":7,"love-timestamp":"2022-03-29T19:34:05Z","comments":0,"_wayback":{"timestamp":"20220329203038","url":"https:\/\/api.ldjam.com\/vx\/node2\/get\/280833+280824+280807+278953+280722+280705+280689+280682+280672+280650?author&parent&superparent"}},"node_metadata":{"n_key":"278953","n_urlkey":"294298","n_parent":"278736","n_path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/50\/$278736\/looking-back-and-ranting-just-a-bit","n_slug":"looking-back-and-ranting-just-a-","n_type":"post","n_subtype":"","n_subsubtype":"","n_author":"1976","n_created":"1648137854","n_modified":"1648576516","n_version":"860716","n_status":"WAYBACK"},"source_url":"https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/50\/$278736\/looking-back-and-ranting-just-a-bit","text":"So it's LD50! That's... a lot. My first Ludum Dare was #16 (yes, I had to check) waaaaay back in December 2009 (yup, got that from Wikipedia) and looking back at the archive website, it looks like I did pretty well too, with #12 in Fun! Sure, there were \"only\" 121 participants but it wasn't a bad start. \n\n![1524-f5b9c26119bf83d1871aaa1e7d672b3d.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/8b7\/z\/48b9f.png)\n\nFunny thing, I actually ended up making the game in just around four hours. My original, much more ambitious idea involved building a level from tiles similar to Carcassonne, but I never figured out what the game would be, exactly. On Sunday evening, I just scratched that and quickly whipped up a game based on a very old (mid-90s) DOS game I had started but never finished, where you explore a maze while your torch slowly dies down. I had no time to polish it and it just used Unity's primitives and didn't have any sounds, but it managed (accidentally, I might add) to get a couple of things right:\n\n* It was super simple to learn\n* It was short\n\nThose two are important pillars for LD success, I feel. Even though I did got them right at first, I did not do so well on all the the subsequent tries. All in all, from 2010 to 2014, I only managed to finish two games out of 8 I started. Out of those two, one was kind of a Civilization clone with an evolution theme (LD24), which was pretty ambitious and kinda worked out ok too. \n\nFrom 2015 on I started a working in a team. That helped me make games that actually look good and also frees a lot of time, since even making my crappy coder art is very slow. Out of the Jam games, two have actually even ended up as getting published outside of LD: first Super Snowball Roller Mayhem 2000 in LD34, and second Ignis Universia, for which I'm actually working on a sequel right now!\n\n![1524-3efebc7ec22ddb2ae0cfba59152df603.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/8b7\/z\/48ba0.jpg)\n![capsule_main-cg.png](\/\/\/raw\/8b7\/z\/48ba1.png)\n\nFor several years now, I've strived to play and review as many games as possible, with 100 as my yet unattainable goal. I think my personal best is around 70? The main reason for that being that I obviously like getting feedback myself, but there are always some gems to be found. To be able to play as many games as possible, I really, really, prefer playing web games for several reasons:\n\n* It's the fastest way, as I don't need to download, unzip, etc.\n* I'm antsy about running random stuff downloaded from the net \n* They run on all (desktop) platforms \n\nLast point is a bit moot now since I'm on a Windows PC, but I used a Mac exclusively for years, which prevented me from playing anything that wasn't native or web. So, if you're using Unity or other engine that supports WebGL exports, **always make a WebGL version**. There's really no excuse. Does your built-in-a-weekend jam game *really* need a feature not available in WebGL? Yeah, I thought so too. \n\nAlso, I still think [we should have a story category](https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/47\/hoperemember\/we-need-a-story-category)!\n","title":"Looking Back and Ranting (Just a Bit)","wayback_source":{"timestamp":"20220329203038","url":"https:\/\/api.ldjam.com\/vx\/node2\/get\/280833+280824+280807+278953+280722+280705+280689+280682+280672+280650?author&parent&superparent"}}