What went right:

Illustration -- Surprisingly, I got some not-awful art this time around (compared to last time). As I was creating the assets I thought “huh, maybe I should try doing some shading”. Turns out, shading is the 20% of effort that gets you 80% of the results. Happy surprise there!

What went wrong:

Time management -- Yeah...I didn't spend enough time working on the game to make it shine. There are still a handful of features I wish I could add – music being the biggest – but not enough for me to want to enter the jam instead of the compo.

My laptop -- On the flipside, a lot of the wasted time was due to my laptop being part-fossil. During the worst hours, it was overheating after 15 mintues of work and needing 30+ minutes to cool down. The only reason I had anything to submit was that my brother suggested I put ice under the hottest part – that kept it alive long enough to get the critical components implemented.

What I'll do differently next time:

Make a schedule! -- During the early hours of Day 1 (the morning after I got no sleep because I stayed up late not working on the game … okay, that's an exaggeration, I got sleep) I told myself “alright, let's get this core mechanic implemented by lunch time.” Then I went to lunch. Then I finished the mechanic. And went for a bike ride.

Here's a better idea: as soon as I have the idea figured out, write a schedule for all of the features. Include lots of break time, but make sure to get the important stuff on there. It doesn't matter if I tick every single box, I just need a motivating force telling me to get to work.

Closing thoughts

This LD was not a success for me, but it wasn't a total failure either. I learned about shading and procrastinating; I hope to use that when I (hopefully) come back for LD39. Happy gaming!

The game

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/$19528