{"author_link":"\/users\/podrez","author_name":"Podrez","author_uid":"podrez","comments":[],"epoch":1776773814,"event":"LD59","format":"md","ldjam_node_id":431306,"likes":4,"metadata":{"p_key":"96334","p_author":"Podrez","p_authorkey":"1430208","p_urlkey":"311974","p_title":"Everyone is sharing their experience from this jam \u2014 so I\u2019ll share mine too.","p_cat":"LDJam ","p_event":"LD59","p_time":"1776773814","p_likes":"4","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":"1430208","us_name":"Podrez","us_username":"podrez","event_start":"1776470400","event_key":"113","event_name":"Ludum Dare 59"},"node":{"_collation":{"body_sanitizer":"TextUtils::SanitizeHTML via existing importer","event":"LD59","removed_author":false},"_superparent":424249,"_trust":1,"author":430208,"body":"![Untitled-8.png](\/\/\/raw\/080\/96\/z\/71eff.png)\n\nThis was my first Ludum Dare, but \u0434\u0430\u043b\u0435\u043a\u043e not my first jam overall. And, strangely enough, this one turned out to be one of the easiest.\n\nUsually I participate with a team and friends, but this time I worked solo (yes, using assets - thank god for Sketchfab), and I expected it to be harder. But in the end, I finished the game about 16 hours before the deadline. And I even slept relatively \u043d\u043e\u0440\u043c\u0430\u043b\u044c\u043d\u043e - about 6 hours per day. Honestly, I thought I wouldn\u2019t make it, but everything turned out pretty smooth. And I\u2019m actually happy with the result. The game turned out cool.\n\nFor comparison: once I participated in a two-week jam and slept a total of about 50\u201360 hours over the whole period. That was really hard.\n\n![3.png](\/\/\/raw\/080\/96\/z\/71f00.png)\n\nActually, I noticed this amazing little rat a long time ago and wanted to do something with it, but the idea came together during the jam. Rats are associated with mazes for me, and I also wanted to experiment with unusual controls and with deception - and voil\u00e0: Rat Signal.\n\nOf course, there are always some problems. The main one, especially in Unreal Engine, is the build size. No matter how you optimize, getting below ~500 MB is almost impossible. Well, I mean, you can - if you convert everything to 128\u00d7128 textures and that\u2019s it.\n\nOn top of that, it tends to increase audio file sizes several times. To reduce everything, you need to compress things in a very specific way, but that\u2019s definitely not something you want to deal with during a 3-day jam.\n\nAnd yeah - this time I probably broke all the rules of OOP \ud83d\ude04\nI tried to encapsulate almost all the logic in one place so I wouldn\u2019t get confused.\n\n![1.png](\/\/\/raw\/080\/96\/z\/71f01.png)\n\nAnd surprisingly - it worked.\nAbout 70% of the logic fits on this one screen.\n\nSo yeah, that\u2019s my experience. Not the most stressful jam in my life - and maybe that\u2019s why it\u2019s one of the most enjoyable ones. And if you want to make games for fun, feel free to reach out, we can come up with something\n\nWell, you spend a little time, go through this game. Thank you","comments":1,"comments-timestamp":"2026-04-21T12:26:40Z","created":"2026-04-21T12:14:24Z","files":[],"files-timestamp":0,"id":431306,"love":4,"love-timestamp":"2026-04-21T13:01:43Z","meta":[],"modified":"2026-04-21T13:01:43Z","name":"Everyone is sharing their experience from this jam \u2014 so I\u2019ll share mine too.","node-timestamp":"2026-04-21T12:29:21Z","parent":430209,"parents":[1,5,9,424249,430209],"path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/59\/rat-signal\/everyone-is-sharing-their-experience-from-this-jam-so-ill-share-mine-too","published":"2026-04-21T12:16:54Z","scope":"public","slug":"everyone-is-sharing-their-experience-from-this-jam-so-ill-share-mine-too","subsubtype":"","subtype":"","type":"post","version":1367122},"node_metadata":{"n_key":"431306","n_urlkey":"311974","n_parent":"430209","n_path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/59\/rat-signal\/everyone-is-sharing-their-experience-from-this-jam-so-ill-share-mine-too","n_slug":"everyone-is-sharing-their-experi","n_type":"post","n_subtype":"","n_subsubtype":"","n_author":"430208","n_created":"1776773664","n_modified":"1776776503","n_version":"1367122","n_status":"WAYBACK"},"source_url":"https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/59\/rat-signal\/everyone-is-sharing-their-experience-from-this-jam-so-ill-share-mine-too","text":"![Untitled-8.png](\/\/\/raw\/080\/96\/z\/71eff.png)\n\nThis was my first Ludum Dare, but \u0434\u0430\u043b\u0435\u043a\u043e not my first jam overall. And, strangely enough, this one turned out to be one of the easiest.\n\nUsually I participate with a team and friends, but this time I worked solo (yes, using assets - thank god for Sketchfab), and I expected it to be harder. But in the end, I finished the game about 16 hours before the deadline. And I even slept relatively \u043d\u043e\u0440\u043c\u0430\u043b\u044c\u043d\u043e - about 6 hours per day. Honestly, I thought I wouldn\u2019t make it, but everything turned out pretty smooth. And I\u2019m actually happy with the result. The game turned out cool.\n\nFor comparison: once I participated in a two-week jam and slept a total of about 50\u201360 hours over the whole period. That was really hard.\n\n![3.png](\/\/\/raw\/080\/96\/z\/71f00.png)\n\nActually, I noticed this amazing little rat a long time ago and wanted to do something with it, but the idea came together during the jam. Rats are associated with mazes for me, and I also wanted to experiment with unusual controls and with deception - and voil\u00e0: Rat Signal.\n\nOf course, there are always some problems. The main one, especially in Unreal Engine, is the build size. No matter how you optimize, getting below ~500 MB is almost impossible. Well, I mean, you can - if you convert everything to 128\u00d7128 textures and that\u2019s it.\n\nOn top of that, it tends to increase audio file sizes several times. To reduce everything, you need to compress things in a very specific way, but that\u2019s definitely not something you want to deal with during a 3-day jam.\n\nAnd yeah - this time I probably broke all the rules of OOP \ud83d\ude04\nI tried to encapsulate almost all the logic in one place so I wouldn\u2019t get confused.\n\n![1.png](\/\/\/raw\/080\/96\/z\/71f01.png)\n\nAnd surprisingly - it worked.\nAbout 70% of the logic fits on this one screen.\n\nSo yeah, that\u2019s my experience. Not the most stressful jam in my life - and maybe that\u2019s why it\u2019s one of the most enjoyable ones. And if you want to make games for fun, feel free to reach out, we can come up with something\n\nWell, you spend a little time, go through this game. Thank you","title":"Everyone is sharing their experience from this jam \u2014 so I\u2019ll share mine too.","wayback_source":[]}