I'm really glad I did this Ludum Dare :) It was my fourth time, and as usual it was a lot of fun. I did it on my own, at home for once (I used to go hang out with other jammers for company the previous times). It went pretty well! I never do these post mortem things but maybe it'll help someone to see how my jam went.

The game

The game is called PowerPlay, and it pits you as a rugbyman against a vast army of rugbybots, in a game of rugby. Well you have to get the ball on the other side, but apart from that the bots don't seem to care much about the actual rules. You can give it a try there : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/power-play

Here's the trailer for it :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cTizkWPeKM

Tools

As for most of my game projects these days (and for the past 3 years) I've used mostly Unity, Photoshop, Cinema4D and After Effects. I'm used to these, so I know what I can and can't do and how long it'll roughly take. I've also tried a few new softwares (new to me at least), which in retrospect is a bit stupid as I keep doing that same mistake, and it costs me valuable time. At the same time it's a fun occasion to learn some new things. I've experimented with 3DCoat this time, only to realize that even if it simplifies the texturing process, I'm still really bad at it. I've played with the newly released AssetForge, which is really promising but I've found the current lack of undo and copy paste really frustrating for anything other than small objects.

What went well

• I finished early. I had a finished product at the end of the second day. I used half of the last day to do some more playtests and tweak the difficulty ramp, and submitted early.

• I planned a good scope, the game that came out was pretty much what I had in mind at the beginning of the jam (which is a first for me, I usually branch out at some point). The only two things I didn't add were highscore saves and achievements. I wanted to support web and native builds and was worried I'd run into trouble with the save paths and stuff. Too risky even with a few hours ahead of me, and for little value for a jam.

• I used github, just like for all my other projects, and creating issues, crossing them off, creating small milestones and planning the next day or the next few hours is something that really keeps me going.

So many closed issues!

I started using Github's issues years ago as a team but found out that even when working solo it's a great way to free brain space for more useful stuff.

• I used the recently released Cinemachine for the camera. It took some getting used to as it's not very well documented right now, especially the API side, but once you get how it works, this thing's amazing. I still don't understand a few aspects of it, like how you can't just move a camera around via its handles, but it's great nonetheless.

• I did some AI and random stuff and it went well. Every gamejam I make, I try to remind myself of two rules : no random, no AI. I managed to break these rules everytime so far, and this one is no exception. It's just so fun to code! I'm really proud of my wall-avoiding AI this time. It's only 10 lines of code but it does the trick I think.

It's basically just two raycasts and if one hits something the bot will turn in the other direction. Kind of like an insect's antenna I guess. Don't take my word for it I know nothing about insects.

• I didn't burn out. I managed to eat and shower twice a day, got 6-7 hours of sleep each night, wasn't too anxious or bored. I'm pretty exhausted now but these 3 days went alright.

• The music is awesome. I didn't make it myself so I guess I'm allowed to say it. As for my past gamejams, my Uniform Motion's bandmates helped me with the soundtrack, and I've been listening to it on repeat (for testing reasons) and it hasn't driven me mad yet.

What could have gone better

• I lost a lot of time modeling stuff. I'm not really good at it, and I didn't plan too well. For example, I modeled an entire stadium, and it's barely visible in game. The thing even has a roof. I left it there thinking maybe there'd be a camera effect to show it. Yeah right. Plus it's super ugly.

2 hours poorly spent

• I could have used more testing time. I'm not satisfied with the current difficulty curve, but tweaking that takes ages and there just wasn't enough time. That's the really hard part when working alone on such a short deadline I guess. I managed to get feedback from friends on various Slacks, but it's not the same as having someone on the team that can test builds regularly. Maybe next time I'll force someone to play through my bug ridden builds :)

• I wasn't very good at self promotion. I really like creating stuff but posting wip shots, writing blog posts to showcase the stuff is really boring for me, so once again, I could really have improved on that.

So yeah, I'm really glad I did another Ludum Dare. Now I can't wait for the next one. I think in the meantime I'll keep working on PowerPlay. I think it has potential and could be really fun on mobile.

Oh and if you want to rate the game (I really could use the feedback), here's the link again : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/power-play/