I’m not sure how interesting this kind of analysis is, but I’m writing it here mostly for self-documentation. Because I’m not a game developer, this is all fairly new to me – it seems important to me to pin down my experiences. Ludum Dare got me hooked on building games, and I’m looking forward to making many more, hopefully improving gradually, and always learning.
So, License to One was an idea for a RTS game where you could only build one of each unit type. It was my first WebGL project, and it’s been fun building it. That said, it didn’t really feel as good as my LD27 entry. From the start, I had motivational problems this time, lots of breaks, little coding. And objectively, I didn’t feel as invested in LtO as I did in “Robots Save the Day” (my LD27), there was no storyline, there were no characters, only an open-ended tutorial level. So I knew right away it wouldn’t come across that great. Still, it’s been a great learning experience, but LtO was far from the best game I could make. It had no soul.
Taking all of this into account, it’s not surprising that my LD28 entry wasn’t exactly highly acclaimed. Here’s how I did, compared to LD27:
Theme: #100 -> #103 | -3
Audio: #248 -> #159 | +89
Graphics: #197 -> #174 | +23
Overall: #115 -> #216 | -101
Humor: #234 -> #267 | -33
Mood: #144 -> #338 | -194
Fun: #181 -> #375 | -194
Innovation: #93 -> #380 | -287
Totaling, that’s a whopping round -700, and very-well deserved I might add. Even the only category where I actually improved, the music, was not exactly great (though better than last time, when reviewers put my “music” in scare quotes!).
What’s left to do? Well, vowing to improve next time, of course! 
The good thing about doing badly in almost all areas is that there’s lots of room to grow.
With the possible exception of the Theme rating, which I think I did better at than what I was judged for, but one has to take into account there seems to be a severe bleed-effect across categories. A game that is well-received will always have better scores across the board, even if it’s not that great in one respect the overall impression will still lift that score. Conversely, I think my relatively low Theme rating was a result of the overall poor game, and not necessarily an accurate reflection of on-topicness. With this correction in mind, I may have had greater advances in Audio (and possibly Graphics) than reflected by the actual score.
In closing, I have to repeat my overwhelming impression of LD27: the number of excellent games produced by you all is staggering, inspiring and generally awesome. I want to thank you for this great experience and for making so many games that greatly entertained me throughout the whole thing.
Overall
Innovation
Fantastic work everyone, I always feel incredibly inspired after playing a bunch of LD games. Counting down the days to the next one!
If people likes shit – give it.