My last LD was for #38 and I worked on the game on a handheld (Pocket C.H.I.P.) and Pico-8 while at work on the weekend. This caused a lot of stress even though I was able to finish.
This time I had the weekend off and was able to dive in right from the beginning. I knew I wanted to make a game using LUA and something other than Unity as I am trying to move away from it (it's nice, but doesn't work for what I do). Two days before the jam I had started to use LOVE2D, but did not know enough to make anything with it so I ended up working in Pico-8 (https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php) which is a self-contained game suite designed around the idea of "forced limitations" and makes a very good prototyping system.
Now the theme itself was one I voted for, but I had actually already started designing games in my head around another theme I was hoping for. So when the theme was announced I ended up kind of stuck in my head on a certain idea that wasn't fitting the theme. I was streaming my production for a bit and a lot of ideas were thrown around and I started to build the framework (literally the picture frame) of a management or adventure game, but quickly lost interest and stopped working on it.
After that I took a break for about 12 hours. Streamed some other games, and just sat and thought about what to do. I ended up going with an old idea I had that fit the theme well: Zombie Chess. After that it was pretty downhill as Chess itself is a very structured game, but doesn't require you to have any real limitations. Once I had the board drawn, the pieces set up, the turns, and the ability to move pieces around the board the only thing I had to add was some rules for how the game played; how zombie chess pieces were made and a winning state.
Overall the entire process was smooth, felt good, and I learned a few new things about LUA I didn't know before. In fact, the entire process probably took less than 15 hours of actual art and coding to complete.
I don't feel there was anything I would have done differently. If I were to do more it would have been to add some kind of AI to the game, but since that is currently way outside my skillset I don't think I could have done so even if I used the entire 48 hrs. Without an AI the only other things I could have added would be move limitations (as most digital chess games have) and some special chess moves. However, there are a LOT of these and I'm only away of about two.
Still, I think as a prototype to see if the game works this was a great Jam entry and if I were to beef it up to be more like the classic BattleChess or similar it would make a very interesting game.
