We are already tired cause it's 3 o'clock in the morning. But that's the time for the best ideas. 4 minutes left. Bring it on!

This is my second Ludum Dare. So I already knew what to expect and that three days is very short periode of time to create a game. But holy moly. This time we were realy close to miss an entry.

Last time I created a game togeather with two of my colleagues of the art department. So I was the single programmer on the project. It was close, but we managed to create a fun game in time. I work as professional developer and most of the time I use Unity. Therefore I usualy have a pretty good idea of how long it takes me to implement features. But this time I underestimated the effort it takes to create a playable game. Especially for a single programmer.

I teamed up with my girlfriend @ingo-holle who took over the art part of creating a game. We live in Germany so we stayed up till 3 am in the night on Friday to wait for the theme to be revealed. At 3 pm the next day we knew the kind of game we wanted to create: A little life simulation where every action the player chooses to perform pays its price in the from of lifetime.

We quickly had some ideas of how the game should look like and even better ideas for the type of actions the player is able to choose from. So I launched Unity and started to code the base of the game. By the time we went to bed there was not a single UI Element or graphic of any kind on the screen. But what's to worry about. Still two days left.

After an insufficient amount of sleep, I finished the game logic and started implementing the UI. I am a perfectionist so I wanted the UI to be responsive and mobile friendly. This might be good for professional work but not for a game jam. Takes to much time.

At 3 am I went to bed. Now I started to worry. Only one day left, a lot of work to do and my job would cost me 8 hours the next day. I was right to be worried. Even though I coded on the way to work and the whole evening and night it still was 2 am until I had my first build.

In the end I looked more like a zombie than a human being. But we managed to finish a playable version of our game in time. With less features than I hoped (random events would have improved the gameplay quite a bit) and less polishing but playable.

So. What are my learnings: - Take a day off from work. One realy needs all the the possible - For a game jam quick and dirty is allowed. Even though my developer heart bleeds. - Think in a smaller scope. I already knew that before. But this time again the gameplay was to complex to code in three days - Beeing the single developer includes not only coding the game logic but also implementing the UI and other stuff. This takes time! - Don't get stuck by the details. Choosing the gender of the character might be nice but is no game changer!

None the less I had a lot of fun participating in the 44th Ludum dare. See you in October and don't forget to play our game (https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/whats-your-lifetime-value). Bye.

Black Lambert

Who could say no to these eyes? Help this poor guy to escape the pool and release him from the misery we put him in.

We had a lot of fun creating the game and we want to share it with you. Feel free to play, rate and comment Stuck in a pool!