...win Ludum Dare, I said.

I was only joking about the "win" part, but I still set Ludum Dare for holiday homework. I think I might do this every year, I've had a blast!

Anyway, I would be a pretty horrible teacher if I asked my students to do something I wasn't prepared to do myself, so I geared up and got more game made in 3 days than I normally ever get done in a month. In fact, this is the only game I've ever really finished. Ever.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/the-torches-are-burning-low

My jamming went pretty smoothly, although everything took about twice as long as planned. Also, I had an epic fight with Unity's lighting model to get hundreds of realtime lights working together and dimmable at runtime.

I thought I would talk a little about how I got so much maze done in the time. I'm sure there are plenty of level creators out there, but for the jam I wrote a really quick and dirty Unity editor script that post-processes a texture to produce a level object built from prefabs.

The script is frankly embarrassing, but it got the job done. And I got to do my level design in GIMP.

And just in case you were wondering: the game is winnable.

So far, I have found at least one game made by one of my students. It's pretty awesome. Whether students or not, I know a lot of games here were made by people new to game design.

When you give feedback, please remember: * Be kind * Give practical, constructive feedback

I'm terrible with Blender, so I thought I'd get in the groove with a little vertex modifying. Thanks NASA for the Blue Marble. Unity particles are way nicer than Blender particles, but I got the job done. Sort of.

Also some advice, (mostly for myself). Don't panic! And always know where your towel is.

This is my second Ludum Dare, and this time I will be working on clear story, clear connection to the theme, and actually having some sound/music in there. A working game would be nice, too.

I'm going with my idea #4, which is not my normal style of gameplay. This one is going to require a LOT of scripting.

I'm also going to use the lightweight pipeline for the first time.

What could possibly go wrong?

I've rewritten a huge amount of my original game, but the gameplay is almost identical. I'm still planning on producing a post-Jam version with updated gameplay, but it was immediately obvious that the original graphics needed a performance boost.

So, custom shader time! I have learned a new skill. I have also learned a lot more about Unity's bleeding-edge features, and the limitations of CustomRenderTexture. So, I'm really proud to have created a version that works with WebGL, and gets excellent framerates on any half-decent GPU.

Other fixes: * Deliver a planet by selecting it and clicking the button (you can still drag instead) * Axial tilt has an effect on ice distribution, causing a broader temperate zone * Orbit distance is linked to the lighting for visual feedback * Many minor bugfixes

Watch that ice melt away!

Come and try it here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/planetary-construction