Found out about this particular instance of Ludum Dare (my first) from someone I know in the flesh and blood world (Like, just the physical, nothing weird or anything). I live in regional Australia, where the number of devs I have met in person here can be counted without taking off your shoes, unlike the burgeoning scenes in the capitals. So of course, feeling somewhat like "I oughta actually make a show of it because this is something special", I joined.

It was about 11am on a Saturday morning when the theme kicked off, but the day still had its own obligations. Did a few spots of brainstorming on the idea, but it was all sort of intangible. The part of tuning a radio to identify a signal, that was the straightforward thing. The rest was sort of.. vague.. at least for a while. The map was next, and there was some sort of implication that the two things were connected.

I continued on, vague as ever, and aware of only the general direction for the game side of things. What did come to me early was the idea of the aesthetic. This has been a revelation for me, since it takes me back to my early gamedev days, a strange approximation of the old mid-90s shading, with a little of that Blender cavity highlighting that makes even a humble cube feel rewarding. No secrets here (source code provided, in the ludum dare spirit). The Unreal diamond gradient material node, with varying (even inverse) falloff, and suddenly the whole thing comes together. The rest of the magic there happens with a good ol' pixelisation post-process, using a Cine Camera instead of a regular, and finally, filter all the visuals with a material that overwrites all reds to a quarter (apart from one ending). Also made sounds with the cool sfxr utility, even the weird soundtrack.

I love the project. As it is, for it's potential, and generally.. uhh.. just the vibe of it. It's definitely shlocky. I've been in a dev funk (the bad kind) for a while, but jams often get me out of that.. jam. What's more, it's sort of inspired me.

One of the things I always struggle with, as someone that's done hobby solodev for a few years now, is I am decent at Unreal, but it asks so much to get people to download a huge file, to install on their machine, hoping that they have the time and inclination to take such a leap. UE hasn't done html for a while, and I have been somewhat jealous of the Unity and Godot folks for being able to do what they do in a means that's simpler for people to experience. Not that I haven't tried before, but ugh.

BUT ah!

Having this new small project, unbound from asset libraries and the like, I've decided I can at least investigate both Unity and Godot, to see what I can do to get the equivalent game running in each; a personal Rosetta stone of a project, that can be a fair test to see if I can do it. Letting go of some of my past stuff through this event, means it's a lot easier to stomach dropping the current capabilities... and might help reduce the likelihood of getting bogged down in scope creep and lousy drive to make things more than they need to be. So it's gonna be a weird funky (the good kind) time these next few... however long it takes.

Really appreciate the feedback so far, and just happy to be a part of it.