Salutations,

First Ludum Dare, First post, First “completed” project.

Strange how a simple competition can bring about so much more within a person. (Yes. I want to be better than everyone else .)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition describes competition as the opposite of cooperation.

This may be true in the primitive sense but I believe it falls short of the true meaning.  Competition creates a drive to achieve.

Would I or many others like me have completed a project had it not been for the all powerful Ludum Dare competition.  I think not.  In fact, from what I had seen from previous posts, this was the first Dare for a lot of people.  Maybe we didn’t get done exactly what we wanted from our games but what does it matter when we all have become a part of something much bigger than ourselves.  Games: Meant to be created, shared, played and enjoyed.  What a concept to have all art forms bundled into one interactive experience that is, for lack of a better word, transcendent.

We may not have worked together on our individual projects but we have created a community that makes games the way games should be made.  Independent game development has created something much larger than any major game developer could ever accomplish.   This is counter culture my friends and we should all be proud.

Anyway, I wanted to say a few things about what went on throughout this competition.  See, I have been keeping up with Ludum Dare for the past year or so and was very adamant about entering.  Every time the day came I said to my self “well you don’t really have the knowledge to create a game so quickly” and so I would go on with life not caring a lick that I had just opted out of another chance to compete.  After some practice and a lot of studying I felt I was ready to enter.  Of course something came up that was much more important and yet again I did not enter.  Finally when my schedule is clear and I feel I have at least enough skills to come up with something I decide that this will be the one.  To no avail, I find my self doing other things.

Ludum Dare 28: Im ready.

You Only Get One..     WTF!

Well not what I planned for but I guess I will just have to be creative. (Isn’t that what its about)

Upset over the theme I slept. Waking up to no further ideas.  Well a couple but nothing worthy enough for my aspirations. Aspirations? This is a two day comp what do you expect. Okay Ill take my best Idea and run with it.

First things first.  Lets get the technical side down and work on aesthetics later.  Some programming goes on…

Shoot! A problem. Well I might as well give up cause I only have 26 hours left and this will take me days to solve. Yet I press on…

Hell Yeah! I fixed it. Except now I have a new problem.  Well now I really am gonna give up. For some stupid reason I press on..

Okay 8 hours to go lets work on some graphics and maybe some sounds.  Woah! This is a lot more involved than I thought. At least I have a sprite and animation.

2 hours left maybe I can come up with some music and sfx for the game.

10 minutes left.  Okay there’s no way I can get any sounds into the game.  I will just zip it and upload.  (Fingers Crossed)

Ahh..now its time to play some games.  Ooh this ones cool..man this one sucks..wow this one is sure to win.

Check comments…………..Theres a bug!! What? I programmed it perfectly (looking over code…) Oh there’s the problem.  Reupload.

Check comments…………still a bug. Okay I give up. Maybe I am just not cut out for this.  (Depression) Even though I had blindly looked over so many previous dares this one was upsetting because I spent almost 2 full days working on it.  Im not sure I would have spent that much time consecutively on anything.  What is going on here? (Checking my link…) #&!* I uploaded the wrong file.  Lets Hope it works now.

Yes we are competing but we are also influencing each other to create something that can be enjoyed by everyone.

Thanks Ludum Dare for providing an outlet for creativity,

Mandala