Back on Saturday, @jabsatz, @fedegelo, @pancho, and I were working on our game, Kerene. We were about 20 hours in or so and morale was running critically low. We had just finished working on most of the coding, but still, we had basically no game to speak of.

The game didn't have a defined aesthetic, so we still had no music and no sound effects. The game wasn't yet balanced at all, so the weapons were not satisfying to use. The bijillion tweaks needed to make a platformer feel responsive weren't there yet, so the game felt clunky as all hell.

We only had a basic map to check how the game played. I was in charge of designing the maps and must admit, I had lost all faith in the game being any fun at that point. I felt like there where no available tools to make fun content out of what we had.

Luckily, many things happened in quick succession: @pancho forced us to define the aesthetic identity of the game, and then went on to create all of the music in less than 24 hours. @fedegelo worked like a madman to make all the small improvements needed to make the game feel responsive. Also, he implemented some key features that where still missing. @jabsatz also worked on the code and the art, implementing features and fixing bugs left and right, or whatever programmers do. But most importantly, he was 100% sure, the game had potential and could work with 24 hours or so of polish, so he pushed us all to have faith in the game.

Seeing everyone in the team trying to make the damn thing work, I resigned myself to keep on working on the levels and balance of the game as much as possible.

A few hours went by. As soon as I was done bottlenecking the rest of the team by taking my sweet time making some levels, we begun testing Kerene. @jabsatz was right, in about 12 hours the game went from being just plain boring to actually being fun (at least for us). I know everyone looks at their own baby and goes "you're beautiful", but this is not the first time we make a game together. I tested this game for hours, and to my absolute surprise, actually had fun while doing so.

In the end we where able to make something that we are really proud of. Don't get me wrong, it ain't no perfect game, but you don't always find the thing that you made to be fun.

Not only would I like to invite everyone to play Kerene (predictable plug is predictable): https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/kerene

I also want to leave the reader with two things we as a team learned during this Jam:

1) Define your game's aesthetic identity early on.

2) Don't pay much attention to the voices in your head saying "this game is not worth any more effort". Polish and hope (even if not your own) can go a long way.

Special thanks to: admurin for the awesome sprites, we would be nothing without your rats and slimes: https://admurin.itch.io/enemy-galore

Alfredo Casero due to special, argentine & easter egg related reasons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlCnemO91tM

Thank you for reading, keep on making games! @nahuelito - Glassbrick