Some background: I did two game jams 8 years ago when I had dreams of becoming a video game designer, but I fell into the role of pixel artist both times because I knew how to do that better than the other guys on my team. I'd been kicking myself for never actually making a game ever since, eventually giving up on that dream.

After a lot of encouragement from my friends, I decided to challenge myself with Ludum Dare 47- to make a game all by myself for the first time ever, using a language I never learned, in a platform I'd never used; Unity. I thought it'd go terribly and I'd end up with some unfinished buggy scene at the end of the jam. I figured there was no way I'd have anything to show after 72 hours, let alone 48.

But by Saturday evening I had a basic gameplay loop for a top down 2D shooter! I think the word I'm looking for is shocked? I can't believe I made all of this.

I know there is a lot of stuff that I could add- more bills spawning over time, I wanted to add bombs like "Netflix" and "Night Out" that would freeze the character for a few moments if you ran into them and deduct a fee. I also was dead set on adding music, and then about 3 hours before submissions ended I started trying to upload my game to itch.io and the source code to gitHub and it just went terribly wrong for a few hours.

Lesson learned: next time I'll set up the github from the start so I'm not in a crunch to upload the whole thing at the end of the event.

The most magical moment for me was when I went over to a friends house last night and they wanted to play my game. I proceeded to watch someone smile and laugh at something I made. I'm absolutely gobsmacked.

Anyway, I'm just absolutely thrilled that I was able to do this- but it is sort of a scary moment too. Now I know I can make a game if I put my head down and do it. What's there to stop me from actually making games like I told myself I couldn't so long ago?

Play and rate my compo entry Millenniloop here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/millenniloop.

Thank you guys for playing my game, and thank you to the team at Ludum Dare for helping me finally finally do this.