Well, I’m in. I don’t know how much time I’ll actually be able to dedicate to the jam, but I’ve got a laptop and source control, so I can easily work from multiple locations if needed.
I’m nervous, excited, and eager. Is it Friday yet?!
My toolchain is going to be Unity, GIMP for ghetto devart, and Bfxr for SFX. If I need music, I’ll grab something from Incompetech.
I’m in, I’m excited, I have a basic game concept mapped out, and I’m starting to write code. I’m going with a Centipede variant, where you play the Centipede, trying to eat things and grow, while avoiding damage. Two button controls, of course, and all the dev art you could possibly want. 
My first day of Ludum Dare is completed, and I’ve far exceeded my own expectations. Shown is a screenshot of my game from the end of today. The game mechanics are fully operational, and tomorrow I’m just going to be adding sounds and graphical polish.
My original plan was to just enter the Jam. But this is FAR more than I ever expected to have at this point, so I think I’m going to attempt to go for the Compo instead. I’m excited and thrilled with how well everything has come together. I think the key to my success was that I was willing to embrace the idea of putting a twist on a classic game. That let me spend a lot less time figuring out basic mechanics, and focus that time on getting it working well.
So, this was my first ever game jam of any kind, and only the second video game I’ve ever worked on. I have a much larger and ambitious project that I’ve been working on as I learn gamedev, but I wanted something to help get me excited again. And this jam was it. I had an absolute blast, and despite my trepidation coming in, I was able to complete my plans for my game much faster than expected, and deliver basically what I planned to. I even had time to polish up the graphics and give it a really cool retro feel.
And then there’s the comments my game has received since rating started. Which have humbled and flattered me no end. I came into this hoping I didn’t make a pile of garbage. It sounds like people honestly enjoy what I created, and that makes it all worth it, ten times over.
I’ll be taking all the feedback I get, and some plans I have for improving what I built, and polishing the game up over the Christmas holidays, as a present to myself. My first completed and, apparently, GOOD game. Thank you, everyone who has provided feedback, and to all the volunteers who help run this challenge! I’ll definitely be back for another jam in the future, schedule permitting.
My game is Centi-Snake, and if you haven’t tried it yet, please do!
I started the new year off by getting back to my weekly gamedev streams. My original plan for this weekend was to work on my long term project, but I ran into issues even getting it to run, and rather than fight with that on stream, I pulled out my LD34 project, CentiSnake, and started adding some of the items that feedback had indicated would be good changes.
I’m already very close to having the first of those new features added: Custom color controls, allowing gamers to pick the precise color they would prefer. All that remains for that feature is to get it to save the value between play sessions.
I’m also going to add a volume slider, the ability to toggle the retro-CRT effect off, a help screen before new games start, and I’m going to clean up the sounds and graphics a bit more.
I’m excited to see what my actual scores were, and how I ranked, especially since this was my first ever game jam, and only my second game project at all.
I just released a major post-jam update for my Compo entry CentiSnake. I addressed many of the issues brought up to me by people who played it, and it’s complete enough that I consider this a 1.0 release.
Changes:
The game is available for download and/or purchase on Itch.io: CentiSnake 1.0. There may be more updates in the future, but for now it’s time to go back to focussing on my long term project, an ambitious rogue-like spaceship game, inspired by Escape Velocity.
I’d love to hear any feedback you have on my game after my updates, especially if you played the earlier version. If you want to try the earlier version, it is still linked from my Compo page, so you’re welcome to try it out.
I hope people enjoy the game, and I can’t wait for LD35!
I'm in, for my second try at the jam. My previous entry was fun, but I've learned a lot since then. Can't wait to see what the theme is, and dive in.
I'll be using Unity for my engine, and I have Rewired and a bunch of other resources already loaded up and ready to go in a fresh project. :)