“You have to start somewhere,” I think to myself. Even though I’m only at the earliest stage of learning to make games, I figured that LD #27 would be the kick in the pants I needed to make some real progress forward.

Unfortunately, scheduling has me away from my computer(with my family) for most of the competition, so I have no great expectations for my results. However, I am still excited to “get my feet wet.”

Hopefully, the embarrassing results I come up with will help me start some good habits(actually finish projects) and to not be afraid of people seeing work I consider “unfinished”(not perfect).

NERVOUS

EXCITED

-R

I will be trying to use/learn these for the compo

GameMaker

Gimp

Music creator (maybe)

Any advice?

-R

So now my game is done.  After I actually caught some sleep, I was thinking about how it went and all that. Lets start with bad and end on a high note.

10 Seconds

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-27/?action=preview&uid=25802

BAD

Time/Schedule – Although I was concerned with this from the start, it did seem to bite me in the end, nearly causing the game to not be submitted. I did not plan for enough time dedicated to: Sprites, Sound, or Programming issues. My schedule is what really killed me though. With the theme declared in the evening on Friday, I was only able to write in a notebook until Sunday afternoon.( Excluding about 30 minutes on Saturday night) This issue was obviously huge because I have never actually made a game before, so I had no clue how long a simple game like this would take me.

Sprites – I should have made these as stand-ins at the very start. Since most of them were made in the last 2 hours of the jam, I clearly could have put them in at the start.

Sound – Would have been really nice so the player wasn’t so bored had something to listen to while they figured out things.

Programming – Boy oh boy, that was fun. And by fun I mean, frustrating. But those issues are par the course for learning something like that. That time limit really helped me distill a lot of that frustrated feeling into a small time-frame though, so at least I was efficient.

Cues – Some instructions didn’t end up getting written. I completely forgot… >:(

Good

Organization – Having to work on paper for so long in the Jam really allowed me to have a clear plan of attack once I got on the computer.

Idea – My wonderful girlfriend proposed the idea, which was really cool and I think the better of all my other ideas.

Gameplay – Though I think it might be too easy I felt it was important to get to the final “Title” screen.

That feeling – You know. That feeling you get when you have that creative spark and you draw or write it out before it is lost and forgotten. That feeling of overwhelming pressure to do your best. That feeling of accomplishment not when you are finished but while still working, when you know that your idea will come to be. And finally, that feeling of proud satisfaction when you let your idea, now a real thing, into the world for others to see, flaws and all.

I want to thank Ludum Dare and all its members for giving me a reason, and excuse, to finally start and Finish a game. Something that I have wanted to do all my life.

-R

This will be my second Ludum Dare and once again scheduling is a problem. In spite of this I will be giving it a go and, just like last time, will not expect much. I will this time try to operate more within my bounds and see how I do realistically gauging my workload. That said, I love coming up with concepts and designs, so that will probably be where most of my limited time goes.

I’ll be using Gamemaker Studio and Gimp again.

Good luck everyone!

Have Fun!!!

-R