Welcome to my first Ludum Dare ever. I know that doesn't mean much given that there were nearly 3,000 entries and my game is but a single one among them all, but damn am I proud.

I've been wanting to do a game jam for a few years but it never seemed like a good time. I was either too busy, too lazy or too afraid to make an attempt, but this time was different. I had just completed a half-marathon and was feeling pretty motivated or at least more so than usual, and with that, I embarked on my journey.

I had a few goals for the jam: 1. Learn something new 2. Make everything myself 3. Submit it regardless of how far I get

I am happy to say that I accomplished all of my goals and created something that resembles a game. It can be played, hopefully, and enjoyed. Though I am not too concerned about how the game ranks, I am very excited for some good feedback that I can use to improve my next game jam game.

The premise of my game is as follows. You are a pirate sailing the high seas looking for business opportunities, and, as a pirate, that means pillage and plunder. You come across a bay filled with fishing boats and merchant ships and with no navy in sight you get to work collecting your booty. However, as you start slaying the innocents and taking their hard earned treasure the Royal Navy is sent to deal with you. At first, only a few ships can be spared since you aren't a big threat but as you become an even larger thorn in the empire's side. More and more of the navy is sent to give you a royal beating fitting for the pirate scum you are.

To make the game I chose Unity3d as the game engine and Krita for the art. I had planned on using Audacity for the sounds but never made it that far. I was somewhat familiar with Unity but I never did much more than dabble from time to time, so I knew going in that I would spend a good chunk of time learning the tool. Once the jam started most of my first full day was spent reading the documentation and watching youtube videos, but with the jam's time constraint I feel like that time was incredibly productive. Mostly because I could only learn enough to solve the problem at hand before needing to move on to the next task. In fact, I was quite surprised with the sheer amount of stuff I was able to learn in such a short amount of time and feel like I have a solid foundation from which to move forward.

Unity wasn't the only thing I had to learn, but if you've seen my game you might be surprised to hear that I am not an artist...I know you're shocked. I'll give you a minute while you try to regain your composure. Now, with that being said, I like to think I flexed my artistic muscle this weekend and created something that looks half-decent. Most likely because it was all equally bad and so it created a consistent look and feel. I do hope to improve though and fully intend to make my own assets going forward to get some much-needed practice.

This was the very first thing I created and I intended it to be a placeholder while I worked on getting the basic gameplay off the ground, but I was never able to find the time to recreate it. The funny thing is, I was trying pretty hard when I created that ship. I choose to look on the bright side though...I can only go up from here. :)

My third attempt at drawing a ship. I think this one turned out much better and I am quite proud of my adolescent level drawing abilities. Look out mom and dad but this one is going up on the fridge.

This whole experience taught me quite a bit and I can honestly say that I am addicted to game jams and fully intend to compete in as many as I can. The sense of accomplishment I feel right now insane and I can't wait to see where I go from here.

If you are interested you can find my jam entry here. https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/arr-a-generic-pirate-game