Ludum Dare 37 – D4XX-Post Mortem

Ludum Dare 37 theme “One Room”.

POST MORTEM
I finished my Ludum Dare but not like expected with a little game or a prototype. I finished with some technical lessons learned and big learnings on how to not participate in the Ludum Dare contest. On the other side I planned this weekend a new kitchen with my wive, selected a stroller and relocated a whole carboot of things to our new flat. (Yes this is all Non Ludum Dare 😉 and this is only some of the things I did instead of LD37.

I still believe in the feeling I had/found/got on my first LD. It is possible to create something and it will be such a great experience in all aspects of game development (Including and most important the “improvements and learnings” you / I get / got)

What happened LD37?
Like mentioned in the beginning I had tooo much things to do on this weekend. I blocked the LD37 weekend month ago, but… 😉

What I missed…
I did not chat or find any new friends / colleagues due to lack of time.
I did not find partners for a team. (I did not search because I had so much appointments)

Free text…
Avoid the “lack of time” is my MAIN learning. If I participate I have to mentally prepare myself for the weekend and I have to commit 100% to the LD contest. Other things have to be avoided on this weekend. Send my wive to a wellness weekend 😉 When I started this year – I already was some hours behind my initial planning which messed up my whole further planning and gave me a bad feeling from the first moment of participating…

Learnings:
Commitment:
100% commitment to LudumDare (No other appointments on this weekend)
Participate in the Jam instead the harder Compo for a “better” feeling. (Time n stuff)

Learn from others / the past:
I have not read through my old LD Post Mortems / Learnings … READ the OLD stuff… Todo – where is my old Blog on LD– and LD-2?

Theme:
If I do not find a good idea for the theme… Skip the contest.
Collect ideas on voting round 3 – then decide on final theme – then stick to the idea

The third round on the voting is already a good starting point to decide IF or IF NOT an idea for an theme exists. This year I noted down “VR Room” for the “One Room” theme. (Upfront) After final decision on the theme I switched several times my ideas connected to this theme. I started with “A VR Game idea” – Liked the “room is getting smaller and smaller” idea but then I spoke with to many non GameDevs who pointed out, that the game idea will lead to claustrophobic “bad feelings”. After a short prototype I switched and … and switched and… and…

Broadcast and Milestones:
Record your screen and maybe broadcast. At least to show your milestones. (External motivation 😉
Maybe it is a good idea to join a team – So the “group” will give some extra motivation to finish the work.

No experiments – But yes create ONE prototype:
Do not use the contest as “learning sessions for tutorials” or new technics or …
Do not create “LevelGenerators”… Instead Hardcode and code Quick & Dirty.
If you stick somewhere – skip it for the moment and then forever / after the contest. (PROTOTYPE)

Other:
Get in contact with other participants / teams / programmers etc…
TeamUp
Read through the other teams logs to get more knowledge.

Other LD37 games I like:
An astronaut… Very good idea!

Ludum Dare 37

More Ludum Dare 37 posts:
http://www.megagem.net/?s=LD37

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