So the theme voting for LD48 is up, and as usual there’s a whole bunch of interesting ones but nothing that really jumps out and grabs me. And a whole bunch of others which could be quite horrible to do (like “Film Noir”, which is a nice idea but would be very content heavy and hard to do well in the short time allowed). I try not to think too hard about the themes at this point because I can never guess which theme will actually be chosen, and it’s more fun to leave it until the contest starts anyway.
Goals
Like most LD48h competitions in the past, I’m going to set myself a few personal goals for this time around:
- Something playable.
- Something fun. Always tricky.
- Something accessible. Gameplay and controls need to be explained simply so people “get it”.
- Cross-platform. Windows, Mac and Linux.
- Proper menu flow (main menu, in game, game over, repeat). Probably too ambitious for 48hours, so might get cut.
- A more complete series of progress screenshots, rather than just a couple near the begining as usual.
Things I won’t be caring about:
- Sound. A massive time sink for me, it takes hours to get a single sound effect right.
- Fancy graphics. I’ll be on a laptop with just a basic graphics card, so no fancy pixel shader magic.
- Code elegence. Hack hack hack!
- My general state of health.
Things I’ll be trying to avoid:
- Spending too long creating sprites.
- Leaving something vital to the last couple of hours like last time (level creation).
- Burning the midnight oil on the first day and ending up wasting a good chunk of the second day because I got up at midday.
I’ll be keeping a journal over at the official site along with the other contestants, and probably posting a potted summary here after the competition is over.