Failure Anonymous

Fifteen minutes before the deadline, I hit “submit.” Only forty-eight hours earlier, my game wasn’t even a concept. The entire process was rushed, with compromises at every step to meet the impending deadline. I wasn’t satisfied with the end result. The graphics were rushed, with many textures made in the last hour. While the map had roadways and buildings, there were vast empty spaces, and it lacked charm and polish. For two days, I watched my feature list shrink and my bug list grow, as time constraints forced me to cut planned mechanics to fix broken ones. Had I been working under any other circumstances I would be content hiding my game from view. Instead, submitting that game was one of my proudest moments this summer.I didn’t procrastinate, despite only starting two days prior. Ludum Dare describes itself as an “accelerated online game development event,” also known as a “game jam.” Three times each year, over two thousand developers, novice and professional alike, create their own games from scratch in 48 hours, incorporating a theme chosen by the community. Designing a quality video game typically takes a team of professional developers far longer. For a student like me, developing a game that’s even playable in a...