HUPS Post-Mortem

Hugely Unpopular President Simulator was not one of my better Ludum Dare entries. I didn't decide on the idea until ~16 hours after the theme was announced, and it was only because I absolutely could not think of anything better. (Thought 1: I would have done well to surrender when I realized I wasn't going to get anything finished with as uninspiring a theme as this one.)

I spent most of the first day procrastinating and playing other games because I had no further game ideas beyond the vague "you're a giant Trump stomping around and wrecking the city for points ah-la Goat Simulator" and thusly just wanted to sit and think. At the end of the day, I went through a burst of coding and got the most basic of gameplay elements added. (Thought 2: I would have done well to surrender when I realized that I wasn't going to have any ideas beyond the vague starting one.)

The second day was more of the same. I added the vague outline for abilities, and a patriotic-looking health bar (the background texture is red-white-and-blue, if you haven't seen it yet) to top it off, and then...nothing. (Thought 3: I would have definitely done well to temporarily block Steam from working so I couldn't play more GMod, forcing me to actually think long and hard about how to make a game out of this stupid idea.)

The final day was just adding the basic protesters, packaging the game up, and plopping it on the LD site. (Thought 4: I should've come up with some funny sign ideas beforehand, so I wouldn't have to spend an hour sitting in front of GIMP with the text tool up, staring blankly at the screen waiting for witty ideas to come to me.)

All in all...This was a Ludum Dare I should've probably quit, instead of forcing myself through to the end. The theme was painful, the game idea is probably controversial, and I felt pretty terrible by the end despite having barely spent any time working on things.
What I learned from this? Know when to surrender. I really should have.