My Short Post Mortem: Why I almost failed!

This is the story of why I almost FAILED the Game Jam (after dozens of successful jams)...

But first of all:

Hi! I'm Guilherme, the dev behind the game Mead War Valhalla. I'll not talk about what is the game or how it looks in this post (but you can check my profile and play it if you want! I'll appreciate it a lot!

My goal with this post it to explain the almost "half of the jam FAILURE" in the screenshot.

In the image, you can see the today tome spent on each day, plus a failure time (that I removed from the days. But if you want the accurate work hours number:

• Saturday: 9h 54min
• Sunday: 6h 45min
• Monday: 10h 49min

(If you're curious on how I know those numbers: it's because I recorded everything to make a timelapse later!)

SO what's up with the first 12 hours?

If you know me (you probably don't, but that's fine), you know that I'm a game developer, but also a Game Engine dev (yes, I make engines!) and I do have a "big 3D engine project" called Cave Engine, that is basically done already (you can download it on itch io, make an entire game using it, export and sell it for Windows). But I'm weird and had the brilliant idea to write a new one from scratch this month. The goal for this new one was to allow WebGL export (I really want my next Ludum Dare games to be browser based) and also for me to write THE ENTIRE THING myself.

Let me explain: I did write the entire thing myself in Cave (my big engine that is basically finished already), but I used libraries such as SDL2 (for OS stuff), glm (for math) and Bullet Physics (physics engine). And I wanted to make a new one with no libraries (other than the native ones, of course).

And I did!

If you go to my profile right now and check the pre jam posts, you'll see it.

So what went wrong?

Due to time, I was only able to finish the basics of the engine (3d rendering with shadows and frame buffers, math, OS windows, event handling and VERY basic collision detection and resolution (ish).

In my mind, that was going to be enough to make the game using it... Specially if I managed to create a small project...

But I was wrong...

And only realized that 12+ hours in! 😄

For you to understand it a bit better: When the jam started, my new engine didn't even had a proper "main loop" (it was hardcored in main) and no Asset manager system. Meaning that I would have to write them all DURING THE JAM

And don't get me wrong: I'm fairly good at writing those things fast... but I think that this time I underestimated (a lot) how fast I was going to be able to write them.

Well, after those 12 hours, I actually had ALL those needed systems done...

But still, when I reached the 12+ hour mark, I decided to abandon the engine and create the game in a software that I'm used to it (and I decided to go with UPBGE, I will explain why in a moment).

And why did I still "gave up"?

The thing is that I was already tired af... and engine development is something that always requires testing and being ready for things "now working" when you are not expecting it to break. That's why making a "solid" engine takes years (it took me years to make Cave, I've been creating it since around 2016). And I realized that if I kept going with it, I would, probably, finish the game...

But it would be a VERY mediocre game...

Since I would have to spend MOST of the time writting engine stuff abd very little making the project itself.

I knew that from the beginning, that's why I planned a simple project (proof of it is that I managed to remade the entire game + make it 10 times better in less than half of the jam time).

But Ludum Dare is only ~3 times a year...

And I really like this event! (thank you all involved!)

So I decided to leave this engine game to another time, and focus on making a great game with the few hours left.

And why UPBGE instead of Cave Engine?

If you don't know UPBGE, it is a Folk of the good old Blender Game Engine (present in Blender until v2.79). And there is something about this engine (other than my 14+ years of experience using it 😄 ) that makes me develop VERY fast with it (more than with ANY other tool: It allows me to model, texture, animate and do everything else all in the same software (with a very fast process).

So due to my short amount of time left...

I decided to use it!

And it worked out great!

Exactly 1 minute and 26 seconds before the JAM deadline, I published the final release of the game!

Made with love, for an event that I really enjoy!

And here is a screenshot of it:

But as I promised in this post, I'll not talk about the game itself. But if you want, feel free to check it out in my profile (links are disabled in posts due to the spam issue, so I can't post it here atm).

Anyways...

That was my postmortem!

Thank you for reading it!

And good night!