Ludum Dare 20 is on!

There's a saying that before you run, you should learn how to walk. There's even a saying that before you walk, you should learn how to crawl. In the Iron Man movie, Tony Stark turned it on it's head when he said that "sometimes, you gotta run before you can walk." And that's basically my play here.

I know I'm in over my head, but screw that. I'm making games tonight!

Game over...for now

Former Major league baseball player Vernon Law once said "Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards...but boy, do you learn!"

If there is one person in the whole wide universe that can relate to that right now, that would be me. I'm sitting here in my workstation at the UP ITTC, this year's venue of the Manila Game Jam, part of IGDA's Global Game Jam 2011. Together with about 7524 jammers in 169 locations around the globe, I braved 48 hours of creatively grueling, sleep-and-shower-depriving rapid game development. It was also one of, if not the best, 48 hours of my life.


At this very moment, people are scurrying around from workstation to workstation, checking out what each other was able to crank out over the weekend. Judges have already started making their rounds. It is quite frustrating when they come over my station, and I have to explain why my game (if it can be called that at all) not only looks like crap, but is unfinished. I've never enjoyed offering up excuses instead of answers, and I'm not going to start liking it now. But I am very appreciative whenever my fellow game developers who, despite my telling them that I didn't finish, would still take the time to listen about my effort.




I am just so fired up about the event that I can almost just forget about my failure, but that would be a disservice to myself. I may have failed to make a game in 48 hours, but I didn't fail to learn valuable lessons-- about game development and life itself. I think I'll write about those lessons later. Right now, I have to pick myself up, trudge on, and check out what the others have also worked on so hard, all in the name of (making) games.


check out http://manilagamejam.wordpress.com/ for more photos;
http://globalgamejam.org/ home of the Global Game Jam 2011

my failed game attempt: http://www.globalgamejam.org/2011/extinct-me-formerly-known-how-did-monstersaurs-die