Since this will be my 5th or 6th LD jam, and so I thought I share a little of my past learnings on how to tackle the game jam as a participant. Hope it’s useful
About Phil Strahl (twitter: @PixelProphecy)
Self-proclaimed Jack of all Trades, founder of one-man-band one-of-a-kind one-trick-pony indie-developer Pixel Prophecy.
Entries
Ludum Dare 37 | Ludum Dare 36 | Ludum Dare 34 | Ludum Dare 33 |
Ludum Dare 32 |
Phil Strahl's Trophies
Phil Strahl's Archive
My 8 Tips for a Successful Game Jam
[Video] My Ludum Dare #37 Post Mortem
This video was quite the effort but I hope it’s not too late for anyone interested how I tackled “One Room” in this entertaining little video:
Trailer to my upcoming Post Mortem documentary of LD37
It’s been a while since Ludum Dare #37, granted, but I am getting close to finishing my upcoming documentary of how it went for me. So here’s a silly little something to get you all stoked for the blockbuster this spring, “The Post Mortem of ‘The Cellar'”
Code Review of my Compo game “The Cellar”
I find it pretty sweet to have the source code of each interesting Ludum Dare entry available, so when I’m curious about how somebody implemented some cool trick, I can just look at it. However, much of the code is undocumented and/or all over the place due to the jam’s nature. When you’re struggling to finish in time, the last thing you want to do is write comments and tidy up your code.
But even if you do, somebody from the outside looking at your code might have to invest a lot of time to really understand your game’s structure and your intentions. That’s why I thought I record a little code review of my entry, “The Cellar“, made in Game Maker Studio 2, stepping through the code and just talking about what it does, where I made some bad calls and generally how I set things up:
It got a bit longer than anticipated, but I’ve added chapter breaks to structure the video. Pro tip: Watch at 1.5 speed 😉
Somehow, I still made it.
I had this terrible, game-breaking bug and was about throwing the towel. And then it kinda worked out. Congrats to everyone who finished in time. Cheers!
Work in Progress
So there’s a mystery waiting to be solved. Or to be envisioned. Spent way too long getting movement code & text display ready.
Despite all the work that’s piling up: Count me in. My entries can’t all be crap, right? Maybe this is the one.
Tools of choice: Game Maker Studio 2 • Photoshop • Reason • Audacity • Notepad++
FWI: This is how it went last time for me.
And yes, I’ll be shooting yet another little documentary like this about participating in the compo.
Making-Of Documentary of “6210 B.C.”
It took me two months of on and off editing, but it’s now finished: A little entertaining documentary of me participating in Ludum Dare 36.
Current Status: Blackout

Me, working on an idea for LD#36
I’ll cry myself to sleep now. See you tomorrow!
Mandatory “I’m in”-post.” Last time I had to give up because I hated the theme, but this time I have a much better feeling already. Here’s my tool-belt:
Engine: Yes
Language: Whatever understands me
Art: Please!
Music: Good idea!
Sound: Why not?
Fuel: I’ll have a grande latte, please. No sugar, thanks.
Also, I’ll shoot a little documentary of me struggling, just like last time.
Post-Mortem Documentary of “Pressure Run”
Because I thought making a game in 48 hrs wasn’t hard enough, I also decided to shoot some footage for a little documentary about me making the game. Now the editing and all is finished and here for your enjoyment:
Making-of “PONY!” (timelapse)
PONY! Post Mortem (with pictures!)
You don’t want to read the success stories all the time, right? Sometimes you can learn from something that failed more than from what made it, right? So here it is, the little story of PONY! and how it became what it is. For your reading pleasure I included some pictures of concepts of my journey from hating the theme to missing it by a mile. Enjoy!
so if you up-voted it, consider yourself on “my list”.
Tools of the trade
- Engine: Game Maker Studio
- Graphics: Adobe Photoshop, My Paint
- Music/Sound: Propellerhead Reason, REAPER, FamiTracker, Audacity
- Fiddling: Notepad++
- Modeling: Maya 2015
- Timelapse: NirCmd