I was feeling like crap so I figured I’d do a Ludum Dare game to cheer me up. The theme turned out to be crap so I decided to just make a stupid game instead of a good one. I hated working on it and just wanted it to end the whole time, and was totally ignoring it for part of the day. That seems to have helped me avoid getting too focused and prioritize my TODO list so ironically the game turned out okay.
I did get something out of it. I learned how to prioritize features and that it’s really better to do something you want to do as soon as possible instead of waiting for the right time, even if it’s shoddy, because the longer you’re exposed to it the more improvements you can make. But that doesn’t really help because I still felt like crap working on the game, and I still feel like crap whenever I do anything positive, and the ego trip from reading the comments on it doesn’t make up for it in the end.
P.S. On a lighter note, the game was inspired by a Radiolab episode that discussed how fighter pilots performing high G-force maneuvers sometimes lose consciousness and have dreams and out of body experiences. I read that hallucinations can also happen due to sensory deprivation in high altitude flight. Of course, my game isn’t even close to the actual experience, but I thought it was an interesting idea.