I spent the first four hours of Saturday coming up with an idea for Evolution. It was a tricky theme, but eventually I settled on something similar to a simplified version of Spore. After working for the entire day, I had almost nothing to show for it. My idea just wasn’t working out. Frustrated, I realised that I would have to sit this one out, there was no way I could release a quality product in this short a time.

I spent the next few hours watching TV, eating food, lounging around. I became more and more disappointed at my early departure. I felt the need to program, to be making games, to be part of the competition. So I started thinking of new ideas, ones that could be implemented in about a day. That’s when I came up with the concept for Influenza.

You are the flu and you have to spread your disease to other people in a building. You complete the level once you have infected a certain individual. You can also spend points to upgrade your strand, that’s where the theme will come in.

I set out with high hopes. It was a lot of work, but if I applied myself, I might pull it off. I worked into the early hours of the morning, but eventually had to give in to sleep.

WIP I posted on twitter, 12 hours before the deadline.

I worked for most of the last day, but at 2:30am (30 mins before deadline) I realised that I wouldn’t make the deadline and gave up a second time.

I posted on the site that I had failed this time around, and someone said that I should enter it into the Jam. I considered it, and although I had another project to complete by the following day, I went for it. It was now 4:00am, and I had been working on it for 20 hours already, but it couldn’t take more than a few more hours of work though, right?

Wrong. I only finished it at 6pm. 34 straight hours of working on this thing.

I’d be lying if I didn’t say it was grueling but it has paid off. I’ve been getting some great reviews and feedback.

Next time I’ll plan a little better, make sure I have an idea that I feel is sure to work.

Thanks for reading. Give the game a go if you like. I really appreciate any feedback, I like to hear how people think I can improve the game, should I decide to work on it further.

Here she is! Done and dusted.

See you next LD!

I came into the competition with high hopes, having had such a good time entering previously.

Not my ideal theme, but I gave it a go. Unfortunately, my first idea didn’t work out, but not before I’d wasted a day trying to make it work.

That left me a little of a day to start my new game from scratch. I worked hard, but sadly did not meet the deadline.

I did manage to complete about 80% of it though, so I’ll probably finish it off when I find the time and motivation.

I leave, defeated.