This weekend the Ludum Dare game jam and competition took place.

Due to too many other obligations I wasn’t able to take part, but I was able to watch a little while Martin created a great game by himself in just 48 hours. He did it live on Twitch, which apparently he has done for quite a while now.

I really like the idea of a timed jam which forces you to focus on just what is needed to get done.

If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you know that a favorite book of mine is Essentialism. Everything comes with a tradeoff. Saying yes to one thing means saying no to something else – maybe even everything else.

When you are creating something under a time constraint, it forces you to think like an essentialist. You can only do a few things, so focus on them.

You can grab the source code and the executables on Martin’s site at http://quill18.com/ld38/

I made a quick video of me trying out the game Tub of War.