One unforeseen challenge of 10-day-game-jamming is that as my game evolved it was quite fun to play which absorbs quite a lot of jam time ! Half-way through the jam time, I got an incredible comment from DimaLink on an itch.io mirror of one of my jam phosts which I will entirely quote here : https://itch.io/post/7867626 #+BEGIN_QUOTE Nice song! Thanks!!! [I had linked aNONradio - screwtape] Artist widosm..i think i am not enstein in anithing. So dont know about som e big features, big things.. i can tell... I d tell... 1) you need to do progress the way you can. If it is slow then it is slow. MAin thing - it is just to make progress every day. 2) main things are to choose - things you are interesting. for example for you it is LISP. And nobody to listen. You know, some can tell for example, in my case, i like QBASIC, FREE PASCAL programming, they can tell it is not usefull things, just ignore this. And concentrate on positive. Positive- i s a progress you do. Even if it is small. Do it like every day. Every time. And it is a long road, to have result. So just go a long road. Nobody list en, and do what you choose all the time. And do a progress. 3) i think for some simple games. It is cool to do everything by yourself. To learn simple art (2d or 3d), some simple programming (QBAsic, some C++ a nd SDL2) and simple music (LMMS program). 4) Programming is most hard thing. And it is most biggest power you spent o n programming skills and most little result you have. It requires a logic a nd math mind. And most of people just nothing about it. So it is a most slo w progress. 5) Theory in programming it is a standalone thing. Also dig it. It upgrade your logic skills. And logic gives you a fast solutions in a real programs you write 6) well, cool so start with most simple pixel art 2d. It is most simple way to have a graphics for a game. Dig for something 8 bit, NES< Atari 2600 -7800. Something like this for a style to start. 7) Keep on RETRO! Retro wave, retro programming, retro games! 8) Try to be positive in a real life.Real life affects a lot to a work powe rs you have. #+END_QUOTE I think this kindly primer is absolutely incredible and as deep as the eye can see. One idea is the game designer as a lonely artist, hacking away at the computer programming that keeps their primary art alive and moving. If the art of computer programming has this primacy this is an enticing pursuit for programmers, but I think it also reveals a weakness in the computer programmer: The art of keeping a boat afloat and in motion only carries meaning in an otherwise extant boat, whereas an explorer is exploring but in times of need also building and maintaining a boat. We turn on a computer- eventually it starts a shell (a program that primarily fork(2)s and exec(3)s other programs). We run a computer program. The computer is eventually powered down. While I have emphasised the hardware side, this is the life cycle of a computer program. Contrast this from first person as a character in a video game: So far as time is elapsing, they exist in a world of magic and electrons, a world with save points, multi users visible through a shared server, vast magics revealing themselves through a lifetime of study and experimentation. A signature of lisp is that computing is experienced from inside the main thread of a running lisp image. Identify this with being the main character of a game; the control pad is our influence over this main thread. I think the correct frame of reference for our personal universe is this lisp image main thread character, exercising mastery of our art in this domain and beyond. This recasts the default physical realm as a sort of spiritual plane whose health and orderliness must be maintained by regular rituals and propitiations : A realm into which we must venture to battle the encroaching forces of darkness, with the limited tools produced by our art we are able to manifest there at great cost. A realm of spiritual resource that must be maintained and nurtured, and not overtaxed and destroyed in search of short term power for conquest.