Ludum Praxi Postmortem

The following comes from my blog post postmortem, whichyou can read here. The two are identical, though, aside from a lil formatting that didn't properly transfer :D

🤔 What is Ludum Praxi?

Ludum Praxi (theoriginal is here) is a jam that we ran a long time ago to encourage tabletop/analog creators to joinLudum Dare. The two Ludum Dare jams each year are two of my favorite times of the year: the rush of making something (especially something experimental) within 72 hours is SO powerful. And then rating other games and getting ratings is awesome too; Ludum Dare has a fantastic community.

I was really missing the Ludum Dare jams, and we got to talking about it inour Discord server, so I brought Ludum Praxi back in August.

Like Ludum Dare, there are a few rounds of suggesting and voting for themes before the winning theme is revealed at the beginning of the jam. Unlike Ludum Dare, you choose your 72-hour window out of a period that lasts a couple of weeks. The rule is that, as soon as you see the theme (which is hidden way down on the page until the final 72 hours of the jam), your window starts. This imitates the jam while adding some leeway for busy people, since this is just practice and all.

Ludum Dare means "Give a Game," and Ludum Praxi means "Game Practice," at least according to Google Translate lol

😅 A Month (or Four) of Chaos: The Pre-Jam Experience

Leading up to Ludum Praxi, 2025 has been a trainwreck... 😅 I spiraled from like mid-April til mid-June, Angel just got out of the hospital in August, and I'd had back issues since then (and she's been recovering, too!). In the moments of calm over the last few months, I struggled to find firm ground again, which always fell away with the next calamity. [Edit: "Calamity" by Annisokay actually came on my shuffle mix as I was editing this, that's fitting!]

It was a rough road to Ludum Praxi, is what I'm saying. 🙃

When I was finally like, "Okay, I'll do Ludum Praxi in a couple of days when I get caught up on email, Todoist, all my obligations, get past the meeting later this week, handle our grocery order, mail out an order, and everything else," I realized Ludum Praxi ended too early to do that.

In fact, I had to start my 72-hour window within about 3 hours of learning this. 🤦‍♀️

My first instinct was to extend the jam, and I did. I extended it through that Monday, which meant I could handle all that stuff before starting my 72-hour window on Thursday evening. But, as I was writing an email about the extension, I realized that I was killing one of the main lessons of the jam: that time is rarely (if ever) perfect, and we have to do the best we can with what we have. Angel agreed when I told her about it all, so I returned the end date to where it was. After all, I can't extend the real Ludum Dare!

Now, I mentioned earlier that the 72-hour window starts when someone sees the theme. I was an exception, first because I had the jam start on a day that didn't work for me (I didn't think about it, whoops!) and secondly becausewe were still in the hospital the day the jam started! In fact, that was the third day we were in the hospital, out of four total days.

Luckily, I have a horrible memory, so every time I even considered the jam theme, I forced myself to think about something else and quickly forgot it. When I told Angel what the theme was at the beginning of the jam, I actually had to look it up again!

💡 Idea Time!

Every time a Ludum Dare theme is revealed, Angel and I go for a walk so we can talk about ideas. This was no exception. In fact, it wasn't until a few minutes into the walk that I looked up the jam page and told Angel the theme:

The End is Never the End

We chatted for a while before returning to a game I had an idea for before the jam:The Hero's Saga. This was to be a continuation of sorts ofThe Shopkeeper's Saga. InThe Shopkeeper's Saga, you play as a shopkeeper scrounging for goods in a dungeon, and you come across the legendary hero a few times. We both thought it'd be interesting to do this from the other side, playing as the hero.

This was already meant as a metaphor for my bipolar. The hero, you see, is immortal but absolutely tired of fighting the same villain forever. Is this all the hero was made for? Why can't they have a life? Probability says the villain will eventually win one day, so why not just give up and let them win now? This captured the theme perfectly, too!

But this was all we had so far. Nothing had been written out yet, it was just concepts of a plan. And Ludum Dare has people vote on 12-20 potential themes before the theme is revealed, so many of us come up with ideas for themes before the jam begins anyway.

While we were walking, we had two other ideas. I can't remember one, but the other was a silly idea about asking people "Why?" over and over. Each person would present info, then someone would ask "Why?" about a specific part, taking them further and further away from the original idea. It'd be like "talking to a little kid, the game," basically.

I considered making the silly idea first, in case the bigger game was a struggle... How fitting. You'll see.

⌛ 72 Hours of (Relative) Calm

1️⃣Day One

Part of the idea forThe Hero's Saga was to use a Jenga tower for interacting with the game, which was Angel's brilliant idea. See, both games use theSecond Guess System (an SRD to handle prompts and such), but inThe Shopkeeper's Saga, I also added the "Domino Crafting System." As you played, you gathered supplies that could be made into equipment to give the hero power, and you crafted the equipment out of dominoes you found in the dungeon.

The Hero's Saga is very similar, on purpose, but also very different. WhereThe Shopkeeper's Saga is a struggle about being seen and capitalism, this was an emotional ride. While both games use the Second Guess System, and even the same prompts (sort of, more about that later),The Hero's Saga uses the Jenga tower to represent your shaky emotions. If the tower falls, you spiral into depression and struggle to rebuild to safety.

But... we didn't have a Jenga tower. So we spent like 90 minutes driving from store to store looking for one. One of the dollar stores had one, kind of: they had small packages with like 18 Jenga blocks in them for $7.50. We had no idea how many blocks were in an actual Jenga set: would we need 2? 3? How do we spend over $20 on 3 packs and not even have storage for these "cheap" blocks?! Luckily, Walmart had an off-brand set for like $10, so we got that.

The rest of the night was mostly spent "relaxing." See, I get really stressed over each Ludum Dare, and I have to push past that. My stomach gets upset, I deal with massive anxiety, and everything in me screams: "Just use the zillions of excuses you have to not do it!"

2️⃣Day Two

On day two, I got over it. But I still remained in my chair in the living room, rather than moving to my desk. It was casual but slooooooow, and while I'm very happy with what I did, it was nowhere near enough.

I think I use the distraction as an excuse to get less done, but it also would've been the first time I cut myself off from Angel in her recovery (to focus, I put headphones on and often miss messages from her). So I used that (probably in equal parts genuinely and as an excuse lol) to get less done, but in a more relaxed way.

Plus, this first part is always the hardest: how does this overall idea work, exactly? How does setup work? How do you make pulling from the Jenga tower work, and how do you track how well you're doing? How do I use the same prompts but make this for the hero when the shopkeeper's prompts are all skewed for someone who cannot fight?

I figured all of that out, although it was Angel who recommended rewriting the prompts as "what if the shopkeeper is seeing the aftermath of the hero's actions?" And I LOVED that.

In fact, as I wrote, the game got cooler and cooler. This would be the first game to be kinda "choose-your-own-adventure-y" as I was writing different options for each prompt that you'd flip to (to keep the results of your choices a secret), and I had different things you could unlock that would alter future games. There were also three game modes: you could be invincible but struggle with depression; you could be invincible but struggle with your lack of energy; or you could suddenly be mortal and scared of being harmed.

3️⃣Day Three

I'm pretty sure it was day three when I realized there's no way I'd finishThe Hero's Saga in time. Worse, this was Thursday: I had my meeting AND we had groceries to deal with.

Writing something about my bipolar often puts me in the "danger zone," where I'm more likely to deal with spiraling into depression. And grocery day usually triggers my rage issues. See, Angel's mom goes and picks up our online orders, then she and Angel's brother wipe them off while we rinse them and put them away.

We've done this since COVID, and while I know a lot of people think COVID over, Angel has immune deficiency issues due to her severe allergies, and we both got long COVID in 2021 that devastated our memories, taste buds, abilities to focus, and more.

Part of putting the groceries away is an automatic focus on how much food they buy that they absolutely don't need (like getting spaghetti sauce when we have three jars that expire this month), and the other part is making it all fit into spaces that they don't organize, so now WE have to organize them WHILE dealing with it all.

This week was no exception on either count, and when added to the stress of making the game, I just lost it. The anger and depression combined into a sense of frustrated hopelessness.

After that, I just played video games all night and figured I'd quit trying.

4️⃣Day Four

Yeah, it's a 72-hour jam, but it ran from like 4 pm on Day One through 4 pm on Day Four.

On day four, I felt a lot better. Angel was working on a game of her own (Alone With Their Memories), and I was a lot more relaxed. Having the night to relax allowed me to come at this with a fresh mind.

But, yeah, with a matter of hours left, there was no way I was finishingThe Hero's Saga. So I figured I'd make the "Why?" game! Why not? Small games are awesome too, and at least then I could say I made something.

It didn't take long to come up with the actual idea, make it a thing, and get it uploaded and into the jam. But I'm still super proud of it!

📝 So... What's Inquiring Minds?

Inquiring Minds is a zine game with two zines: solo play and 2+ player play.

In solo, you're an Eternal Investigator, writing a news story and then expanding it forever. You write an initial report and headline, then pick a piece and look deeper into that, presenting that report while tying it back to the initial headline.

That repeats forever, and you earn points by sharing what you learned with others. If they're appreciative, you get a point! After seven, ask that person what to research next.

In multiplayer, each player writes a report and a headline. Then, each player asks the presenter a specific question about it. After each player presents their info, you schedule when to play again and present the new info, tying it back to the original headline. Each player then asks about THAT info, and that repeats forever. There's no scoring here, and you can see an example below.

I consider it "gamified squirrel-chasing," and I love the idea of discovering random info. I can't remember who it was (probably Ali Abdaal or Sahil Bloom) who said that you never know when information will be useful in the future, and no learning is ever wasted time, even if it feels like it.

I wanted to encourage that, and also encourage sharing what people find interesting!

What Went Right?

In the typical "postmortem" format, after describing the game and the experience of making it, there are two important questions: "What went right?" and "What went wrong?" I like sticking to that :D

And I also like to start with the positive, so here we are!

Just Make Something!

Every Ludum Dare, I set out to make something that:

• Uses minimal components so video gamers won't need to find or buy stuff (or just skip checking my game out)
• Is super easy and quick to learn, since a lot of Ludum Dare games are browser-based and don't even have downloads, plus video games handle the rules and analog games don't
• Is replayable and, preferably, quick to play
• Can be played solo

I generally fail on at least two of those, if not three 😅 And what we make (Angel and I work together) is usually something BIG, with a big ol' rulebook.

This time around, because I had even less time, I made something that actually fit all of those rules without even thinking about it! And there are even two zines, so you can play solo or with other people!!! 🥳 Plus, zines can be embedded with Electric Zine Maker, so Ludum Dare people could actually read it without downloading anything.

Dealing With Emotions in a Healthy Way

Ludum Dare is usually a time when people push through discomfort and stress, caffeinate themselves heavily, crunch, and work hard. I've learned in the years I've done the jam to continue sleeping a good amount and to take care of myself, but that third day was a new challenge.

I had to ask myself: should I push through my frustration and risk my mental health so I can succeed? Should I listen to my mind even if it means the failure of a jam? Am I just using an excuse to quit, or is this legitimate?

It didn't take long to decide that I deserved a break. One missed jam is far less bad than a month or more of spiraling into depression.

And it paid off! Allowing myself to relax and process meant I came back the next day with a relaxed mind. A mind that was excited to make something!

The Hero's Saga Is Solid!

I didn't finish it by any means. I didn't even get the playtest version completed. But I'm really proud of what I've done!

Taking ideas and turning them into reality is always a lot harder than it seems like it'll be, and a lot of quality is often lost in the transition. This time, I think that what I've made so far is actually cooler than I originally planned. It might fall apart in execution, sure, but the fun of using SRDs is that I can just replace the mechanics with something else. The prompts and overall game won't need much alteration even if that happens.

I am very excited about makingThe Hero's Saga, and I'm really hoping to release it this month!

A Good Dive Back Into Creating

I've tracked what I've made this year, and I've had a serious drought lately.

The year started out great: I was determined and didn't spiral at all (aside from maybe a few one-day spirals) from January through mid-April. As a reminder, that spiral didn't end til mid-June. You can see that I averaged about 2.5 games made a month until the spiral, and then... I helped Angel a little withOn Poetic Hacks in May and didn't make anything in June. July is Mini Zine July, and I made zines for three of the seven prompts, and then... nothing in August untilInquiring Mindsat the very end of the month.

Getting back into game design is rough for me: I always feel severe impostor syndrome. "I suck," I think, and "Why even make anything when no one cares?"

It takes a while to push through that. We watched a video several months ago about ADHD involving this "wall of awful" that you have to push through. While I don't have ADHD (not that I've ever been tested...), I do deal with that wall sometimes. Returning to game design ALWAYS brings it on. If you want more info on that wall,here's the video;How to ADHD is a fantastic channel in general, too!

So, while this was a much smaller game, working on the bigger one (The Hero's Saga) was enough to get me through that wall. In fact, I think working on the bigger game made the smaller one feel even easier by comparison

What Went Wrong?

Honestly, I think I covered almost all of this well enough elsewhere, but here's a list of the things as a reminder:

• Oops, I didn't pay attention to the dates the jam ran and had no time to prep ahead of my 72-hour window
• Angel was in the hospital when the jam started lol (no one's fault)
• A LOT of bad junk went down for months up til our 72-hour window started

But one thing I didn't cover before is something I've run into repeatedly in Ludum Dare jams:

Angel Wasn't Part of It Early Enough

Often, it takes me so long to set up the first playtest that Angel is barely a part of the creation of a game. Heck, in one jam, she had about an hour to check it out before the jam ended! 😅

For this jam, even if we had no issues on day 3 and I busted my butt, she would've had that night, she would've basically had our (partial) day 4 to be part of it.

This is yet another reminder that I need to get something to a testable stage as quickly as possible so she can be part of the design. She constantly shows her value, even in Ludum Dare. She typically comes up with the overall idea, and adds great insight for mechanics too; if was her idea to have players roll and play simultaneously inThe Epicathelon, which made the game 100x better!

One Bonus Win: The Jam!

I can take no credit for the Ludum Dare jams whatsoever, but since I run the Ludum Praxi jams, I feel like I can take at least some credit for them. Wereceived 13 games in total (including the ones Angel and I made), and a few people have mentioned enjoying the experience. Some have specifically said they found pride in having made something in that time frame!

And that'sEXACTLY what I aimed for. I am so proud of everyone who entered; making something in 72 hours is a HUGE accomplishment! And I hope that people enter our future jams, too; I plan to do more Ludum Praxi jams in the future.

We plan to write a post about the other entries into the jam later on, after the rating period is over, so you'll hear lots more about them later.

Oh, andLudum Dare 58 starts on October 3rd!!!!! There are usually things happening at least 10 days before then, so I'll be sharing more about that here too.

I'd genuinely love to see more tabletop/analog creators enter the jam. 🧡 In fact, I'd love to see YOU in the jam, even if you beat us 🤣

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Inquiring Minds

Chase squirrels with ridiculous research, solo or multiplayer