[otikik]

I agree that LD is not the right time to learn how to do pointer arithmetic, or how to draw a pixel.

What the time constraint teach you is to adjust to a time budget. Wear many hats. Improvise. And Finish Stuff. All very valuable lessons that will help any developer.

There's a healthy and beautiful spectrum of tools and languages out there between the "all included" of Unity and the aridness of plain C. Have you tried Löve? It abstracts a lot, but a lot of what it abstracts is really not that important for making games, in my opinion.

[wheybags]

+1 for love2d, have done several ludum dares with it, and I can honestly say it's the perfect tool for the job.