Ludum Dare is perfect for experimentation, weirdness and flexing design muscles. 

Theme was "Every 10 seconds". After a false start with an idea that was not too appealing I came up with the concept of a land that changed every 10 seconds. If you are not on the ground, you die (the floor is lava!)

I got it working in a few minutes by means of Simplex 3d (x,y,time), and it looked nice. For 5 seconds the ground shifted smoothly,  then stayed still for 5 more seconds. 

Next I made a character that could run and fly around with a jetpack, but just for so long before it overheats and switches off. Just fooling around trying to stay alive was fun, so I went for it.

First system was working. What else? Well, it made sense to pick things up. I thought it could be some kind of miner on a planet where shifting tectonic plates pushed minerals up for you to pick up. Spawning diamonds on local maxima of the Simplex function worked well enough. Trying to reach them before they sunk into the lava was fun!

With that in place I thought it would be a nice touch to score only when dropping collected diamonds somewhere. I added a dropship that lands when the ground is still, then flies back into space. This made collecting diamonds much more interesting and challenging. I discarded collected diamonds slowing you down because of weight. It made the game way too difficult.

Well, on the first version the dropship was some kind of ugly purple bowl, but you get the idea...

Instead, I added some lava creatures that wander around,  chasing you if you walk nearby. You can scare them by using your jetpack, which heats it up - so you have to be careful, maybe you won't be able to use it when you need it most! Ha! Dual purpose. That's always nice.

FX, particles, the lava effect, a few details here and there... polishing always takes between five and ten times it took you to make the core game. But I thing it was worth it, I like how the game looks.

All in all I invested 15h between Saturday and Sunday. Tecton Inc. feels solid enough, a fun little arcade to enjoy for a few minutes. I would have wasted quite a few coins on an arcade cabinet with this game back in the day!

Hope you like playing it as much as I enjoyed making it!