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

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.