{"author_link":"\/users\/lost-dutchman-software","author_name":"Lost Dutchman Software","author_uid":"lost-dutchman-software","comments":[],"epoch":1526421644,"event":"LD41","format":"md","ldjam_node_id":97010,"likes":2,"metadata":{"p_key":"115427","p_author":"Lost Dutchman Software","p_authorkey":"1077280","p_urlkey":"331387","p_title":"DANG SON - A technical post-mortem and reflection","p_cat":"LDJam ","p_event":"LD41","p_time":"1526421644","p_likes":"2","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":"1077280","us_name":"Lost Dutchman Software","us_username":"lost-dutchman-software","event_start":"1524182400","event_key":"72","event_name":"LD 41"},"node":{"_collation":{"body_sanitizer":"TextUtils::SanitizeHTML via existing importer","event":"LD41","removed_author":false},"_superparent":73256,"_trust":2,"author":77280,"body":"Ludum Dare #41 - Post Entry Write Up\n\n![640x512Title.png](\/\/\/raw\/0ed\/21\/z\/14e22.png)\n![Reviews.png](\/\/\/raw\/0ed\/21\/z\/14e23.png)\n\nConceptualization\n\nWe imposed the limit of only a few hours to spend on this and made this a priority of Friday evening.  Determined to settle on a concept that had a lot of potential, fit the theme, and provided a level of scope that was doable became our top priority in the dare\u2019s first few hours.  \n\nQuickly, we began coming up with genre combos that made us laugh or delivered some kind of inspiration.  We got stuck on the idea of doing an 80s era text-based RPG around several truly incompatible genres, including sports, replete with cardinal directions based navigation, old-timey names for other characters, and old rpg flavor text that\u2019s pseudo formal.\n\nThe idea for Modern Fairway was sort of cemented we we discussed how to mix and equal amount of FPS with an equal amount of golf.  The best idea came to us when we nailed down the mechanical mix- shoot the golf ball with FPS weapons.  Using FPS theming for the menus, sound, and UI assets juxtaposed against the cutesy golf look sold it for us, and we knew the jarring difference between art styles would only raise the impact of the humor.\n\nFramework\n\nSaturday - Begin 6am\nTerrain Generation\nFPS Engine\nBall + Physics\nMain Menu Graphics\nLogo and Button Design\nTerrain Sculpting\n\nWe decided to drop the load out screen as it didn\u2019t bring anything meaningful to the actual game.\n\nSunday - Begin 3am\nCreate win condition\nCreate second environment as level two\nTrawl internet for free use music and sfx for menus and during gameplay\nAmass free use low-poly models to populate course with\n\nMonday - Begin 6am\nSculpt paths in terrain\nPopulate terrains\nLighting\nUI tweaks\nBuild Credits scene\nScreencaps + video footage for social media posts\nPost game\nRun Dread game as promised like a FOOL\n\n\nPrioritization\n\nWe prioritized anything that served the Ludum Dare theme and\/or built on humor.  We trimmed or let go of ideas that didn\u2019t directly offer payoffs in these two priorities.  We specifically made the text and menus as dramatic and over the top as possible so that it would play off the cute, low poly look of the golf courses and in-play music.\n\nIn addition to the load out screen concept we had, we also had to trim extending the variety of weapons in the game.  A true scoring system also didn\u2019t quite make the cut.  \n\n\nObstacles\n\nOur biggest hurdle by far was distribution of skills paired with the stipulation of not purchasing assets and the absolutely oppressive time crunch.  We\u2019ve differentiated our skills as much as possible but neither of us are artists.  We relied on free commercial use assets, models, sound,  fonts, and music when we needed.  All assets were used with permission.\n\n\nWhat Went Right\n\nOur ratings have surpassed our expectation.\nWhat we completed during the dare period is not complete, but stands alone well.\nSocial Media\/Marketing outreach. \nNo bug-fixes or improvements have been made to the game after submission.\nMany people have offered well crafted critiques should we push forward with the game\nNetworked with several devs on various social media.\n\n\nWhat Went Wrong\n\nSeveral UI bugs that we did not have time to fix\nFloating tree\/cactus models that we didn\u2019t have time to fix\nTerrain Size\nLack to time to familiarize ourselves with FPS games and their typical feel, leading to mouse sensitivity issues.\n\n\nFinal Takeaway and Results\n\nRankings are up now and we were very pleased with the results:\n\n406th Overall (3.6 avg rating of 82) which is the top 13% of all games and top 21% of games that ranked.\n362nd in Fun (3.5 avg from 82)\n200nd in Innovation (3.788 avg from 82)\n57th in Theme (4.341 avg from 84) which is top 3% of ranking games\n80th in Humor (3.987 avg from 80) which is top 4% of ranking games\n349th in Mood (3.545 avg from 80)\n\nTotal Ludum Dare Submissions: 3050 (Jam: 2019, Compo: 1031)\nTotal Ranking Games: 1898\n\t\n\nLudum Dare was definitely challenging but I take some pride in knowing that we were organized and crafted a workable scope that allowed us to finish a salient product within the time limit with limited resources.  Even though we are still before the official judging period, we\u2019re happily  surprised by the response we\u2019ve been getting and the connections we\u2019ve forged during the rating phase.\n\nIf we decide to do another Ludum Dare- which is probably likely, though maybe not the next one- we\u2019ll likely try to implement the same mode of attack, so to speak.  Conceptualization was highly satisfying as was submitting a mostly finished product.\n\nWe want to leave Ludum Dare #41 with a shout out to all the cool people we've met here, who've carefully critiqued and commented on our game and whose game's we commented on.  Ludum Dare #41 hinges heavily on its community and it was a really great experience working with and connecting with all you designer\/devs.  As always, hit us up on twitter --> @SoftDutch and see you next jam!","comments":0,"created":"2018-05-15T21:55:28Z","files":[],"files-timestamp":0,"id":97010,"love":2,"love-timestamp":"2018-05-16T03:49:32Z","meta":[],"modified":"2018-05-16T03:49:32Z","name":"DANG SON - A technical post-mortem and reflection","node-timestamp":"2018-05-15T22:01:09Z","parent":77281,"parents":[1,5,9,73256,77281],"path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/41\/modern-fairway-4-spec-ops-in-the-rough\/dang-son-a-technical-post-mortem-and-reflection","published":"2018-05-15T22:00:44Z","scope":"public","slug":"dang-son-a-technical-post-mortem-and-reflection","subsubtype":"","subtype":"","type":"post","version":287500},"node_metadata":{"n_key":"97010","n_urlkey":"331387","n_parent":"77281","n_path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/41\/modern-fairway-4-spec-ops-in-the-rough\/dang-son-a-technical-post-mortem-and-reflection","n_slug":"dang-son-a-technical-post-mortem","n_type":"post","n_subtype":"","n_subsubtype":"","n_author":"77280","n_created":"1526421328","n_modified":"1526442572","n_version":"287500","n_status":"WAYBACK"},"source_url":"https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/41\/modern-fairway-4-spec-ops-in-the-rough\/dang-son-a-technical-post-mortem-and-reflection","text":"Ludum Dare #41 - Post Entry Write Up\n\n![640x512Title.png](\/\/\/raw\/0ed\/21\/z\/14e22.png)\n![Reviews.png](\/\/\/raw\/0ed\/21\/z\/14e23.png)\n\nConceptualization\n\nWe imposed the limit of only a few hours to spend on this and made this a priority of Friday evening.  Determined to settle on a concept that had a lot of potential, fit the theme, and provided a level of scope that was doable became our top priority in the dare\u2019s first few hours.  \n\nQuickly, we began coming up with genre combos that made us laugh or delivered some kind of inspiration.  We got stuck on the idea of doing an 80s era text-based RPG around several truly incompatible genres, including sports, replete with cardinal directions based navigation, old-timey names for other characters, and old rpg flavor text that\u2019s pseudo formal.\n\nThe idea for Modern Fairway was sort of cemented we we discussed how to mix and equal amount of FPS with an equal amount of golf.  The best idea came to us when we nailed down the mechanical mix- shoot the golf ball with FPS weapons.  Using FPS theming for the menus, sound, and UI assets juxtaposed against the cutesy golf look sold it for us, and we knew the jarring difference between art styles would only raise the impact of the humor.\n\nFramework\n\nSaturday - Begin 6am\nTerrain Generation\nFPS Engine\nBall + Physics\nMain Menu Graphics\nLogo and Button Design\nTerrain Sculpting\n\nWe decided to drop the load out screen as it didn\u2019t bring anything meaningful to the actual game.\n\nSunday - Begin 3am\nCreate win condition\nCreate second environment as level two\nTrawl internet for free use music and sfx for menus and during gameplay\nAmass free use low-poly models to populate course with\n\nMonday - Begin 6am\nSculpt paths in terrain\nPopulate terrains\nLighting\nUI tweaks\nBuild Credits scene\nScreencaps + video footage for social media posts\nPost game\nRun Dread game as promised like a FOOL\n\n\nPrioritization\n\nWe prioritized anything that served the Ludum Dare theme and\/or built on humor.  We trimmed or let go of ideas that didn\u2019t directly offer payoffs in these two priorities.  We specifically made the text and menus as dramatic and over the top as possible so that it would play off the cute, low poly look of the golf courses and in-play music.\n\nIn addition to the load out screen concept we had, we also had to trim extending the variety of weapons in the game.  A true scoring system also didn\u2019t quite make the cut.  \n\n\nObstacles\n\nOur biggest hurdle by far was distribution of skills paired with the stipulation of not purchasing assets and the absolutely oppressive time crunch.  We\u2019ve differentiated our skills as much as possible but neither of us are artists.  We relied on free commercial use assets, models, sound,  fonts, and music when we needed.  All assets were used with permission.\n\n\nWhat Went Right\n\nOur ratings have surpassed our expectation.\nWhat we completed during the dare period is not complete, but stands alone well.\nSocial Media\/Marketing outreach. \nNo bug-fixes or improvements have been made to the game after submission.\nMany people have offered well crafted critiques should we push forward with the game\nNetworked with several devs on various social media.\n\n\nWhat Went Wrong\n\nSeveral UI bugs that we did not have time to fix\nFloating tree\/cactus models that we didn\u2019t have time to fix\nTerrain Size\nLack to time to familiarize ourselves with FPS games and their typical feel, leading to mouse sensitivity issues.\n\n\nFinal Takeaway and Results\n\nRankings are up now and we were very pleased with the results:\n\n406th Overall (3.6 avg rating of 82) which is the top 13% of all games and top 21% of games that ranked.\n362nd in Fun (3.5 avg from 82)\n200nd in Innovation (3.788 avg from 82)\n57th in Theme (4.341 avg from 84) which is top 3% of ranking games\n80th in Humor (3.987 avg from 80) which is top 4% of ranking games\n349th in Mood (3.545 avg from 80)\n\nTotal Ludum Dare Submissions: 3050 (Jam: 2019, Compo: 1031)\nTotal Ranking Games: 1898\n\t\n\nLudum Dare was definitely challenging but I take some pride in knowing that we were organized and crafted a workable scope that allowed us to finish a salient product within the time limit with limited resources.  Even though we are still before the official judging period, we\u2019re happily  surprised by the response we\u2019ve been getting and the connections we\u2019ve forged during the rating phase.\n\nIf we decide to do another Ludum Dare- which is probably likely, though maybe not the next one- we\u2019ll likely try to implement the same mode of attack, so to speak.  Conceptualization was highly satisfying as was submitting a mostly finished product.\n\nWe want to leave Ludum Dare #41 with a shout out to all the cool people we've met here, who've carefully critiqued and commented on our game and whose game's we commented on.  Ludum Dare #41 hinges heavily on its community and it was a really great experience working with and connecting with all you designer\/devs.  As always, hit us up on twitter --> @SoftDutch and see you next jam!","title":"DANG SON - A technical post-mortem and reflection","wayback_source":[]}