{"author_name":"Alan Masimba Walker","cat":"LD #33","comments":[],"epoch":1440563700,"likes":1,"metadata":{"p_key":"13406","p_author":"Alan Masimba Walker","p_authorkey":"501213","p_urlkey":"48662","p_title":"Monsta Stelth Gem! (A Post Mortem)","p_cat":"LD #33","p_event":"LD33","p_time":"1440563700","p_likes":"1","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"501213","us_name":"Alan Masimba Walker","us_username":"Alan Masimba Walker","event_start":"1440115200","event_key":"29","event_name":"LD33"},"text":"<p>Hello guys, here&#8217;s our obligatory &#8216;post-mortem&#8217; from me &amp; Foxel working as a team.<\/p>\n <p><strong>What went well! <em>HURRAH!<\/em> &#8211;<\/strong><\/p>\n <p style=\"text-align: left\">There were some key things that went really well during this attempt at Ludum Dare for me &amp; Foxel, here&#8217;s our list in order of significance.<\/p>\n <ul>\n <li style=\"text-align: left\">We did the Ludum Dare in person! Our last 2 LDs were done over Skype as I live in the UK and Foxel lives in Finland. This time we did it in my house! It worked really great, and we had a really fun time making this game.<\/li>\n <li style=\"text-align: left\">Having game-play that works. This is nearly more significant\u00a0than what&#8217;s above it.<\/li>\n <li style=\"text-align: left\">The sheer number of lines of code we managed to write that worked. There were things that had to be changed &amp; updated, but we managed to write a lot of code we could keep and that worked.<\/li>\n <li style=\"text-align: left\">The dedication that went into making our game, that&#8217;s something we are honestly proud of. And we&#8217;d recommend anyone who wants to do this competition and has the time, should. You learn so much about your capabilities by having a go at Ludum Dare!<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p><strong>What went wrong&#8230; <em>Oh no!<\/em> &#8211;<\/strong><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>Too many big time consuming bugs. Things such as a z-sorting class that didn&#8217;t work, a set of code for AI that would throw null pointers around like a first time Java programmers attempt at an array! These things hindered progress and demoralised us at times. It&#8217;s not fun to have bugs, but it&#8217;s certainly not fun when you have a deadline that&#8217;s fast approaching and your bugs still haven&#8217;t been solved&#8230;<\/li>\n <li>Having to design a level in the last 2 hours before submission! This is not something we wanted, wished for or even asked for, but it happened because of the point above. It&#8217;s sad to think\u00a0we could have had even more complex levels, but couldn&#8217;t due to the lack of time.<\/li>\n <li>Not having audio &amp; in game feedback on things like distractions or intractable objects. We would really have liked to send feedback to the player that would tell them what&#8217;s going on in the game.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p><strong>What we&#8217;d do differently! <em>Hell yeah!<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>Be better acquainted with the tools or build a better framework to work with before Ludum Dare. We had issues with things like A*, Z-Sorting, Line of Sight which would have been easier to handle\u00a0had we had more experience with the tools.<\/li>\n <li>Spend less time on features and more time on content. I feel like we hit a point where little features began overcrowding our vision and we lost time and therefore lost a lot of content for the game. A game looks &amp; feels brilliant when features are in, but they shouldn&#8217;t push out content in a jam!<\/li>\n <li>Sleep more! For definite. We slept, but not enough. Sleep deprivation hinders logical thought processes, which means programming becomes a lot harder.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>Here&#8217;s a link to our game &#8211;\u00a0http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-33\/?action=preview&amp;uid=26125<\/p>\n <p>peaceOut(&#8220;Foxel &amp; Mace&#8221;, (@Foxelbox, @Macecraft));<\/p>","time":"August 25th, 2015 11:35 pm","title":"Monsta Stelth Gem! (A Post Mortem)"}