{"author_name":"Kulomin","cat":"LD #31","comments":[],"epoch":1418228700,"likes":1,"metadata":{"p_key":"22207","p_author":"Kulomin","p_authorkey":"27145","p_urlkey":"57574","p_title":"Post Mortem: Dust Sorcerer","p_cat":"LD #31","p_event":"LD31","p_time":"1418228700","p_likes":"1","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"27145","us_name":"Kulomin","us_username":"kulomin","event_start":"1417737600","event_key":"26","event_name":"LD31"},"text":"<p>Hello Ludum Dare community!<\/p>\n <p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n <p>I thought I would do a little post mortem on my game\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-31\/?action=preview&amp;uid=27145\">Dust Sorcerer<\/a>\u00a0developed in 48 for the compo.<\/p>\n <p>Its an arcade arena shooter where the player controls a dust sorcerer.<\/p>\n <p>Here&#8217;s a short youtube video if you don&#8217;t want to try the game yourself:<\/p>\n <p><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/c-9ma-fcbWk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n <p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n <p><strong>The Good<\/strong><\/p>\n <p>What I personally really liked in my game was the art. I am no artist and it is therefore pretty hard to get some decent looking game, but the last 2-3 months I had been practicing a lot of drawing and some modelling and it really paid off! Not only did my art get better, I also discovered new aspects of game development. Previously I was focused so much on gameplay mechanics, that I didn&#8217;t even notice that gameplay is only a part of a game(others are story, look and feel, even emotions). I would advise every programmer to get a basic understanding of drawing and modelling.<\/p>\n <p>Another aspect I really liked how it turned out was the spellplay. The first spell, a flamethrower, was actually discovered by accident. In the first iteration I implemented a fireball that shoots continously, but I forgot a cooldown on it(e.g. only shoot it every second) so I got this weird ray of fire. I left it at that and increased the size of a fireball over lifetime and it became this amazingly satisfying effect.<\/p>\n <p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n <p><strong>The Bad<\/strong><\/p>\n <p>What I really didn&#8217;t do well is balancing. Many people in the comments claimed that the game is too hard for them. This is a big contrast to my gamer friends who said it was just the right difficulty. Next time I should probably think about some sort of difficulty slider so everyone can adjust the difficulty to personal preference or doing more testing with a broader audience would also be an acceptable strategy.<\/p>\n <p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n <p><strong>The Ugly<\/strong><\/p>\n <p>The upgrade system was the last thing I implemented. And I think that is the reason why it turned out pretty boring. I knew I didn&#8217;t have the time to implement an awesome upgrade system with spell modifiers(e.g. flamethrower now shoots in 2 directions). I should have planned this a bit more and for many people I can imagine that it got too complicated. There are 8 different upgrades in the game and to unlock all you would need to play many hours and each upgrade doesn&#8217;t give a reward worth it. They are pretty boring. They either upgrade damage of some spell by 20% or decrease the cooldown.<\/p>\n <p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n <p><strong>Resume<\/strong><\/p>\n <p>Although I hated the theme, I am still satisfied with the result and think that I learned much about how to design combat.<\/p>\n <p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n <p>If you now think you need to play my game, here it is:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-31\/?action=preview&amp;uid=27145\">Dust Sorcerer<\/a><\/p>","time":"December 10th, 2014 11:25 am","title":"Post Mortem: Dust Sorcerer"}