{"author_name":"woz","cat":"LD #31","comments":[{"author_name":"mikewelly76","time":"April 15, 2015 4:56 am","epoch":1429091760,"text":"HI,","spam":"N"}],"epoch":1418104140,"likes":0,"metadata":{"p_key":"22380","p_author":"woz","p_authorkey":"17629","p_urlkey":"57751","p_title":"The Stickman Cometh \u2013 Postmortem","p_cat":"LD #31","p_event":"LD31","p_time":"1418104140","p_likes":"0","p_comments":"1","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"17629","us_name":"woz","us_username":"woz2601","event_start":"1417737600","event_key":"26","event_name":"LD31"},"text":"<p><strong>Warning:<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-31\/?action=preview&amp;uid=17629\">The Stickman Cometh<\/a> contains\u00a0blood\u00a0and violence, though it&#8217;s mostly cartoonish.<\/p>\n <p><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/XUgEMs6UYZk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n <p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n <p>What a great weekend! \u00a0This is my first time actually completing a Ludum Dare, and I&#8217;m glad to have something to show for it at the end. \u00a0Not to mention that I learnt a lot more about Unreal Engine, which was my main goal, and I had a lot of fun doing it. \u00a0The character animation system in Unreal is just amazing, and I finally got around to playing with Cascade,\u00a0Unreal&#8217;s particle editor (GPU blood splatter!).\u00a0The game was done entirely in Blueprints, Unreal&#8217;s visual scripting system, no C++.<\/p>\n <p>I&#8217;m more or less happy with how my game came out. \u00a0I have a whole feature list that&#8217;s only half crossed off,\u00a0but at least I have something complete, albeit flawed. \u00a0I think the core mechanic is\u00a0fun though, and that&#8217;s what&#8217;s important to me. \u00a0There&#8217;s some key things missing, such as\u00a0a health meter, so you can&#8217;t see how much health you have left. \u00a0The bullet time power is currently unlimited, which is also a bit of a problem. \u00a0 There&#8217;s also no way to get more health, which makes it pretty hard to last more than 10-15 seconds\u00a0each round. \u00a0There&#8217;s also no score, the game doesn&#8217;t keep track of how many enemies you&#8217;ve killed.<\/p>\n <p>Here&#8217;s something I find\u00a0interesting though; this wasn&#8217;t intentional, but\u00a0playing it as it is now,\u00a0with these flaws that would hold obviously it back from being a full game, I got this sense that it was some sort of commentary on war. \u00a0Death is almost inevitable, and you don&#8217;t really know when it&#8217;s coming. \u00a0There&#8217;s just an endless stream of bad guys, all you can do is shoot them before they shoot you, and pretty soon you lose count. \u00a0The slow melancholy music I\u00a0made for it probably helped give this feeling, but I swear I did not have this is mind while developing it, at least not consciously. I think it&#8217;s fascinating that I myself can interpret something I made differently than how I intended it.<\/p>\n <p>I think I&#8217;m going to continue to work on it,\u00a0polish it up, and try to expand it into a full game. \u00a0I would love to hear any feedback people have on it. Hope everyone enjoys it.<\/p>\n <p>Now it&#8217;s time to play some games.<\/p>\n <p>-Woz<\/p>","time":"December 9th, 2014 12:49 am","title":"The Stickman Cometh \u2013 Postmortem"}