{"author_name":"Cosmologicon","cat":"LD #30","comments":[],"epoch":1411606440,"likes":1,"metadata":{"p_key":"26158","p_author":"Cosmologicon","p_authorkey":"1151","p_urlkey":"61583","p_title":"Spanner \u2013 postmortem","p_cat":"LD #30","p_event":"LD30","p_time":"1411606440","p_likes":"1","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"1151","us_name":"Cosmologicon","us_username":"cosmologicon","event_start":"1408665600","event_key":"24","event_name":"LD30"},"text":"

Play Spanner<\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Here’s my entry’s percentile ranks in each category: Theme 94%, Overall 86%, Audio 72%, Mood 71%, Graphics 69%, Innovation 67%, Fun 66%, Humor 45%. This was definitely not my best entry and it wasn’t particularly fun to make, but I thought I’d say a couple words about it.<\/p>\n

The puzzle mechanic is what I dislike most about this game. The puzzles are not elegant, and you just as often stumble across the solution with luck rather than deduction. The mechanics also allow for a very narrow range between too easy and too hard. I wound up with only four actual levels (after the six quick tutorial screens), but I’m not worried about people finishing it too fast because the last level is simply too hard. I suspect most people did not even make it past the first actual level.<\/p>\n

I possibly could have figured out a way to improve the mechanics, but I didn’t even have a level editor until four hours before the deadline, and at that point I needed to finish it up. I briefly considered completely changing the game to be an endless puzzle rather than level-based, but I’m sure the balance would have been terrible.<\/p>\n

Anyway, the graphics, sound, and controls came together pretty well (though I had a little trouble with the Web Audio API) so it was somewhat enjoyable nonetheless. But I think next time I’ll leave these until I’m really satisfied with the gameplay.<\/p>","time":"September 24th, 2014 7:54 pm","title":"Spanner \u2013 postmortem"}