{"author_name":"Nanolotl","cat":"LD #30","comments":[],"epoch":1409720460,"likes":3,"metadata":{"p_key":"26293","p_author":"Nanolotl","p_authorkey":"4470","p_urlkey":"61719","p_title":"Sllukswefa Post-Mortem","p_cat":"LD #30","p_event":"LD30","p_time":"1409720460","p_likes":"3","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"4470","us_name":"Nanolotl","us_username":"nanolotl","event_start":"1408665600","event_key":"24","event_name":"LD30"},"text":"

Warning!
\n <\/strong>Reading this before playing the game may diminish the amount of enjoyment you would get out of it! I recommend you go HERE<\/a>\u00a0first. It’s not very long.<\/p>\n

About The Game:
\n <\/strong>The game I ended up submitting to this Ludum Dare is a bit of an odd one that doesn\u2019t really fall into any pre-defined genre, but it has elements of platformer, puzzle and adventure games in it. You navigate several worlds from a first-person perspective, try to figure out how they work and try to reach an arbitrary ending.<\/p>\n

\"Sllukswefa<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What Went Right:
\n <\/strong>-Getting ideas
\n After the announcement of the theme I went through my usual Ludum Dare routine of talking to people I know and then going for a walk in order to figure out what I should try making. I was able to come up with how I would implement the theme reasonably quickly, in that the player would be able to travel between the normal world, heaven, hell and a weird intermediate world.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Four Worlds<\/p><\/div>\n

-Aesthetics
\n Despite being very simple 3D graphics, I think I managed to make a fairly interesting looking game. Each world had its own atmosphere. (Although I think heaven was a bit lacking as it was added towards the very end of development) The water in the city world and the tentacle and eye filled things in hell are the elements I thought turned out the best<\/p>\n

\"Slluk<\/a>

Tentacles, Water, A Sacrificial Altar and Platforms<\/p><\/div>\n

-Gameplay Mechanics
\n I managed to keep the interactions the player could perform fairly simple in this game, but I feel they still made the game fun enough. I re-implemented an item picking up and carrying system I had used before in what is probably my favourite of my prior Ludum Dare entries: Reach the Moon<\/a><\/p>\n

-Programming
\n I had very few problems implementing the features I wanted to and so minimised the amount of time I would spend scratching my head at a problem. Drawing diagrams on paper to help visualise the problem really helped me.<\/p>\n

\"Slluk<\/a><\/p>\n

What Didn\u2019t Go So Well:<\/strong>
\n -Time management
\n I had a bit of trouble staying motivated during the 48 hours, primarily because I wasn\u2019t certain what I wanted the final game to be like, and so I took a fair few breaks. By 9pm on the Sunday evening (Perth time, so with about 12 hours remaining) I was very doubtful that I was going to finish. Thankfully I managed to stay focused for a few more hours (Thanks in part to the over-cheerfulness of the Katamari Forver soundtrack) and had my entry submitted by 2am.<\/p>\n

-Audio
\n There is none. This was primarily a result of my time management. By 2am I didn\u2019t really want to launch up SFXR and start putting sound effects where I thought they needed to be, and so decided near enough was good enough. I also know absolutely nothing about creating music. None of the Ludum Dare games I have ever made have any.<\/p>\n

-Technical Issues
\n I only tested my game on my own computer. So by the time I woke up on Monday morning I had discovered that most PC\u2019s could not handle the city world of the game. (Turned out all the people created too many vertex buffers for graphics cards to handle) I managed to sort this out eventually and make the game runnable.<\/p>\n

Bonus findings:<\/strong>
\n This Ludum Dare I also tried hosting my game on some other websites, namely GameJolt<\/a> and itch.io<\/a>. It\u2019s been really enjoyable being able to see how many people are viewing and downloading the game, with GameJolt having much greater amounts of people than itch.io.<\/p>\n

Overall I think this Ludum Dare went very well and look forward to seeing the results and participating in the next one that I can.<\/p>\n \n

Tags: LD30<\/a>, post-mortem<\/a>, postmortem<\/a><\/p>","time":"September 3rd, 2014 12:01 am","title":"Sllukswefa Post-Mortem"}