try Goombah! here.<\/a><\/p>\n The first thing that came to mind when I saw the theme announcement was to focus on a grand villain – Darth Vader, Genghis Khan, Kane, etc. \u00a0The second thing I thought of was stupid and funny. \u00a0I went with that.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard out there for a goomba. \u00a0He sits on a little platform, waiting patiently for the plumber to show up, at which time mr. goomba either gets stepped on or walks off a ledge. \u00a0I\u00a0didn’t\u00a0want to make the game quite that boring, so I took out the ledges and provided an endless stream of jumping men to avoid. \u00a0The goomba\u2019s chances of survival are still slim, but at least it is interesting!<\/p>\n
What went well<\/em><\/p>\n \n - Kept it simple – I had a simple design that was not too difficult to implement in a few hours. \u00a0I considered adding\u00a0game play\u00a0features, but focused instead on making everything look nice and by the time I could have come back to changing\u00a0game play\u00a0it was time to submit.<\/li>\n
- Flashpunk – The only exposure I had to flash development before the compo was running through the flashpunk tutorial. \u00a0For me it was a great place to start, and that engine is a snap to use!<\/li>\n
- Draw first – I am not what you would call an artistically gifted man. \u00a0I spent the first hour or two in GIMP drawing out the sprites for the game, so that I knew they were done and did not have to worry about the art while I was working on the code. \u00a0If I had done it the other way around, I\u2019m not sure my placeholder art (colored squares) would have ever been replaced.<\/li>\n
- Submit early – I submitted the game early on Sunday because I had other obligations, and at that time only a few dozen games total had been submitted. \u00a0I know they don\u2019t count for scoring, but almost 50 people had played my game before the end of the day. \u00a0That\u2019s just cool.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n
What could be better<\/em><\/p>\n \n - Levels – One thing I would have liked would be to add some variety to the game by having different platform configurations to mix up the\u00a0game play. \u00a0The game works, but does get boring pretty quickly.<\/li>\n
- Interface – An actual menu, instructions screen, and game over screen would be nice to have in there. \u00a0The text elements up top were a last minute addition, and while I think they do the job it could be better.<\/li>\n
- Frame based motion – I would much rather have implemented motion based on actual elapsed time, but started the game by implementing motion based on number of frames passed. \u00a0Around hour 5 I\u00a0realized\u00a0that this could be an issue, but never managed to go back and rework it. \u00a0Next time, I\u2019ll start the right way.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n
Having actually made a game in a weekend, and then having so many people play and comment on that game has been a great experience. \u00a0And to everyone who has played and commented on my entry, thank you!<\/p>\n \n
Tags: compo<\/a>, flashpunk<\/a>, ld25<\/a>, postmortem<\/a><\/p>","time":"December 22nd, 2012 8:47 am","title":"Goombah! Postmortem"}