This is my first Ludum Dare and I’m glad to know I’ve been able to finish a game, strange, but at least, a game.

To be honest I was uncomfortable with the winner theme. I think I was not the only one that thought: “omg!” I have preferred other, probably more simple or more conceptual. After all I think that this issue isn’t important. Instead I think it’s a challenge that forces us to be more creative to find a nice idea to start to develop the game.

The first important choice I took was to do a remake. In fact, I think that’s all we do when we’re trying to make a game: we search for a clue or inspiration from the lots of games we played before. I decided to do something similar to Terry Cavanagh’s “Don’t look back”. I thought this will be a good starting point to, after a while, modify the characters, the game plot and graphics. But it was no possible in the end and I feel like I was haunted by the feel of DLB.

Ok, I’m also stuck with the no-end of the game :)

Play and rate it

What went right:

• Incredibly funny experience.
• Working with Game Studio Pro is ok. I have a six months experience with it and I feel I improved my skills in GML. I think that Game Studio is a good tool for developing games in a fast way. This makes me to think that GM is a right tool for make prototypes, sketches or mockups and platform games as well.
• The ambience and the atmosphere of the game.
• The rain effect.

What went wrong:

• There’s no a clear plot. Well, in fact I love games without a plot and left the player to imagine a plot by himself while he’s playing the game.
• There’s no ending. This is the big fail of the game. I was in a mess trying to work out a perfect end but I failed miserably. This is the first issue I want to fix this holidays
• No audio effects like footsteps. Only the rain sound as background.
•  No enemies to kill/avoid or puzzles to solve.
• No web port of the game. This question I think it’s crucial. As a player while I was rating games I find myself more comfortable playing the web port than Windows/OSX/Linux version. This issue makes me think that I need to learn HTML5 or Haxe + NME soon