{"author_name":"mneubrand","cat":"LD #23","comments":[],"epoch":1335130920,"likes":1,"metadata":{"p_key":"56547","p_author":"mneubrand","p_authorkey":"11653","p_urlkey":"92292","p_title":"Bacterial World \u2013 Postmortem","p_cat":"LD #23","p_event":"LD23","p_time":"1335130920","p_likes":"1","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"11653","us_name":"mneubrand","us_username":"mneubrand","event_start":"1334880000","event_key":"10","event_name":"LD23"},"text":"

My first #LD48 is over and I submitted my game (give it a shot here<\/a>). It was quite the ride but I am happy that I participated.<\/p>\n

What went right:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Submitted a complete game:<\/em> The game is more or less feature complete. There is music, animations, sound effects, explanation, etc. All the bits and pieces are in place. Finishing a complete game was one of my top priorities for my first LD and I am glad I made that happen.<\/p>\n

Learned to use a lot of new tools:<\/em> This was the first time I really did an entire game myself. Usually I resort to the likes of opengameart.org<\/a>, soundbible.com<\/a>, jamendo.com<\/a> etc. to supply graphics\/sound\/music for a game. LD forced me out of my comfort zone and I had to learn how to create some of those myself. I discovered some awesome tools for sound creation like sfxr<\/a>, cgmusic<\/a> or\u00a0otomata<\/a> I will definitely use again.<\/p>\n

Learned some new coding techniques\/tricks:<\/em> I usually do very different development work than game programming in my job (working on low-level stuff in a UNIX daemon right now). For some aspects of the game (pixel perfect collision, etc.) I had to venture into things I’ve never done before and picked up some useful new tricks for future projects (or at least learned how not to do it :D)<\/p>\n

What went wrong\/not so good:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not prepared enough for graphics\/sound\/music:<\/em> As I mentioned above I do programming for a living but I have little to no drawing\/graphics\/music skills. I didn’t really have the time to prepare for this LD at all. So next time around I am going to try to at least search for some useful tools or read some tutorials on those topics. Ideally I am gonna even participate in the warm-up weekend.<\/p>\n

Couldn’t come up with an idea I liked:<\/em> I ended up developing this simple sidescroller\/endless runner game because I couldn’t really come up with another doable idea. I am not really sure how to improve this until the next competition either. Just hoping that inspiration strikes me at the next LD.<\/p>\n

Not detailed enough plan at start of development: <\/em>I am definitely not the guy who wants to work off a 100 page design document but I will try to have a better idea of how the final game should look like before starting to code next time. My “design document” was the inkscape drawing I posted<\/a> Friday evening.<\/p>\n

Not enough time: <\/em>My #LD48 was more like a #LD24. I had a lot of other stuff going on this weekend so I couldn’t focus as much on the game as I wanted too. I am going to try to really get the whole weekend for the next LD so I can tackle a more ambitious idea.<\/p>\n

All in all I am very happy that I finished. There were quite some obstacles to overcome but I fought through them and created a complete game. It isn’t a masterpiece but I got it done. I’ll be in for the next LD for sure and go for a more complex game next time.<\/p>\n \n

Tags: postmortem<\/a><\/p>","time":"April 22nd, 2012 4:42 pm","title":"Bacterial World \u2013 Postmortem"}