{"author_name":"brandoncash","cat":"LD #18 - Enemies as Weapons - 2010","comments":[],"epoch":1282601520,"likes":0,"metadata":{"p_key":"69279","p_author":"brandoncash","p_authorkey":"2012","p_urlkey":"105082","p_title":"Post-mortem","p_cat":"LD #18 - Enemies as Weapons - 2010","p_event":"LD18","p_time":"1282601520","p_likes":"0","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"2012","us_name":"brandoncash","us_username":"brandoncash","event_start":"1282262400","event_key":"4","event_name":"LD18"},"text":"

So now that everything has settled, I’d like to take some time to explain the process that went behind making Fromulus<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Firstly, I spent most of the time disconnected from the internet. \u00a0This wasn’t exactly on purpose, but I think it helped me focus a bit more.<\/p>\n

The competition started at 9pm my time, and I devoted the first night to ideas and sleep. \u00a0I came up with a few decent ideas, which I blogged about earlier. \u00a0I settled on Fromulus as it seemed like the best option. \u00a0I woke up a bit later than I had really intended, but got to work fairly straight-away on art. \u00a0I did all of the art in one sitting, which was probably close to 8 hours. \u00a0Most of that was playing around with different styles for things.<\/p>\n

Originally, the grass was a standard green, and the ground a purplish-brown. \u00a0I opened up the hue editor in Photoshop and played around with it until it became red. \u00a0For some reason, it just seemed a lot better. \u00a0You compare:<\/p>\n

\"Red

Red vs. Green: Fight!<\/p><\/div>\n

After choosing this odd palette, I decided that I needed some equally weird plant life. \u00a0I decided to go with spirals, as they were very visually pleasing (to me, anyhow!). \u00a0They were a bit of a pain to do, but I think it was worth it.<\/p>\n

A very large bulk of the time then came doing animations. \u00a0I drew the Slimer first, but ended up redrawing him later as his animation didn’t look great. \u00a0Next came the Chomper. \u00a0Each has two animations, and fits into a 16×16 block. \u00a0The ice cube and fire graphics are just drawn on top with code. \u00a0When I get more time, I will likely draw each type of creature on fire, to make the animations look better. \u00a0Here’s what the Chomper’s spritesheet looks like. \u00a0The first row are of him walking, and the second are of him getting thrown back.<\/p>\n

\"Chomp

Chomp chomp chomp<\/p><\/div>\n

The largest animation is, of course, Fromulus himself. \u00a0He has five different animations, which all needed to be smooth, as you obviously see him the most. \u00a0His death animation is the longest, at 10 frames. \u00a0Here’s what his spritesheet looks like. \u00a0In order of rows, the animations are: walk, cast, jump, fall, die, and then the rest of die.<\/p>\n

\"I

I am a wizard!<\/p><\/div>\n

I had very clearly two images in my mind:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. When he falls, his robes needed to fly up. \u00a0Although there isn’t really enough room to show some boxers with hearts on them, I did manage to show a little skin. \u00a0(How’s that for ‘humor?’)<\/li>\n
  2. When he dies, he should disappear and his hat should float down. \u00a0This is definitely my favorite animation.<\/li>\n <\/ol>\n

    On to the coding portion, things went relatively smoothly. \u00a0I used the wonderful flixel library<\/a>, with which I am very comfortable, as I have been using it for quite some time. \u00a0I made a poor choice in map editor decisions and went with one that is a little flaky (Wasabi M) over Ogmo Editor, just as it was easier to use the maps straight away with out delay. \u00a0Ordinarily, Wasabi M is a great editor… however, this time around it had all sorts of problems, namely not letting me see the entire map and then, towards the end of the competition, eating the map that I had drawn out. \u00a0So, in the last minutes, I scrambled to make the map you see now–which is why it’s not very good at all.<\/p>\n

    I actually made some sound effects, but you don’t hear them in game. \u00a0Why is this, you might ask? \u00a0Well, sfxr only makes wavs, and I didn’t have any software to convert them to MP3. \u00a0I tried an online converter, but Flash wouldn’t take the files. \u00a0 So, I will fix that in a later version (or just embed the sfxr player into flixel). \u00a0This really made me mad, but I didn’t really have any time to keep fussing with them.<\/p>\n

    Before the competition started, I played around with musagi to see how to make chiptunes. \u00a0The plan was that if I had any left over time, I’d write a track. \u00a0However, before the competition even started, I came to a grand realization: I really, really suck at making music. \u00a0So, I gave up on even thinking about trying it.<\/p>\n

    Anyways, that’s pretty much the tale of making Fromulus. \u00a0I enjoyed the experience thoroughly, and will definitely be competing in more Ludum Dares as I can.<\/p>\n

    Edit<\/em>: removed responses to things on the voting page, as I see you can make comments there.<\/p>\n

    Now the part you’ve all been waiting for: here’s a shot of what I’ve done since the competition ended:<\/p>\n