{"author_name":"stuckie","cat":"LD #15 - Caverns - 2009","comments":[],"epoch":1251721440,"likes":0,"metadata":{"p_key":"72527","p_author":"stuckie","p_authorkey":"267","p_urlkey":"108349","p_title":"Moons of Subterrane : Post Mortem","p_cat":"LD #15 - Caverns - 2009","p_event":"LD15","p_time":"1251721440","p_likes":"0","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"267","us_name":"stuckie","us_username":"stuckie","event_start":"1251417600","event_key":"1","event_name":"LD15"},"text":"

The dust has barely settled, but I’m throwing up a post mortem anyway…<\/p>\n

Moons of Subterrane was interesting in that for the most part, nothing went wrong.
\n I had been feeling a bit ill and stuff, so didn’t do the full 48hr run, I perhaps did 24hrs instead…
\n So in keeping with my previous post-mortems, the good, bad and ugly –<\/p>\n

The Good:
\n As said, nothing really went wrong during the work I did.
\n Adding things was really easy due to the way I had set it up – albeit slightly convoluted in that maps and enemies\/stations are in different files.
\n The system kinda worked like a database to that effect… where each room was designed in a text editor and given a room number, and the map just referenced the room numbers. All data was loaded in on level load ( which can cause a pause or two )
\n Enemy spawners and flight paths were relatively easy to add as well.
\n Seeing as I did miniLD11 with Little Quirks ( which I’ve still been working on ) I was a lot more confident with the engine and how things worked, or should work, which was probably how I managed so well this time \":)\"<\/p>\n

The Bad:
\n Again, I didn’t really factor much time in for sounds.. and a ZX Spectrum could beat the sounds I did!
\n Testing was quite tricky as well, as the levels can be quite involving.
\n Also, no animations… so everything’s a static sprite – doesn’t look quite so good as it could’ve been but then, I’m no artist!<\/p>\n

The Ugly:
\n The submission phase… heh… I buggered this up spectacularly and only just realised after I got a comment stating it was far too fast.
\n The game was coded primarily on a Linux box, and I had a Windows laptop setup to do win32 builds on. I tested and built the correct binary, but somehow transferred an older binary to my Linux box when packing things up. Same thing happened with the Dingoo and Wiz builds ( they should work but just not have input, instead they crash due to other factors which I fixed this morning. )
\n Now, I have updated my entry with a fixed exe to download.. but this is tricky though as my original submission does have a broken exe – HOWEVER, and here’s the fun bit.. I included full source in that package and if you were to compile an exe from that source, you’d get the correct working version!
\n Also, I did put up various versions on my site, as I had some other people who were testing my game throughout the duration on Windows for me.
\n You can find them all here:
\n http:\/\/www.stuckiegamez.co.uk\/gamez\/ludumdare\/ld15\/<\/a><\/p>\n

(The submitted package is: MoonsOfSubterrane-LD15.7z<\/a> and the Win32 fix is: SGZ2D.exe<\/a>)
\n You’ll see that the exe in hour 44 does infact work at the correct pace ( without sound.. though the sound is so dire and you’ll be probably turning it off anyway ), and you can check the source in the submitted package: specifically line 132 onwards (the updateInterfaces function) in Source\/code\/engine\/CInterpret.cpp – there lies the nasty hacky SDL specific framelimit code – which obviously isn’t active in the submitted exe.<\/p>\n

Also… KATE on Linux seems to do stuff to the files it edits, as on Windows they seem to have extra blank lines between every normal line.. hmm..<\/p>\n

So yea, although nothing technically went wrong during the competition, and I was surprised at that, I managed to bugger up the submission in spectacular style, instead! Woo!<\/p>","time":"August 31st, 2009 7:24 am","title":"Moons of Subterrane : Post Mortem"}