{"assets":[{"original":"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/7456-shot0-300x225.png","local":"\/data\/posts\/2011\/12\/4e86b81626156f8e7ff490ec6bf2dd98.png"},{"original":"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/7456-shot1-300x225.png","local":"\/data\/posts\/2011\/12\/a9feeefc5f82c7d68560c5f717c894fb.png"}],"author_link":"author\/cryptoporticus\/","author_name":"Cryptoporticus","cat":"LD #22","categories":["LD #22"],"comments":[],"epoch":1324319700,"event":"LD22","likes":5,"metadata":{"p_key":"77688","p_author":"Cryptoporticus","p_authorkey":"0","p_urlkey":"286539","p_title":"The Deep \u2013 Postmortem","p_cat":"LD #22","p_event":"LD22","p_time":"1324319700","p_likes":"5","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":null,"us_name":null,"us_username":null,"event_start":"1323993600","event_key":"8","event_name":"LD22"},"source_url":"2011\/12\/19\/the-deep-postmortem\/","text":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-22\/?action=preview&amp;uid=7456\">http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-22\/?action=rate&amp;uid=7456<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This was my first Ludum Dare and I must say that I enjoyed every moment of it. I rarely see my projects through to the end so having a time limit and some competition was very useful for motivation.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/2011\/12\/19\/the-deep-postmortem\/7456-shot0\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-101063\"><img alt=\"What the player will see before initiating the awesome, or not, lockpicking mini-game.\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-101063 aligncenter\" height=\"225\" src=\"\/data\/posts\/2011\/12\/4e86b81626156f8e7ff490ec6bf2dd98.png\" width=\"300\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>What went right?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Time.<\/strong> I had plenty of time to work on this game, an empty house and no plans for the weekend meant that I could dedicate every moment I was awake\/not eating to working on the game.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Pre-planning. <\/strong>I planned every aspect of the game on paper and planned out exactly what order I was make everything in before I wrote a single line of code. Not a single feature in the final version wasn\u2019t planned on paper first, a lot of features from my original plans were removed though.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Knowledge. <\/strong>Every feature in my game had been made at some point or another, in some form or another, by me. The problem was trying to remember how I made them and then put them all together into a game that actually works.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Notch. <\/strong>That man\u2019s livestream had some great music. Plus, the\u00a0rhythmic\u00a0tapping of his keyboard was great motivation to keep typing.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Gameplay. <\/strong>The idea was that my game would be hard. I wanted people to feel under\u00a0pressure\u00a0while they were trying to disarm the bombs, I thought that the time-limit, lack of a reset button and having to start the game from the\u00a0beginning if they failed was a good way of achieving this. Plus, if no one can finish the game, no one can complain that it\u2019s too short.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What went wrong?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Gameplay. <\/strong>Apparently players don\u2019t like to be infuriated by high difficulty levels and over-the-top punishments for making just one mistake, who knew?<\/li>\n<li><strong>Over-estimation of my programming speed. <\/strong>A lot of stuff from the original plans were never in the final game, this is purely because I didn\u2019t realize just how long it takes me to code even the most basic of features.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Lockpicking.<\/strong>\u00a0As a result of not having the foresight to realize how long these features would take to add, lockpicking wasn\u2019t started until a few hours before the deadline. This resulted in lockpicking turning from the Tetris style puzzle that it was originally supposed to be and becoming a \u201cBash the buttons as fast as you can\u201d minigame with awful graphics. It also meant that the option to place a previously disarmed bomb in the lock to explode it open, had to be cut completely.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/2011\/12\/19\/the-deep-postmortem\/7456-shot1\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-101088\"><img alt=\"Off-center Star Wars references, FTW.\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-101088 aligncenter\" height=\"225\" src=\"\/data\/posts\/2011\/12\/a9feeefc5f82c7d68560c5f717c894fb.png\" width=\"300\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/2011\/12\/19\/the-deep-postmortem\/7456-shot2\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-101085\"><img alt=\"The Lights Out style bomb disarm minigame.\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-101085 aligncenter\" height=\"225\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/7456-shot2-300x225.png\" width=\"300\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Conclusion:<br\/>\n<\/strong>Overall, I\u2019ve learned that difficulty is not a good substitute for longevity and that\u00a0believing my programming skills to be god-like is never a good idea, especially before I attempt to make something against the clock and something that other people will play.<\/p>\n<p>Tags: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/tag\/ld22\/\" rel=\"tag\">LD22<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/tag\/post-mortem\/\" rel=\"tag\">post-mortem<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/tag\/postmortem\/\" rel=\"tag\">postmortem<\/a><\/p> <div style=\"float: right;border: 1px solid #eee;padding: 2px;background: #fff;\"><div class=\"iLikeThis\" id=\"iLikeThis-101018\"><span class=\"counter\"><a class=\"image\" onclick=\"likeThis(101018);\">5<\/a><\/span><\/div><\/div>\n<p class=\"postmetadata alt\">\n<small>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tThis entry was posted\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\ton Monday, December 19th, 2011 at 6:35 pm\t\t\t\t\t\tand is filed under <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/category\/ld-22\/\" rel=\"category tag\" title=\"View all posts in LD #22\">LD #22<\/a>.\n\t\t\t\t\t\tYou can follow any responses to this entry through the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/2011\/12\/19\/the-deep-postmortem\/feed\/\">RSS 2.0<\/a> feed.\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tYou can <a href=\"#respond\">leave a response<\/a>, or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/2011\/12\/19\/the-deep-postmortem\/trackback\/\" rel=\"trackback\">trackback<\/a> from your own site.\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/small>\n<\/p>","time":"December 19th, 2011 6:35 pm","title":"The Deep \u2013 Postmortem","title_was_empty":false}