So with voting coming to a close soon, I’m very eagerly awaiting the close of my very first Ludum Dare. Overall, I’m happy with the result of my game, Minion’s Defense, even if the list below says otherwise. I’m astounded by the amount of feedback I’ve gotten, and I think this entry makes for a very good baseline for proceeding competitions. This post-mortem is a bit late from what I’ve seen of others, but I really wanted to let the game slip out of my mind for a few weeks and revisit it with rejuvenated eyes. So onto the list!

What I did right

• Art: I’m not an artist. If I pick up a pen and doodle something, it usually comes out as a pile of squiggles. That said, I’m very pleased with how the game looks. While simple, it conveys what it needs to and is consistent, which is good for me. Other than the fact that the player minion looks like the rest of the minions, there’s not much I’d change.
• Finishing: This might not seem important, but I’m bad about finishing things that aren’t for other people. Bad as in, I never finish anything.
• AI: While nothing special, my favorite part of the game is watching the minions swarm the knight. I probably spent way too long on getting it to feel the way I want. Each action a minion does has some random jitter, and at certain intervals they’ll just pause. This adds a lot of variety to their movement, and I just can’t stop watching them. fun tip: Start the game, make your “town”, and then switch to a different tab for a minute or so.
• Joined the IRC room: Ok, this doesn’t really have anything to do with my game, but being in the IRC room made the game so much more enjoyable. Though I didn’t talk much, seeing the progress everyone made was a ton of fun, as was showing off periodic builds on Friday and early Saturday. I highly recommend that EVERYONE who participates joins in.

What I did wrong

• Motivation: I was very motivated for Friday and most of Saturday. I went to bed on Saturday feeling a bit discouraged, and woke up on Sunday with a bad headache and the feeling that the game wasn’t worth finishing. I did some shopping that could have waited and watched some 30 Rock on Netflix  and with 3 hours before the end, decided I might as well get it ready so I could submit at least SOMETHING. I was completely amazed at how quickly the game shaped together in those three hours. I kick myself thinking about what I could have submitted if I had worked the entire day. Next Ludum Dare I’ll remember this and keep working all weekend long.
• Theme: A lot of people complained that the game didn’t fit the theme well. Looking back on it, I feel a little dumb because that’s such an easy thing to fix. If I had made a sprite of a princess tied to a stick on the right side of the map, I don’t think anyone would have had any trouble with the connection. It would have had the added side effect of putting the build mode in better context. I’m sure most people put down huts on the left side not knowing the night would show up there and lost prematurely. Next Ludum Dare, I’ll be sure not to make the same mistake.
• Balance: At the last moment I panicked that it would be too easy and bumped the knights health up by 50%. I smoked tested it to make sure I could beat it, but didn’t stop to think about the fact that when you make a game, you always perceive it to me much easier than the average player will be.
• Framework: This will probably seem crazy to participants that have been through a few of these competitions, but I went into this with a blank project. Most of Friday and early Saturday was spent on basic things like movement, collision detection, and getting animations to play. These are game agnostic components that I really shouldn’t deal with during a 48 hour competition. I could have had a much more polished game if these things were done ahead of time.
• Sound: Sound? What’s sound? This one might not even make it into the next competition, because making sound and music is so far beyond my grasp it’s barely funny. To me, it’s some kind of wizard magic.

All this said, I’m already super excited for the next Ludum Dare. I’ll probably be doing my next entry in Java as I’m trying to get into android development. I’m very much looking forward to applying these lessons and making an even better game. See you then and thanks for reading!

I’m also posting this on my blog, scott.mcb.ee, where I’ll (when I can remember) be posting about a different town building game I’m starting. Check it out if you want!