{"assets":[{"original":"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/K2-550x312.png","local":"\/data\/posts\/2013\/12\/48c67b7570a5e9a447118527e4d60eb5.png"}],"author_link":"author\/georgebroussard\/","author_name":"GeorgeBroussard","cat":"LD #28","categories":["LD #28"],"comments":[],"epoch":1387454100,"event":"LD28","likes":12,"metadata":{"p_key":"79814","p_author":"GeorgeBroussard","p_authorkey":"0","p_urlkey":"288824","p_title":"Underdeep \u2013 Postmortem","p_cat":"LD #28","p_event":"LD28","p_time":"1387454100","p_likes":"12","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":null,"us_name":null,"us_username":null,"event_start":"1386892800","event_key":"20","event_name":"LD28"},"source_url":"2013\/12\/19\/underdeep-postmortem\/","text":"<p>I waited a couple of days to write this to let my head clear and I\u2019m not sure it is, so I\u2019m just going to write it <img alt=\":)\" class=\"wp-smiley\" src=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-includes\/images\/smilies\/icon_smile.gif\"\/><\/p>\n<p>This was a brutal LD for me. I slept 6 hours throughout the whole thing (1pm till about 7pm). I was up sat night from 7pm until close of LD submission. I clocked my time and I put in nearly 40 hours on this game and my second Twitch stream is nearly 24 hours! I was basically underwater most of the time and had too much to do so I was virtually never away from the computer. Whew. Don\u2019t try this at home.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" id=\"attachment_324533\" style=\"width: 560px\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-28\/?action=preview&amp;uid=8631\"><img alt=\"The unfriendly Underdeep.\" class=\"size-large wp-image-324533\" height=\"312\" src=\"\/data\/posts\/2013\/12\/48c67b7570a5e9a447118527e4d60eb5.png\" width=\"550\"\/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">The unfriendly <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-28\/?action=preview&amp;uid=8631\">Underdeep<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><strong style=\"line-height: 1.5em\">What went right\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Streaming. I decided to try to stream the whole process. It had good and bad associated with it, but I think it was a good experience overall. I had some dev friends watching and providing support. Some watchers posted some great ideas and it was fun to provide a peek at developing the game.<\/li>\n<li>Building on experience from 3 past Ludum Dare\u2019s. I never could have done this as my first game.<\/li>\n<li>I finished and the game feels solid, controls well and is technically competent, due to Unity. I was able to make 16\u00d716 pixel art look sexier with nice fog effects.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em\">I barely finished, and had it not been for doing 3 LD\u2019s before and being as comfortable with the tools as I was, I would not have\u2026and that said\u2026I almost didn\u2019t finish\u2026<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What went wrong\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I over reached in terms of scope, but dammit, I wanted to make an FPS and a 3D game and make the leap from 2D. I knew it was going to be very difficult, and it was.<\/li>\n<li>Streaming. I hadn\u2019t streamed before, so I had setup and technical issues. I spent the first 2.5 hours of the compo trying to get to steam on OSX (which has terrible options). I finally broke down and purcahsed Wirecast (which is not cheap) so I could do it well, then had lots of setup issues. As it was, there were still audio issues. So as usual, make SURE you have all your tech setup before hand\u2026and not just tools\/base code.<\/li>\n<li>I struggled with Unity a lot. I hadn\u2019t really done enough work in 3D and had some issues moving things around, even though it turns out it\u2019s trivial. I had some issues with my billboarding script messing with Unity moving things, and wasted lots of debug time. In short I spent 90% of my time implementing things and struggling, vs polishing and tweaking and getting to gameplay. As such the game is there but it\u2019s pretty lite.<\/li>\n<li>I was displeased with the \u201cAI\u201d and it wasn\u2019t working well. This was 5:30pm a couple hours before submission\u2026and I started to re-write it, after being up since 6pm the previous night. Oh boy\u2026it nearly fell apart. My head was too fuzzy to think. I was streaming and felt added pressure there to perform and the wheels were coming off. Literally a half hour before deadline I snagged some code from the Unity forums and just pushed guys around randomly with physics impulses and that seemed \u201cok\u201d and avoided some of the other issues I was having (need to revisit a better way to billboard sprites that doesn\u2019t mess with LookAt headings etc). But I was very seriously facing missing the deadline. My pulse was racing, my heart was beating, I ignored the stream for like an hour. I pushed the cat off my desk. I don\u2019t have panic attacks but I imagine this was what one felt like.<\/li>\n<li>Massive sessions. The final was literally 26 hours at my computer with only a few 15 min breaks for food\/restroom\/clear head etc. That\u2019s WAY too much, but it had to be done. I wanted to finish. I didn\u2019t want to fail. I had streamers watching. Sacrifice the body <img alt=\":)\" class=\"wp-smiley\" src=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-includes\/images\/smilies\/icon_smile.gif\"\/> I\u2019ve done crunch mode in the game industry many times before, but this was more painful. Maybe it\u2019s because I\u2019m older now and not 30 anymore <img alt=\":)\" class=\"wp-smiley\" src=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-includes\/images\/smilies\/icon_smile.gif\"\/><\/li>\n<li>I was so rushed at the end that the sounds are complete throwaway and I\u2019m disappointed there. No ambient cave\/dungeon track, etc.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So, this was a beast of a project for me, but I leveled up a lot and could do a much better fps in less time next time (which I might). On one hand you want to reduce scope to increase chance of success but on the other hand, sometimes you just gotta say \u201cf*ck it\u201d and reach higher than your ability and see what happens <img alt=\":)\" class=\"wp-smiley\" src=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-includes\/images\/smilies\/icon_smile.gif\"\/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-28\/?action=preview&amp;uid=8631\"><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em\">Hope you enjoy the game. Please rate it and comment and I will do the same in return.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<div style=\"float: right;border: 1px solid #eee;padding: 2px;background: #fff;\"><div class=\"iLikeThis\" id=\"iLikeThis-324531\"><span class=\"counter\"><a class=\"image\" onclick=\"likeThis(324531);\">12<\/a><\/span><\/div><\/div>\n<p class=\"postmetadata\">\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 Thursday, December 19th, 2013 at 11:55 am\t\t\t\t\t\tand is filed under <a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/category\/ld-28\/\" rel=\"category tag\">LD #28<\/a>.\n\t\t\t\t\t\tYou can follow any responses to this entry through the <a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/2013\/12\/19\/underdeep-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:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/2013\/12\/19\/underdeep-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, 2013 11:55 am","title":"Underdeep \u2013 Postmortem","title_was_empty":false}