{"assets":[{"original":"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/aereo-p0.gif","local":"\/data\/posts\/2013\/09\/be2ad2fe63a031f4c3e1d847a021f9b4.gif"},{"original":"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/aereo-p0.gif","local":"\/data\/posts\/2013\/09\/be2ad2fe63a031f4c3e1d847a021f9b4.gif"}],"author_link":"author\/manuq\/","author_name":"manuq","cat":"LD #27","categories":["LD #27"],"comments":[],"epoch":1378851180,"event":"LD27","likes":11,"metadata":{"p_key":"80332","p_author":"manuq","p_authorkey":"0","p_urlkey":"289342","p_title":"aereo postnatal","p_cat":"LD #27","p_event":"LD27","p_time":"1378851180","p_likes":"11","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":null,"us_name":null,"us_username":null,"event_start":"1377216000","event_key":"18","event_name":"LD27"},"source_url":"2013\/09\/10\/aereo-postnatal\/","text":"

\"aereo-p0\"<\/a><\/h2>\n

Day one<\/h2>\n

Theme: \u201c10 seconds\u201d. Nice! Having a filmmaking background, time is\u00a0such a big concept to me. I envisioned a game where the scene changes\u00a0each 10 seconds. Playing with montage inside a game seemed like a\u00a0great idea, but too complex for my first LD attempt. Let\u2019s keep it\u00a0simple, said to myself.<\/p>\n

Draw the sprites on grid paper and use them without any manual\u00a0postprocessing. I had this idea in my mind for a while. I\u2019ve been\u00a0planning to use it in a videogame workshop, targeted for children. In\u00a0the context of LD, it would allow me to forget about tweaking\u00a0graphics, and concentrate on programming. To reference a sprite, I\u00a0would just use the grid coordinates. This went better than I thought:\u00a0took me 20 minutes to have it working with two lines of bash\u00a0script<\/a>. Line one\u00a0scans. Line two optimizes the raw scan and converts a defined color to\u00a0alpha. Is there a better way to understand alpha masking than painting\u00a0the mask with your own hands? I hope to bring the workshop to reality!<\/p>\n

\"aereo-p1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Having a few testing sprites, I wanted to start playing with them. I\u00a0decided to go for html5 and javascript and I had been researching JS\u00a0game libs and graphic libs that handle the canvas in a high-level\u00a0fashion. I went for CreateJS because it looked promising. And here\u00a0comes the most stupid thing I did. After playing with CreateJS I\u00a0disliked the lack of color filters (it has, but weren\u2019t working well\u00a0for me). So I spent more than 5 hours switching to another JS lib,\u00a0just to go back to my last commit of CreateJS. Conclusion: fear the\u00a0Black Hole of Libs!<\/p>\n

Other thing that went wrong the first day: I spent one hour doing a\u00a0development setup that I ended throwing away. Namely grunt +\u00a0typescript + auto-compiler ts -> js . The compiler was slow in my\u00a0computer (about 10 seconds heh) and I was not using the features that\u00a0TS has over JS, like types or inheritance. Next time I will follow\u00a0\u201cYou Ain\u2019t Gonna Need It\u201d more strictly.<\/p>\n

With all these frustrations, I went back to a blank sheet of grid\u00a0paper. I started to imagine.. freedom, things flowing, wind, light\u00a0things carried by the wind.. wind changing direction after 10 secs!\u00a0Wind that makes the scene and the gameplay change!<\/p>\n

Now I had something to stick to, and at least it was slightly in the\u00a0direction of my first idea. I drew the leaf animation. I ran the scan\u00a0script, and saw the leaf jumping in the screen. Wee! I took a few frames of\u00a0the same animation and made it fly with the winds vibration. At least\u00a0I was making progress.<\/p>\n

Day two<\/h2>\n

Considering the frustrations of the first day, this one went smooth.\u00a0But I was heading for the compo and I was running out of time. So I\u00a0decided to go for just two scenes: sky and lake, above and below. Even\u00a0with that simplification, my code had many bugs. Good enough for a\u00a0first try, I said, but I won\u2019t submit this time. Maybe next LD I could\u00a0make it. \/me is sad \":(\"<\/p>\n

Day three<\/h2>\n

Monday. I did my normal 8 hours\u00a0job. Then I went for some fresh\u00a0air and started to reflect about the previous two days. And the idea\u00a0for the menu appeared. I have to finish it! I said. I have to apply\u00a0for the Jam! Went back home: three hours left. The more exciting three\u00a0hours I had in a while. I wrote a list of items, ordered by\u00a0importance, and started to eliminate them one by one. Made the intro\u00a0screen as a present to myself. Fixed the most annoying bugs, adding\u00a0visual debug on collisions and displaying the game states as text over\u00a0the screen. Made a lot of tweaks.<\/p>\n

\"aereo-p2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Finally, a bit late but.. I submitted! Of course not all the items in\u00a0the list were done. Here is what I missed:<\/p>\n

\u2013 humorous ending after N levels\/transitions\n\u2013 incremental difficulty: speed up things while advancing levels\n\u2013 visual feedback of the wind direction employing smaller leaves\n\u2013 real wind sound fx or acustic guitar sound fx\n\u2013 music\n\u2013 improve the HUD<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n

Inmediatly people started to comment on my just-submitted game. Lots\u00a0of great feedback! Was worth to participate. Antidote<\/a> made a screen\u00a0capture while playing the game for the first time<\/a>.\u00a0Can we have a more\u00a0valuable feedback than that?! The whole LD experience involved me, I\u2019ve been playing, voting, and commenting hundreads of games. There are many\u00a0great ones out there. This is an impressive experience!<\/p>","time":"September 10th, 2013 10:13 pm","title":"aereo postnatal","title_was_empty":false}