Hi,

Here is a small post-mortem of my LD entry.

What is the game about ?

It’s a frantic game in which you can only fly and hit walls to change direction while avoiding deadly traps.

What went right:

– Constraints: Since I knew I would only have around 1 day to make the game, I put some constraints on gameplay and art. I wanted the gameplay to be really, really simple. What could be more simple than pressing any key to fly ? As far as we were going to fly a lot I made the velocity better if we keep on flying. I soon realised that this simple mechanic could be highly enhanced by bumping on the walls.

I was working on a NES-inspired game when the contest started so I kept the same limitations for my entry: 3-4 colors per sprite and use my personal NES palette. I also tried to limit the sprite size to 16×16. These are very relaxed NES constrained but they work for me.

– CharacterController2D: This is an amazing class to start with animating a character. It saved me a lot of work and allowed me to have pixel precise controls.

– Looking at the classics: I had no idea about the look I wanted to give to the game so I went to Spriters Resource to search for art style. For the backgrounds and platforms, I’ve been heavily inspired by the Castlevania serie. And for the character I took a mix of several old games styles I liked.

– Reusing: Both code(less than 1%) and derived my own art from the project  I was working on. It really helped me to get it on time. I just took the basic character controller of the game I was working on and adapted it to be able to fly. As for the art: I derived a secondary character to create the vampire.

– Testing: I tested each levels a lot, I mean A LOT. It allowed me to create some pixel precise nightmare. So my advice would be: test, test, … test and test again.

What went wrong:

– Time: As far as I’m dad of 3 wonderful children, I don’t have a lot of time to participate to LD. This time I knew I had less than 24h to work on it. Well, I could have had more time but I prefered to play with the kids .

I started by looking at the theme when I woke up and then…  worked on the art from 8 PM till midnight. On sunday I had something like 9-10 hours to work on the code and levels. Not much time.

– Diversity: I wanted to have 10 levels. That sounded like a good number. I ended up with only 2 trap types: pikes and saws. I should probably had better targeting less levels but add more traps and enemies diversity. Everything is a matter of time vs feature.

– Sound: I mostly play games without sound. That’s probably why I didn’t took time to add it to the game. It would have added a lot.

– Jam or Compo: As far I reused some code and art, I entered the Jam. But to be really honest I used around 20 lines of code and just derived personal art. Does it worth not entering the compo ? I don’t know. I worked alone. I strictly applied the rules but I felt like participating to the compo without being able to join it. What do you think ?

– The name: I still don’t know if I like it… I always find it hard to find name for the thing I do. I don’t know if it a good or bad name… what about Super Fly Drake ?… Does the name really matters?

Lil’ Drake : http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-33/?action=preview&uid=18768

Team: just me

Development time: +- 14h

Number of levels: 10

Development tools: Unity, Pixel Maker PRO, Aseprite, Pinta

Useful websites: spriters-resource.com, dafont.com