{"author_name":"maartene","cat":"LD #34","comments":[],"epoch":1452067200,"likes":0,"metadata":{"p_key":"9194","p_author":"maartene","p_authorkey":"63679","p_urlkey":"44410","p_title":"(Tail Power) \u2013 Results & Post Mortem","p_cat":"LD #34","p_event":"LD34","p_time":"1452067200","p_likes":"0","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"63679","us_name":"maartene","us_username":"\/author\/maartene\/","event_start":"1449792000","event_key":"31","event_name":"LD34"},"text":"<p>Hi all,<\/p>\n <p>LD34 was my first ever Ludum Dare or Game Jam for that matter. And boy, did I have fun.<\/p>\n <p>Anyway, I would like to share some of my experiences and talk a bit about the results for my entry: <strong>Tail Power (Compo)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n <p><a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/screenshot2_small.png\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-532582 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/screenshot2_small-300x185.png\" alt=\"screenshot2_small\" width=\"300\" height=\"185\" srcset=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/screenshot2_small-300x185.png 300w, http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/screenshot2_small.png 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n <p><strong>What went well?<\/strong><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>Submit a complete game &amp;&amp;<\/li>\n <li>Within 48 hours &amp;&amp;<\/li>\n <li>That is fun and playable<\/li>\n <li>Stuck to the plan: keep it simple<\/li>\n <li>The feeling of accomplishment after clicking the &#8220;Submit&#8221; button.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>In other words: my main goal was to actually deliver within 48 hours. I had no idea how long everything was going to take, so chose to play it safe. This meant to make sure to keep the game design simple. To use technology I&#8217;m familiar with and don&#8217;t try anything risky. Also, I knew I had to find time to trim the tree somewhere in those 48 hours and also spend some time with family. Note: submitting actually takes quite some time, so I was happy to have allowed enough time for that.<\/p>\n <p><strong>What didn&#8217;t went well<\/strong><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li><em>Input controls and build targets:<\/em> I chose Unity WebGL as the main deployment target. On my Mac \/ Safari combination this has some issues with control. For instance, the standard fire button (left-control) and an arrow key trigger Expos\u00e9 (switching between virtual screens), so you can&#8217;t really use left-control reliably on a Mac together with arrow keys. &#8220;No problem! I&#8217;ll just use the [space] key to fire then!&#8221;. Nice try, space key in Safari scrolls the page one page down. So I ended up using the &#8216;\/&#8217; key to fire.<\/li>\n <li><em>A frame within a frame:<\/em> the actual game is hosted on itch.io within an embedded frame. This frame embeds the Unity WebGL page. My target screen sizes (960&#215;600, Unity default for WebGL) ended up with introducing several scroll bars. Worse, using the arrow keys started scrolling the frames in addition to controlling the player character on screen. What a mess. I ended up adding WASD to control the player in addition to arrow keys.<\/li>\n <li><em>Unity lighting:<\/em> I wanted to use baked lights to indicate blue and red zones on the play field. However, lights also needed to illuminate the player as it moved around the play field. I tried using light probes but couldn&#8217;t get it to work. So,\u00a0I ended up using about 12 real time point lights. That didn&#8217;t help performance. In the post compo version I finally settled with using one directional light and color grading.<\/li>\n <li><em>Could have done more:<\/em> even with trimming the tree and family affairs, there was still time to maybe add some more stuff.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p><strong>Results<\/strong><\/p>\n <p>First off, thank you to everyone who played and rated my game. Much appreciated!<\/p>\n <p>My entry ended up somewhere in the middle of the pack. Which I&#8217;m pretty happy with actually.<\/p>\n <p><a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/results.png\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-532581 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/results-300x169.png\" alt=\"results\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/results-300x169.png 300w, http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/results.png 451w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n <p>I&#8217;m not surprised by the relatively low score for innovation: in the end this is just snake with a gun strapped on. I did not take any risks, something that will be a goal for me in April.<\/p>\n <p>Apart from the scores what really helps are the comments some of you left about the game: what you liked and didn&#8217;t and suggestions for improvements. These really help make a better game. So thank you to all who left feedback.<\/p>\n <p><strong>Final thoughts<\/strong><\/p>\n <p>I can&#8217;t begin to describe how much fun participating was. Next time I&#8217;ll definitely make sure to freeze all family related activities during the time of the Compo. See you in April!<\/p>\n <p style=\"text-align: center\">You can play the game <a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-34\/?action=preview&amp;uid=63679\">here<\/a><\/p>\n <p>&nbsp;<\/p>","time":"January 6th, 2016 3:00 am","title":"(Tail Power) \u2013 Results & Post Mortem"}