{"author_name":"Warboys","cat":"LD #34","comments":[{"author_name":"","time":"January 3, 2016 11:04 am","epoch":1451837040,"text":"Nice post-mortem, I enjoyed reading it.","spam":"N"}],"epoch":1451818440,"likes":3,"metadata":{"p_key":"9300","p_author":"Warboys","p_authorkey":"33962","p_urlkey":"44516","p_title":"Slum Runner\/LD 2015 Post Mortem","p_cat":"LD #34","p_event":"LD34","p_time":"1451818440","p_likes":"3","p_comments":"1","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"33962","us_name":"Warboys","us_username":"warboys","event_start":"1449792000","event_key":"31","event_name":"LD34"},"text":"

This is going to be a pretty dull post mortem because very little went wrong. Nonetheless, I did learn some stuff and I’ve not done a self-promo post that actually contributed anything yet so here goes!<\/p>\n

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Play Slum Runner here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"logo\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I’ll rate you back and provide delicious feedback btw, so make sure to leave a comment!<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

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Now, onto the post-mortem…<\/p>\n

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What was my mission?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’ve had a pretty tough year in 2015\u00a0for LD. The last game I felt that was reasonably successful was Silian Rail for the Entire Game on One Screen theme\u00a0(last December). I really felt I did a good job on that game, and it was easily the most complete and polished product I’ve made myself from start to finish. With that setting my standards much higher, I had raised the stakes impossibly high for the next few LDs. I was all like “I need to break the top 100!” and “I need to get a 4-star rating for fun!”.<\/p>\n

For Unconventional Weapon and You Are The Monster I was too ambitious, poor at planning, and making some pretty bad conceptual decisions that resulted in so much wasted time. Unconventional Weapon I didn’t submit. It wasn’t done. You Are The Monster I submitted, but it was critically buggy and I didn’t bother promoting it.<\/p>\n

This time my mission was to\u00a0finish the core gameplay programming in 8 hours<\/em><\/strong>. Of course, as a solo dev I wanted to enter the Compo<\/strong><\/em>, but these were my only two missions.<\/p>\n

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What went poorly?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’ll start with the bad stuff because I think it’s clear that I failed my two mission requirements!<\/p>\n

My 8-hour programming limit was more around 12 hours<\/em><\/strong>. Those 4 hours really mattered, as I could have probably made the Compo deadline using that time to craft all the levels I needed (I have 8 missions at the moment) or build the music. There aren’t really many lessons to learn here though. I worked flat out with no breaks at a breakneck pace (for me) and it just took longer than expected… so c’est la vie!<\/p>\n

I wanted to submit to the Compo but I needed an extra 72 hours for the Jam<\/strong><\/em>. Technically I could have released a much worse game for the Compo, \u00a0especially if I had those 4 extra hours, but I really enjoyed the concept and felt I had to do it justice and polish it up. The compo version would have had placeholder art, no music, and only 5 levels (with the first 2 basically being an easy tutorial). You can see it below as I made a ‘I failed’ video about an hour before the Compo deadline.<\/p>\n

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