{"author_name":"tanis","cat":"LD #34","comments":[],"epoch":1450458000,"likes":0,"metadata":{"p_key":"9545","p_author":"tanis","p_authorkey":"48604","p_urlkey":"44765","p_title":"Forks and Porks Post Mortem","p_cat":"LD #34","p_event":"LD34","p_time":"1450458000","p_likes":"0","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"48604","us_name":"tanis","us_username":"tanis","event_start":"1449792000","event_key":"31","event_name":"LD34"},"text":"<p>This is my first Ludum Dare and I have to admit that it&#8217;s been fun but hard at the same time.<br \/>\n I wanted to ship something and here&#8217;s the result:<\/p>\n <p><a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-34\/?action=preview&amp;uid=48604\">http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-34\/?action=preview&amp;uid=48604<\/a><\/p>\n <p><img src=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/compo2\/\/511439\/48604-shot0-1450013121.gif-eq-900-500.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n <p>Here are some random facts about what went wrong and what went right:<\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>I wanted to try a different framework. I usually work with Unity, but I felt I owed to give the latest framework from Mike a go and see if I could make something with it. So I set myself on making a game with MonoGame + Nez. The good is that I&#8217;m familiar with C# so code was flowing quite easily. On the other hand, I had to deal with the Pipeline Tool of MonoGame that I didn&#8217;t know as well as I should have before venturing further.<\/li>\n <li>MonoGame is good, but it&#8217;s not so easy to make a portable game. I worked on Mac and ported it to Windows at the end, and I faced some issues with the stable version of MG using some DLLs that were not included in the final build of the game. That took a few hours to figure out.<\/li>\n <li>Nez is a wonderful framework and it made it quick and easy to work with 2D from a programmer&#8217;s point of view. Did I mention that I can code, but that I can&#8217;t draw? <img src=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-includes\/images\/smilies\/simple-smile.png\" alt=\":)\" class=\"wp-smiley\" style=\"height: 1em; max-height: 1em;\" \/><\/li>\n <li>I wish I had a web target. It would have been a lot quicker to get things up and running for everyone with something that doesn&#8217;t require to pack up the game and distribute it before people can actually play.<\/li>\n <li>I settled for simple sprites with no animations. All animations are just stretches and particles handled by code. It really helped in cutting down the time I spent creating the assets<\/li>\n <li>Making the sound effects has been a lot of fun. If you&#8217;re wondering where I took them.. well.. I didn&#8217;t. It&#8217;s just me and my wife screaming like a pork and mumbling like a farmer \ud83d\ude00<\/li>\n <li>I made some beginners mistakes and I completely forgot about some of the basics about communicating back to the user when he&#8217;s doing something right and when he&#8217;s not. I should have put more attention in the details, but they completely slipped under my fingers<\/li>\n <li>I wanted the final game to have different levels subdivided in waves that become harder as you progress. I wanted to have bonuses like crates that spawn for a brief time and that you have to click as quickly as possible to pick up. I wanted to have some background music. I just didn&#8217;t make it all in time.<\/li>\n <\/ul>","time":"December 18th, 2015 12:00 pm","title":"Forks and Porks Post Mortem"}