YESS!!

I finished my FIRST 48hour compo and got some good sleep. here’s what I made:
http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-34/?action=preview&uid=63759

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What went right

Game and process. I’m pretty happy with the result. I once did a gamejam before and it ended up with a terrible unfinished game. So now I tried to make something super simple and managable and it worked out pretty will. I even entered it for the Compo, which I wasn’t planning to before. but 48 hours seemed like the perfect time, for the game, as for myself.

I chose to go with the theme “growing” and this is what I planned after a few hours:
-first grow with background circle
-at some point circle will not touch the whole baby image anymore
-then you can grow specific features: toes/lungs/brain/bones
-baby feedback: moving/kicking/breathing/laughing/heartbeat/handgrab/eyes open/look at mouse
-mother feedback? songs/words/sounds/hand shadow?
-at X weeks (+random?) baby gets born. points for amount of completed features
-rotate down at the end, when complete
-show weight, time, data of birth + tweet

Planning. I managed to get most of this in the game (yay!). The mother feeback didn’t make it, but I also think I could’ve make sound for it. maybe a vague simplified hand in the background would’ve been cool (or creapy?), but I didn’t have the time. I also had ideas for weeks and realistic develeopment of body parts, but I sticked with a simpler version that’s just more fun, I hope.

Sound. Since I went for the Compo I also had to make my own sound for the first time. I picked Audicity and its noise generator and filter were super useful. Specifically:
-noise reduction
-speed modifier
-reverse
-mood

What went wrong

Food. Seriously. I did pull myself off the computer to make something, but when the water was up I just started working again. 30 minutes later, I smell something and realize something went horrible wrong. Well, still got some hamburger.

more technical: masks and bitmapdata. This was a pain in the ass and I lost a good 8 hours on it before ditching it. I tried to make the mouse circle gradually fill in the body parts, but I couldn’t complete it all the way. Now they just grow to their maximum size. I do know bit more about masks and bitmapdata, still some things remain a mystery…

Testing. I didn’t have time to test the game and when I did afterwards, I noticed people play very impatiently and want to grow everything super quick. some extra feedback on parts that are growing would’ve been useful. I got some more ideas, I will probably polish it up a bit and post a seperate version later this week.

Gameplay. I feel the growing mechanic doesn’t offer enough. It’s satisfying for a bit, but gets a bit boring when you have to do the same for every part. feedback like described above would’ve also helped. Luckily the game is not very long so it doesn’t matter that much.

Conclusion

It was fun! I think my fear of gamejams has just faded a bit. Thanks to the organisers and people playing my game. Got a game of your own? Let me know, I’m gonna see what everyone else did now. See ya