This was my first foray into the LD compo and my first postmortem, so here goes…

What went right:

I spent about 2 hours thinking about the theme and how I could marry the theme to the game mechanics before I did any asset development.  I did not get started until around noon on Saturday.  Even then, instead of diving right into code or asset creation, I just sat on my back porch for several hours and thought about the theme.  This allowed me to focus on what mechanic I wanted my game to have and how it would be influenced by/reenforce the theme.

I spent the majority of the first day on the mechanic.  I did not worry about art assets, music, sound or quality code during this time.  Instead I just played around with the player movement and the mechanic of shrinking/growing based on what the player was doing.  Once I had the main mechanic nailed down, it was pretty easy to knock out levels utilizing it.

I set a clear scope that was very manageable.  I really wanted to be able to work on my game casually, and spend time tweaking whatever I felt needed work.  So I really tried to set a goal and scope that I felt was easily achievable.  It turned out for the most part I was correct.  This led to a fun weekend with ample time for error correction (aside the physics problems below).

What went wrong:

NO PLAYTESTING! and therefore floaty physics.  I don’t have much experience with platformers.  The physics and movement of the player felt pretty smooth to me, but of course I was developing it.  I did not have anyone play the game until about 3 hours before the deadline.  It was readily apparent when they played that my physics for the player were floaty and slippery.  Unfortunately, because I did not have anyone play it beforehand, it left me little time to fix the issues.

When the rules say you must create your own assets, YOU MUST CREATE YOUR OWN ASSETS!  This was just a stupid oversight from me.  For some reason I did not think about the music in the game on the same level as art and code.  So Saturday evening I picked out a nice song online that was free to use through the creative commons license.  Then, as I was sitting in front of my computer on Sunday, it dawned on me that I had to create my own music.  I have no music making tools, and no knowledge on how to make game music.  Luckily I recorded myself whistling in Audacity and tweaked it enough to make it work.  Had my game not had a minimalist style, I would have been less fortunate.

It is unclear for the player what to do.  Which can be equated to poor level design.  This goes back to playtesting, but in 48 hours there is not a lot of time.  I should be more sensitive to a new players perspective, and build levels in such a way as to lead them where they need to go.  The game should be challenging by design, not by developer oversight.

Thanks for reading.  I had a great time.  Here is a link to the game: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-24/?action=preview&uid=13158

Pjchardt

These are my thoughts about the game I made for the Ludum Dare 26 compo.  I will focus on what I feel was the most successful aspect of the game and the two issues I feel were the weakest.

I wanted to develop something I felt was complete and I accomplished this.

I have been preoccupied lately with the idea of games as complete creative works.  To help me in this thought process I have been toying around with parallels between a painting composed of component parts and a game composed of component parts.

I wanted all of the component parts of my game to support each other so that the sum of the parts was something greater.  I am pretty happy with the end result.  I feel the game has a completeness to it.

There were a number of components I felt had to be addressed sufficiently to fulfill the goal.  Visuals, mechanics, audio, story, and dealing with the medium itself.

For visuals I wanted to integrate the idea of minimalism both on a surface level, in terms of how the game appeared and on a subtler level dealing with the theme and the method of delivery, i.e. the screen and boundaries of the game representing ideas and techniques from minimalist painting.  My dealing with the delivery of the game involved blurring the game border both in terms of visuals and mechanics.  I also tried to break the game area up in various ways to compliment the visual style as well as attempt to change the players perception of the game area.

As for audio this is one of my weakest areas.  I dedicated enough time to work on music and audio that it helped tremendously to have sound that felt intentional.  However, I think significant improvements to the audio can be done.

In terms of story and mechanics, I wanted to tell a story in a minimal way.  I decided to have the keys(letters) on the keyboard that were used for input, WASD, to also be the characters in the game.  I felt this helped complement the game as a whole and effectively deal with the issue of explaining to the player how to play.

In terms of the medium, I tried to resolve this in the visuals, story and mechanics.  I already touched upon this above.  I will just add that one of my main goals was to tell a narrative through interactivity.

What I would improve.

I failed to develop and implement the audio I wanted.

I wanted audio tracks that played in layers and were played at random times based on a weighting system.  Two things prevented this from happening.  One is that I did not come up with a sufficient way to implement this in the time I had.  The other is that I have little experience creating music.  I am still looking for a music creation program that suits me well.  With time and research I hope to resolve these issues.

I sacrificed controls for narrative.

The other improvement I feel is necessary is in the controls.

Infernal says …

Apr 29, 2013 @ 6:38am

The only problem I have is the little slide to stop that occurs when you stop input. In the tight spots between two bars, this can end in frustration as you try to park a letter to wait.

Otherwise, very artistic and clean!

I chose to have each character move to the head of the group when the character’s key was pushed.  This was intended to convey the story of a familial group, each leading when it was necessary.  In order to do this I created an invisible object in the world that was the “hub” for the group.  When characters moved it was relative to the hub.  The result of this was a slide when input stopped and characters moving at odd angles at times; when the input and obstacles almost all existed as right angles.  These issues caused frustrating deaths.

While I still want to marry movement and mechanics to story, I feel I dropped the ball a bit by sacrificing gameplay, and control, for story.  While I don’t believe the choice is always one way, player frustration based off poor implementation is something I always wish to avoid, as for example a narrative can be ruined by control issues taking the player out of the game.

Overall I am happy. Ludum Dare is a wonderful event.  Thanks to everyone who has given feedback on my game.  

Thanks for reading.  You can find my Ludum Dare game here:  http://supersoul.co/files/Projects/LD26/LD26.html

Greetings jammers!

I created a trailer for my LD28 entry, Smooth Operators.  You can check out the trailer below.

I am happy to hear all feedback/criticism!

You can find the Ludum Dare page for Smooth Operators here: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-28/?action=preview&uid=13158

Smooth Operators is a 2 player game so if you are looking for something ridiculous to play this weekend with your friends, here ya go.  I have gotten some really great feedback so far.  People seem to really enjoy it.  I hope you will really enjoy it as well.

Looking for another fantastic 2 player Ludum Dare entry?  How about Gentlemans dueling Felines   http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-28/?action=preview&uid=21887

And on the topic of trailers, a great post on Gamasutra today: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/KertGartner/20131216/207009/Cutting_Room_Critique_Top_Indie_Game_Trailers_of_Dec_2013.php

Smooth Operator is my LD 28 entry and my 3rd comp entry.  It is also my most successful Ludum Dare entry (in my opinion). So without further ado, lets post mortem!

What went right

Most of the last day was testing and polish

I learned this one the hard way during my first compo dance. I developed a platformer (first time) and did not have another person play it until a few hours before deadline. It was apparent then that the controls were floaty and difficult, but there was no time to really iterate. What resulted was a frustrating control scheme that hampered any other interesting or compelling qualities the game had.

I am very pleased with my time management and scope on this LD, which left me all of Sunday to test and polish. Perhaps even more important though, this time left to test and polished was sufficient to work at a relaxed pace, meaning those hidden gems and changes that reveal themselves only toward the end could be investigated instead of put on a list for a post compo version. (There is still a list! but I got to address the most intriguing/simplest to execute issues during the compo). I spent this time adding in some juiciness and nice feedback for the player, while also having some friends play the game and making some adjustments based off their feedback. (We had a local meetup for the compo at the offices of my company, Super Soul, which was great for feedback, testing and all around great times!)

I went home the first night AFTER having a basic prototype to test a few times

The first night I spent in its entirety developing the code, visuals and sfx to have a functioning prototype to play a few times before going home. This gave me a nice metric to judge how the rest of the weekend would go. It also separated Friday and Saturday along a nice line, Friday being prototype, Saturday being implementing the game. Driving home Friday night and waking up Saturday morning, I had a significant amount to mull over, while also having a fairly clear direction of what I needed to accomplish on Saturday. After spending the first few hours on Saturday planning and designing what I needed to execute on, the rest of the day was fairly straightforward implementation.

I found a good balance between the different ingredients of my LD cake

I attended a talk by Jenova Chen years ago where he discussed a game being as strong as its weakest element. He illustrated this with a bucket full of water, and each core element of the game represented one wooden slab of the bucket. Each slab’s vertical length corresponded to its quality and execution, thus the water in the bucket was only as high as the lowest slab. I really enjoyed this metaphor for game development, and I now try to follow through on this concept whenever I am working towards building an experience through a game, as opposed to when I am working on a demo and/or investigating some aspect of game development.

I did a pretty good job of dedicating the proper amount of time to mechanics, visuals, sound, UI, feedback, etc. so the game is pretty equal on all fronts. There are many areas I would like to improve, but for the time restraints I am happy that I didn’t allow myself to be consumed by one aspect or ingredient to the detriment of others. I believe the relative times needed for each element, wooden slab or ingredient, to be proportional to my skill and speed, and the relative importance is dependent on the game and its goals. So for Smooth Operator I really wanted a solid experience, in and of itself. While it may be a shallow experience, I believe it has a decent level of polish and consistency to it to give a feeling of completeness (for a jam game of course! )

What went wrong

The game needs depth, as it stands it is a novelty

I am pretty happy with how people have responded to Smooth Operator, and it is certainly my best compo to date. However, I feel there is something missing in the game, and the absence of this something, whatever it is, is why the game lacks depth. As it stands, I think the game provides enjoyment, but is not a game you would want to keep coming back to. To me this is a result of a combat system that while fun, lacks any depth that allows/encourages players to develop and refine their skills, develop strategies, etc. that results in a sense of progression and accomplishment in the players abilities.

I am working on a post compo version of the game now, trying out different ways of adding complexity and depth to the combat. My goal is to keep the input and controls simple, but adding more ways the player can use these inputs, which I hope leads to more strategy and depth. I hope that I can figure out that something that can keep a player coming back.

The visuals should do more to give the game style

I want the game to ooze style. It doesn’t It is a decent start, but nothing along the lines of what I would have liked. I think some of this stems from the menus lacking the smooth personality I would have liked. I also feel the game has a bit of a personality crisis, wanting to be comical and frantic during combat, then smooth and slick the rest of the time. Well, writing this just made me reallize I am not sure what I want the game to be! No wonder I failed on this. Oh and I am not very happy about my color scheme. I wanted it flat and iconic, and I was leaning towards a 70’s groove style. But there is something about the colors that kinda bother me. Oh well…post compo!

I continue to slap on UI elements such as controls and how to play

I guess my rationale is that it is 48 hours and info such as controls and how to play descriptions are important only for functionalities sake. However, I just got done commenting in the things I did right about the importance of all game elements executed to the same degree to maintain a games integrity! For 48 hours I think it is somewhat acceptable, but it frustrates me that my menus and descriptions appear to be an after thought. After all, this is the first experience the player has of the game, and establishes the tone for their experience.

I would like to find better ways to implement my game screens and info. I really don’t have any good ideas, but I certainly love many of the ways others have handled this info in their games, so I am not lacking inspiration and research content. My hope is that moving forward I can integrate this content into the tone and aesthetics of the game itself, which should increase the overall experience and consistency of the game.

Well, that is it. Thanks for reading. You can find my game here: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-28/?action=preview&uid=13158

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 3rd, 2014 at 10:36 am and is filed under LD #28. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.