{"author_link":"\/users\/occultone","author_name":"OccultOne","author_uid":"occultone","comments":[],"epoch":1534660291,"event":"LD41","format":"md","ldjam_node_id":92719,"likes":2,"metadata":{"p_key":"113020","p_author":"OccultOne","p_authorkey":"1000603","p_urlkey":"328980","p_title":"DETRITUS: Thoughts & My Personal Postmortem","p_cat":"LDJam ","p_event":"LD41","p_time":"1534660291","p_likes":"2","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":"1000603","us_name":"OccultOne","us_username":"occultone","event_start":"1524182400","event_key":"72","event_name":"LD 41"},"node":{"_collation":{"body_sanitizer":"TextUtils::SanitizeHTML via existing importer","event":"LD41","removed_author":false},"_superparent":73256,"_trust":7,"author":603,"body":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=uME02Tb0n18  \nLink: https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/42\/detritus  \n\nThis was my fourth successful Ludum Dare, and the second where I spent more time doing art and shader witchery than I did general gameplay programming. There were a lot of ups and downs, though mostly ups and I wanted to go through them.\n  \n**Pre-Production is Good!**  \nFriday started with us almost doubling the amount of time we spent in \"Pre-Production\". We really struggled with this theme, it was literally the theme we wanted to see the least, and there was a lot of back and forth. We settled on the concept of a space shooter action game (A first for our team, we never do any action typey games), and began to immediately scope out out possibility space. We had a very firm set of well scoped goals for the game, and met every single one of them.  \n  \n**Jury Duty is Bad!**  \nOkay, so it's important and the foundation of the legal system, but it could not have come at a worse time! We lost 1\/3rd of our team for the entire day and part of the night before so they could sleep and wake up early. I had to stay up for 36 hours to fill the manpower gap, and am still recovering from that decision a week later.\n  \n**Polish is Fun!**  \nPolish is something we \/never\/ get to do, we've generally only had what you might call \"Gameplay\" within the last few hours of the jam, but by the end of Saturday our core gameplay was pretty feature complete. I got to spend an excessive amount of time on nailing down our look and feel, having a heavy hand in bringing my vision of a bright, saturated universe to life without overwhelming the player. I probably spent 1\/3rd of my time tweaking particles, another 1\/3rd on textures and models, and the last just getting the AI code and last minute gameplay additions online. \n  \n**Walking away pleased is a good feeling**  \nI usually walk away from a jam feeling like there was so much left to do, and that I didn't perform as well as I was hoping, but with this one I really enjoyed the game, and invest a ridiculous amount of time playing it. It's a game I will pick up and play randomly through the week, and enjoy myself while doing it. I'm happy with what we accomplished, and that's a good feeling.  \n  \n**I've come a long way!**  \nThere's a lot I could criticize about the art. I don't like the Dragon model, it was rushed, and looks rushed. I think if I had more time I could have done a better job on the textures, and some of the particles, especially for the engine, are missing some of the details I wanted to do. That said: I could not have done this last year, I could not have even come close: I need to remind myself that there's always room to improve, but I've come very far, very fast.\n  \n**Jams let me make games, not just game**  \nIn my day to day work I'm a contractor game dev, and for what feels like an eternity I've been working on a singular, GAME. Day to day this is pretty exhausting, getting caught up in the minutia, feeling like the project is neverending, and there's no light at the end of the tunnel, despite being in the middle of the world's longest crunch cycle. It's good to cleanse my palatte and make games, not just game.\n  \nFeel free to give it a play, and I'll be continuing to play games throughout the week when I can find the time.  \n","comments":0,"created":"2018-04-24T04:54:53Z","files":[],"files-timestamp":0,"id":92719,"love":2,"love-timestamp":"2018-08-20T15:07:40Z","meta":[],"modified":"2018-08-20T15:07:40Z","name":"DETRITUS: Thoughts & My Personal Postmortem","node-timestamp":"2018-08-19T06:31:31Z","parent":78468,"parents":[1,5,9,73256,78468],"path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/41\/off-the-hook\/detritus-thoughts-my-personal-postmortem","published":"2018-08-19T06:31:31Z","scope":"public","slug":"detritus-thoughts-my-personal-postmortem","subsubtype":"","subtype":"","type":"post","version":352250},"node_metadata":{"n_key":"92719","n_urlkey":"328980","n_parent":"78468","n_path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/41\/off-the-hook\/detritus-thoughts-my-personal-postmortem","n_slug":"detritus-thoughts-my-personal-po","n_type":"post","n_subtype":"","n_subsubtype":"","n_author":"603","n_created":"1524545693","n_modified":"1534777660","n_version":"352250","n_status":"WAYBACK"},"source_url":"https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/41\/off-the-hook\/detritus-thoughts-my-personal-postmortem","text":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=uME02Tb0n18  \nLink: https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/42\/detritus  \n\nThis was my fourth successful Ludum Dare, and the second where I spent more time doing art and shader witchery than I did general gameplay programming. There were a lot of ups and downs, though mostly ups and I wanted to go through them.\n  \n**Pre-Production is Good!**  \nFriday started with us almost doubling the amount of time we spent in \"Pre-Production\". We really struggled with this theme, it was literally the theme we wanted to see the least, and there was a lot of back and forth. We settled on the concept of a space shooter action game (A first for our team, we never do any action typey games), and began to immediately scope out out possibility space. We had a very firm set of well scoped goals for the game, and met every single one of them.  \n  \n**Jury Duty is Bad!**  \nOkay, so it's important and the foundation of the legal system, but it could not have come at a worse time! We lost 1\/3rd of our team for the entire day and part of the night before so they could sleep and wake up early. I had to stay up for 36 hours to fill the manpower gap, and am still recovering from that decision a week later.\n  \n**Polish is Fun!**  \nPolish is something we \/never\/ get to do, we've generally only had what you might call \"Gameplay\" within the last few hours of the jam, but by the end of Saturday our core gameplay was pretty feature complete. I got to spend an excessive amount of time on nailing down our look and feel, having a heavy hand in bringing my vision of a bright, saturated universe to life without overwhelming the player. I probably spent 1\/3rd of my time tweaking particles, another 1\/3rd on textures and models, and the last just getting the AI code and last minute gameplay additions online. \n  \n**Walking away pleased is a good feeling**  \nI usually walk away from a jam feeling like there was so much left to do, and that I didn't perform as well as I was hoping, but with this one I really enjoyed the game, and invest a ridiculous amount of time playing it. It's a game I will pick up and play randomly through the week, and enjoy myself while doing it. I'm happy with what we accomplished, and that's a good feeling.  \n  \n**I've come a long way!**  \nThere's a lot I could criticize about the art. I don't like the Dragon model, it was rushed, and looks rushed. I think if I had more time I could have done a better job on the textures, and some of the particles, especially for the engine, are missing some of the details I wanted to do. That said: I could not have done this last year, I could not have even come close: I need to remind myself that there's always room to improve, but I've come very far, very fast.\n  \n**Jams let me make games, not just game**  \nIn my day to day work I'm a contractor game dev, and for what feels like an eternity I've been working on a singular, GAME. Day to day this is pretty exhausting, getting caught up in the minutia, feeling like the project is neverending, and there's no light at the end of the tunnel, despite being in the middle of the world's longest crunch cycle. It's good to cleanse my palatte and make games, not just game.\n  \nFeel free to give it a play, and I'll be continuing to play games throughout the week when I can find the time.  \n","title":"DETRITUS: Thoughts & My Personal Postmortem","wayback_source":[]}