A Post-Mortem of Black Horizon

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This is my third Ludum Dare, and I think this is the worst game I created on Ludum Dare.

Theme Announcement:

When I first heard the theme, I had a mixed reaction. Creating a game out of the theme would be hard, but I think it would lead to some interesting results.

Idea Brainstorm:

I think this is where I failed. I should have picked a more simple idea, so I could have focused on the execution. Because of this, this is the only LD game where I didn't make a post-jam version.

Day 1:

I've never created a racing and a horror game before so creating the player movement was difficult. Plus I was saving my mobile data for uploading the game so I can't watch or search how to code car controls in unity. After that I created the ground textures, then created the tree model,street lamp and then the zombie. I had some problems with the tree since I created it in blender, so I couldn't get it to work properly with the terrain's place tree. But I fixed it in the second day. Then I created the gun sound effect using a slipper and the floor, the car engine was created using an electric fan.

The zombie model was horrible, I spent like 4 hours on this thing. The head looks like a pillow, I couldn't get it to look like a human head. When it came to texturing the zombie, I also coudn't give it a scary face. So I decided to just give it a simple face and make the fog in Unity thick. Creating the Zombie AI was simple. It just follow the player if the player is inside the zombie's trigger.

After that I decided to make the AI of the other cars. Since the finish line changes position between 4 places. I decided to create a point between every curves at the road. The enemy cars would follow them. After they reach them, the point will give the car the next point they should go to according to the current place of the finish line.

Day 2:

I created the 3d model of the fountain. I gave the trees some level of detail. I created the menu music using Bosca Ceoil.Then I created the menu and I finished the game. That's all that I can remember during the second day.

What I liked about the game:

 1. I liked that it feels finish.

 2. I liked the fog.

What I hate about the game:

 1. I hate the car movement. At first I thought that it was slippery because i'm terrible at racing games ,but it really is too slippy. 

 2.  It is not properly optimized. It runs slow on higher resolution and graphics setting and also the file size is large at 100 mb

 3. After the jam I just felt that the game is dumb. I shouldn't really have sticked to the theme.

 4. The game is just so weirdly terrible that I dont know if I should transition to 2d games or be a VR developer instead of being a game developer. I can't figure out where I got wrong on this game. Its either the graphics or the gameplay, or both.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/black-horizon