{"author_link":"\/users\/dark-roast-studios","author_name":"Dark Roast Studios","author_uid":"dark-roast-studios","comments":[],"epoch":1534332646,"event":"LD42","format":"md","ldjam_node_id":116618,"likes":1,"metadata":{"p_key":"120420","p_author":"Dark Roast Studios","p_authorkey":"1086128","p_urlkey":"336455","p_title":"Post-mortem: Bob's Budget Bomb Disposal","p_cat":"LDJam ","p_event":"LD42","p_time":"1534332646","p_likes":"1","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":"1086128","us_name":"Dark Roast Studios","us_username":"dark-roast-studios","event_start":"1533859200","event_key":"73","event_name":"LD 42"},"node":{"_collation":{"body_sanitizer":"TextUtils::SanitizeHTML via existing importer","event":"LD42","removed_author":false},"_superparent":97793,"_trust":1,"author":86128,"body":"Not sure I like calling these write ups \"post-mortem\", that implies the project\nis dead. I think Bob's Budget Bomb Disposal deserves at least a post-compo update.\n\n## Day 1\n\n### A Rocky Beginning\nLike a good game jammer I did my homework, spent some time preparing and\npracticing with my chosen tools and frameworks: SDL2, C, OpenGL. I even had a\nfew half baked ideas for cool effects and mechanics I wanted to try and work\ninto the game, I could picture how it might look and play .... then the theme\nwas announced.\n\n![2fwqsz.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/070\/51\/z\/19b7e.jpg)\n\nNone of my ideas were even vaguely useful, not one, eerg. That's not to say the\ntheme was bad (looking at you LD41) but yeah this wasn't a good start. Since the\ntheme now comes out at 11pm Friday in the UK I decided to sleep on it and see if\nanything useful come to me.\n\nRising nice and early, full of energy and ready to go, an idea comes to me: Bomb\nDisposal, on a budget. Imagine a game where you work in a second rate bomb\ndisposal yard, where health and safety checks are taken care of by bribery and\nturning a blind eye, that seems like it has potential to be amusing. I imagined\nsome types of bombs would react badly if you stacked too many of them in a small\nspace and bad things would happen if deliveries didn't have room to drop off,\nyour yard would slowly start to fill up with dangerously unstable ordinance and\nyou would have to franticly dash about trying to get rid of it before something\nexploded. Yeah this could work!\n\nSo who would use a budget bomb disposal service? Well, despots in charge of\nimpoverished dictatorships of course. That lead to other ideas, maybe working in\namusing miscellaneous things, like \"lost\" financial records, the remains of\npolitical candidates, incriminating evidence. All the sorts of things might\n\"accidently\" find their way into a disposal plant that didn't ask too many\nquestions.\n\nIsn't it amazing how, once you have a core idea down, all the other stuff just\nseems to fall into place!\n\n### A Rocky Beginning 2\nOk, with the idea nailed down it was time to get to work and see how much of this\nI could actually build in just 48h. I got coding ...\n\n![game-code-y-u-no-build.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/070\/51\/z\/19b77.jpg)\n\nOK this isn't going well. I am actually quite good with C\/C++, compilers etc.\nIts what I do for a living, but today the fates had other ideas. After several\nhours of fighting with my supposedly \"prepared\" tools and libraries I gave up\nand threw it all away, eerg 2. Well if I'm going to go down I may as well learn\nsomething along the way, so I downloaded [Phaser](https:\/\/phaser.io\/), a\nHTML5\/Javascript game framework that I had sort of heard of but never even\nlooked at, and certainly never used before, what could go wrong!\n\nIt turns out Phaser is a pretty cool framework and I started knocking stuff\ntogether with it quite quickly. My process for doing jams is to spend half the\ntime working on code, getting all the mechanics and logic down using placeholder\nart:\n\n![placeholder.png](\/\/\/raw\/070\/51\/z\/19b78.png)\n\nI then like to spend the second half of the time doing an art pass and polishing\nthe graphics and effects, followed by bug fixing and last minuet stuff. But\nwait, you might be thinking, what about sound! .. yeah there is a reason my\ngames all have terrible sound in them, it something that always gets lumped into\n\"if I have spare time\" category. Don't do that! sound  one of the most important\ncontributors to the mood and theme of a game! I really need to do better next\ntime.\n\n![2fwnib.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/070\/51\/z\/19b79.jpg)\n\n### Day 2\nI had most of the basics down, proximity detection, collision detection, bomb\nspawning, even a nice glow on the delivery bay to show the player stuff was\nincoming. This was going well, but I still had to a starting screen with\ninstructions and some logic for a failure condition. I was starting to really\nfeel the time I lost at the start now, working with an unknown framework was\nalso slowing me down, it was time to cut back.\n\n![glowing.png](\/\/\/raw\/070\/51\/z\/19b7a.png)\n\nI dropped the proximity feature, it would have been a nice extra level of depth\nto have bombs start fizzing and glowing dangerously when they were too close\ntogether, but it needed a lot of work yet and I just didn't think I had time.\nBetter to spend it on making the core features work solidly and look nice. I\nalso dropped the animated art I had planned for the processing machines, instead\ngoing with simple trap doors that would stay closed until they were ready to\nprocess more bombs. Finally I also dropped the joke items, focusing in on just\ncreating a selection of bombs. It's _really_ important when coming up with\ndesigns to classify things into \"essential\" and \"nice to have\", your never going\nto have enough time so you need to know what to cut when your tired and the end\nstarts creeping up on you.\n\nAs for art, I tried something new this time, rendering stuff using blender. I set\nup a really simple scene with a camera and light directly above the object I was\nmodelling, then rendering stuff out to 2D and pulled it into gimp. In gimp I\ndid a paint over to add texturing and fine details. It seemed to work well,\nproducing passable (if you don't mind the 90's era \"pre-rendered\" look) art relatively\nquickly.\n\n![art.png](\/\/\/raw\/070\/51\/z\/19b7b.png)\n\n## Conclusion\nOverall this LD when OK, I am pretty happy with the result despite the poor\nstart. I guess the ability to doggedly continue despite setbacks is just as\nimportant as skills with art or code! Phaser is a pretty cool framework that I\nwill probably use again. Rendering stuff in blender also saved quite a lot of\ntime, so that's a keeper as well.\n\nLike I said at the start, I think Bob's Budget Bomb Disposal deserves at least a\npost-compo update, to add back in the bomb proximity features, the miscellaneous\njoke items and the planned machine art work. I also want to adjust the controls\nbased on the awesome feedback I have had so far, thanks to everyone who has left\ncomments!\n\n![shot.png](\/\/\/raw\/070\/51\/z\/19b7c.png)\n\nTry it here: https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/42\/bobs-budget-bomb-disposal\n","comments":0,"created":"2018-08-15T11:20:33Z","files":[],"files-timestamp":0,"id":116618,"love":1,"love-timestamp":"2018-08-15T12:11:15Z","meta":[],"modified":"2018-08-15T12:11:15Z","name":"Post-mortem: Bob's Budget Bomb Disposal","node-timestamp":"2018-08-15T11:56:30Z","parent":109377,"parents":[1,5,9,97793,109377],"path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/42\/bobs-budget-bomb-disposal\/post-mortem-bobs-budget-bomb-disposal","published":"2018-08-15T11:30:46Z","scope":"public","slug":"post-mortem-bobs-budget-bomb-disposal","subsubtype":"","subtype":"","type":"post","version":346443},"node_metadata":{"n_key":"116618","n_urlkey":"336455","n_parent":"109377","n_path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/42\/bobs-budget-bomb-disposal\/post-mortem-bobs-budget-bomb-disposal","n_slug":"post-mortem-bobs-budget-bomb-dis","n_type":"post","n_subtype":"","n_subsubtype":"","n_author":"86128","n_created":"1534332033","n_modified":"1534335075","n_version":"346443","n_status":"WAYBACK"},"source_url":"https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/42\/bobs-budget-bomb-disposal\/post-mortem-bobs-budget-bomb-disposal","text":"Not sure I like calling these write ups \"post-mortem\", that implies the project\nis dead. I think Bob's Budget Bomb Disposal deserves at least a post-compo update.\n\n## Day 1\n\n### A Rocky Beginning\nLike a good game jammer I did my homework, spent some time preparing and\npracticing with my chosen tools and frameworks: SDL2, C, OpenGL. I even had a\nfew half baked ideas for cool effects and mechanics I wanted to try and work\ninto the game, I could picture how it might look and play .... then the theme\nwas announced.\n\n![2fwqsz.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/070\/51\/z\/19b7e.jpg)\n\nNone of my ideas were even vaguely useful, not one, eerg. That's not to say the\ntheme was bad (looking at you LD41) but yeah this wasn't a good start. Since the\ntheme now comes out at 11pm Friday in the UK I decided to sleep on it and see if\nanything useful come to me.\n\nRising nice and early, full of energy and ready to go, an idea comes to me: Bomb\nDisposal, on a budget. Imagine a game where you work in a second rate bomb\ndisposal yard, where health and safety checks are taken care of by bribery and\nturning a blind eye, that seems like it has potential to be amusing. I imagined\nsome types of bombs would react badly if you stacked too many of them in a small\nspace and bad things would happen if deliveries didn't have room to drop off,\nyour yard would slowly start to fill up with dangerously unstable ordinance and\nyou would have to franticly dash about trying to get rid of it before something\nexploded. Yeah this could work!\n\nSo who would use a budget bomb disposal service? Well, despots in charge of\nimpoverished dictatorships of course. That lead to other ideas, maybe working in\namusing miscellaneous things, like \"lost\" financial records, the remains of\npolitical candidates, incriminating evidence. All the sorts of things might\n\"accidently\" find their way into a disposal plant that didn't ask too many\nquestions.\n\nIsn't it amazing how, once you have a core idea down, all the other stuff just\nseems to fall into place!\n\n### A Rocky Beginning 2\nOk, with the idea nailed down it was time to get to work and see how much of this\nI could actually build in just 48h. I got coding ...\n\n![game-code-y-u-no-build.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/070\/51\/z\/19b77.jpg)\n\nOK this isn't going well. I am actually quite good with C\/C++, compilers etc.\nIts what I do for a living, but today the fates had other ideas. After several\nhours of fighting with my supposedly \"prepared\" tools and libraries I gave up\nand threw it all away, eerg 2. Well if I'm going to go down I may as well learn\nsomething along the way, so I downloaded [Phaser](https:\/\/phaser.io\/), a\nHTML5\/Javascript game framework that I had sort of heard of but never even\nlooked at, and certainly never used before, what could go wrong!\n\nIt turns out Phaser is a pretty cool framework and I started knocking stuff\ntogether with it quite quickly. My process for doing jams is to spend half the\ntime working on code, getting all the mechanics and logic down using placeholder\nart:\n\n![placeholder.png](\/\/\/raw\/070\/51\/z\/19b78.png)\n\nI then like to spend the second half of the time doing an art pass and polishing\nthe graphics and effects, followed by bug fixing and last minuet stuff. But\nwait, you might be thinking, what about sound! .. yeah there is a reason my\ngames all have terrible sound in them, it something that always gets lumped into\n\"if I have spare time\" category. Don't do that! sound  one of the most important\ncontributors to the mood and theme of a game! I really need to do better next\ntime.\n\n![2fwnib.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/070\/51\/z\/19b79.jpg)\n\n### Day 2\nI had most of the basics down, proximity detection, collision detection, bomb\nspawning, even a nice glow on the delivery bay to show the player stuff was\nincoming. This was going well, but I still had to a starting screen with\ninstructions and some logic for a failure condition. I was starting to really\nfeel the time I lost at the start now, working with an unknown framework was\nalso slowing me down, it was time to cut back.\n\n![glowing.png](\/\/\/raw\/070\/51\/z\/19b7a.png)\n\nI dropped the proximity feature, it would have been a nice extra level of depth\nto have bombs start fizzing and glowing dangerously when they were too close\ntogether, but it needed a lot of work yet and I just didn't think I had time.\nBetter to spend it on making the core features work solidly and look nice. I\nalso dropped the animated art I had planned for the processing machines, instead\ngoing with simple trap doors that would stay closed until they were ready to\nprocess more bombs. Finally I also dropped the joke items, focusing in on just\ncreating a selection of bombs. It's _really_ important when coming up with\ndesigns to classify things into \"essential\" and \"nice to have\", your never going\nto have enough time so you need to know what to cut when your tired and the end\nstarts creeping up on you.\n\nAs for art, I tried something new this time, rendering stuff using blender. I set\nup a really simple scene with a camera and light directly above the object I was\nmodelling, then rendering stuff out to 2D and pulled it into gimp. In gimp I\ndid a paint over to add texturing and fine details. It seemed to work well,\nproducing passable (if you don't mind the 90's era \"pre-rendered\" look) art relatively\nquickly.\n\n![art.png](\/\/\/raw\/070\/51\/z\/19b7b.png)\n\n## Conclusion\nOverall this LD when OK, I am pretty happy with the result despite the poor\nstart. I guess the ability to doggedly continue despite setbacks is just as\nimportant as skills with art or code! Phaser is a pretty cool framework that I\nwill probably use again. Rendering stuff in blender also saved quite a lot of\ntime, so that's a keeper as well.\n\nLike I said at the start, I think Bob's Budget Bomb Disposal deserves at least a\npost-compo update, to add back in the bomb proximity features, the miscellaneous\njoke items and the planned machine art work. I also want to adjust the controls\nbased on the awesome feedback I have had so far, thanks to everyone who has left\ncomments!\n\n![shot.png](\/\/\/raw\/070\/51\/z\/19b7c.png)\n\nTry it here: https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/42\/bobs-budget-bomb-disposal\n","title":"Post-mortem: Bob's Budget Bomb Disposal","wayback_source":[]}