{"author_name":"lanestp","cat":"LD #33","comments":[],"epoch":1440945300,"likes":3,"metadata":{"p_key":"13157","p_author":"lanestp","p_authorkey":"49246","p_urlkey":"48412","p_title":"Space Invadees \u2013 Post Mortem","p_cat":"LD #33","p_event":"LD33","p_time":"1440945300","p_likes":"3","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"49246","us_name":"lanestp","us_username":"lanestp","event_start":"1440115200","event_key":"29","event_name":"LD33"},"text":"

\"Invadees3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Play and rate<\/a><\/p>\n

tl;dr<\/p>\n

What went right
\n Graphics – I love the brain!
\n Cut scenes – I think they\u2019re funny!
\n Gameplay – Controls and such work and feel pretty much how I wanted them<\/p>\n

What went wrong
\n Levels – Too many levels for 48 hours!
\n Music – Not my forte.
\n Bugs – I had too much content that I was generating too fast.<\/p>\n

Lessons learned
\n Don\u2019t nest too many actions in C#
\n I can build a fully featured and relatively large game in 48 hours
\n I suck at music<\/p>\n

\"Invadees1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Well, my first Ludum Dare is done, and it was awesome! I\u2019ve done game jams in the past but LD is a whole other ball of wax. This time out I decided to be ambitious, insanely, stupidly ambitious!<\/p>\n

The theme came as a surprise to me. I had planned for lots of them but \u201cYou are the monster\u201d slipped through the cracks. Fortunately, a few months ago I had come up with the idea of a \u201cspace invaders in reverse\u201d game. The only problem was, my concept was for a full scale game with cutscenes, hand crafted levels, and full 3d! Way too ambitious for me to do all by myself in 48 hours!<\/p>\n

\"Invadees4\"<\/p>\n

Well, never let it be said I lacked for ambition! It turned out to not be that tough. I started with the 3D modeling. I used Qubicle, (the 3d designer that cross road used), I wanted to use a limited Atari style palette so I used 8 total colors. I\u2019ve been using Qubicle for a while and like it. My approach was to draw a \u201csprite\u201d first in 2D. Then extrude into 3D and then carve out details. I\u2019m super happy with how my models came out, especially Emperor Brain. He is my favorite character I have ever designed!<\/p>\n

I also needed 3d text. I used Cheetah3D which is kind of a leaner, cheaper, Maya. I like it better than Blender because Blender has a UI designed for people from some planet that has more arms and fingers than Humans do! Anyway, creating 3D text in Cheetah was really easy.<\/p>\n

\"Invadees2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Finally, I could move onto code. I\u2019m genuinely happy with all the code I wrote on Saturday. I built all my classes as state machines. My idea was that if I took the extra time to structure everything correctly at the start then I would be able to greatly simplify the \u201ccrisis code\u201d I knew I would be writing on Sunday. That was the best decision I made during the jam!<\/p>\n

So, in addition to all this I also needed to script and voice cut scenes. I know I\u2019m insane! The scripting was really easy. I\u2019ll be the first to admit it could be tightened up. But for something that was more or less a stream of consciousness, not too bad. The script itself took me about an hour. Recording dialog took another hour. I used Audacity because it is the only recording software I have a clue about! For the actual recording I used the Blue Yeti microphone. I\u2019m pretty sure I used the wrong settings on the mic and I forgot to use the spit guard (my wife knows about recording audio, not me, so I was SOL). If I had set myself up like I normally would for recording it would have sounded a lot better!<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

One thing I wanted to do was edit the audio files to make the whole thing tighter, but I didn\u2019t have nearly enough time for that! I also didn\u2019t have time to rerecord for anything other than serious issues and flubbed lines.<\/p>\n

Another thing I needed more time on was level design. For some reason I decided I needed 9 levels. There was no way for me to make 9 hand crafted exquisite levels. This was a huge mistake. I wish I had focused on making 4 perfect levels rather than 9 decent ones. Live and learn!<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

One really interesting thing I learned about Mono is that if you have too many nested actions it will freak out, use 100% of the CPU and hang. I\u2019m not sure why this happens. But it didn\u2019t make for a fun Sunday surprise! I ended up needing to remove the ability to skip individual lines of dialog. This little surprise took a couple of hours to fix. It was the only major technical hiccough.<\/p>\n

Generally though, I\u2019m super happy with how everything came out I definitely plan on being back for LD34!<\/p>\n

No really, play and rate<\/a><\/p>\n

P.S. I screen caped all the cut scenes in case anyone is interested in the entire ludicrous story!<\/p>\n