{"author_link":"\/users\/reheated","author_name":"reheated","author_uid":"reheated","comments":[],"epoch":1556968531,"event":"LD44","format":"md","ldjam_node_id":156525,"likes":1,"metadata":{"p_key":"132295","p_author":"reheated","p_authorkey":"1000260","p_urlkey":"348489","p_title":"Cold Dream: Postmortem","p_cat":"LDJam ","p_event":"LD44","p_time":"1556968531","p_likes":"1","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":"1000260","us_name":"reheated","us_username":"reheated","event_start":"1556236800","event_key":"75","event_name":"LD 44"},"node":{"_collation":{"body_sanitizer":"TextUtils::SanitizeHTML via existing importer","event":"LD44","removed_author":false},"_superparent":139254,"_trust":6,"author":260,"body":"My entry, [Cold Dream](https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/44\/cold-dream), is a survival solitaire game. You've been exiled to Makemake and left to look after yourself. You have four vital resources: food, water, oxygen and heat, and you have to make sure you won't run out of any at the end of each turn. To make matters worse, every turn a random crisis occurs, that will reduce your resources at the end of the turn.\n\nYou have a bunch of other resources to work with, and 8 cards, dealt from a deck, that provide you with options for staying alive. Some cards let you build equipment that you can keep, giving you more options in future turns.\n\n![cd_screenshot.png](\/\/\/raw\/401\/z\/248a3.png)\n\n### What went well\n- **Doing Ludum Dare for the first time in years.** I used to take part in LD regularly, but eventually my lack of energy got the better of me, and the last time I competed was in LD37 (Dec 2016). I've really missed it though. So as soon as the situation afforded it, I took the chance to take part again. And I'm really happy I did.\n- **Pushing my personal envelope.** Of my 12 previous Ludum Dare entries, 11 were puzzle games and 1 was an action game. At one point a couple of my puzzle games got good ratings and I sort of developed a fear of straying from the formula. It's been a slow realisation that the ratings aren't as important as just bloody doing the competition, and stretching myself. So I'm glad that I made a card game, something really different from what I normally do.\n\n### What didn't go as badly as I feared\n- **Doing things in the wrong order.** I normally try to make sure I have a fun, balanced game before I get on to matters that I consider \"polish\" (things like menus, getting the graphics looking good, etc.) But for this card game, there was a lot of work to do on the interface before I could playtest it at all. And interface work takes a lot of effort for stuff that people barely notice (but would notice if it was missing) - e.g., dealing the cards out one at a time, tweening the card position when you click to look closer at it, etc. As a result, the game only really came together in the last 6 hours or so of the competition. So there was a worry that the gameplay just \"wouldn't work\". But I'm glad to say that on the whole it doesn't work too badly. It is not as perfectly balanced as I would like, but the gameplay works and my goal was accomplished.\n\n### What went badly\n- **Being rusty.** Having not taken part for a couple of years, I was much slower at doing some things (mainly DOM manipulation code) than I used to be. Making a small practice game some time in the weeks beforehand probably would have helped with this.\n- **SVG.** I normally use canvas graphics but decided to use SVG this time. The whole web page consists of one big SVG element, and all the code jams stuff into it. This is good for stuff like buttons. But it leads to lots of browser compatibility problems. In particular, the game doesn't look right at all on the Edge browser. Also, I tried to use an asset that was an svg file with an embedded png. This worked fine in Firefox, but Chrome didn't allow it. So I had to scratch that. So what would I do in future? Probably canvas. A mixture of canvas and SVG could work too, if I was sure that the SVG stuff I use is safe to use in most browsers.\n- **Lack of sleep.** Every time I do this, I tell myself to set the scope small, and get lots of sleep. Every time, it doesn't work out. I will let you know when I figure out the solution to this.\n\n","comments":0,"created":"2019-05-04T10:58:14Z","files":[],"files-timestamp":0,"id":156525,"love":1,"love-timestamp":"2019-05-05T21:48:37Z","meta":[],"modified":"2019-05-05T21:48:37Z","name":"Cold Dream: Postmortem","node-timestamp":"2019-05-04T11:17:17Z","parent":146817,"parents":[1,5,9,139254,146817],"path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/44\/cold-dream\/cold-dream-postmortem","published":"2019-05-04T11:15:31Z","scope":"public","slug":"cold-dream-postmortem","subsubtype":"","subtype":"","type":"post","version":471523},"node_metadata":{"n_key":"156525","n_urlkey":"348489","n_parent":"146817","n_path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/44\/cold-dream\/cold-dream-postmortem","n_slug":"cold-dream-postmortem","n_type":"post","n_subtype":"","n_subsubtype":"","n_author":"260","n_created":"1556967494","n_modified":"1557092917","n_version":"471523","n_status":"WAYBACK"},"source_url":"https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/44\/cold-dream\/cold-dream-postmortem","text":"My entry, [Cold Dream](https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/44\/cold-dream), is a survival solitaire game. You've been exiled to Makemake and left to look after yourself. You have four vital resources: food, water, oxygen and heat, and you have to make sure you won't run out of any at the end of each turn. To make matters worse, every turn a random crisis occurs, that will reduce your resources at the end of the turn.\n\nYou have a bunch of other resources to work with, and 8 cards, dealt from a deck, that provide you with options for staying alive. Some cards let you build equipment that you can keep, giving you more options in future turns.\n\n![cd_screenshot.png](\/\/\/raw\/401\/z\/248a3.png)\n\n### What went well\n- **Doing Ludum Dare for the first time in years.** I used to take part in LD regularly, but eventually my lack of energy got the better of me, and the last time I competed was in LD37 (Dec 2016). I've really missed it though. So as soon as the situation afforded it, I took the chance to take part again. And I'm really happy I did.\n- **Pushing my personal envelope.** Of my 12 previous Ludum Dare entries, 11 were puzzle games and 1 was an action game. At one point a couple of my puzzle games got good ratings and I sort of developed a fear of straying from the formula. It's been a slow realisation that the ratings aren't as important as just bloody doing the competition, and stretching myself. So I'm glad that I made a card game, something really different from what I normally do.\n\n### What didn't go as badly as I feared\n- **Doing things in the wrong order.** I normally try to make sure I have a fun, balanced game before I get on to matters that I consider \"polish\" (things like menus, getting the graphics looking good, etc.) But for this card game, there was a lot of work to do on the interface before I could playtest it at all. And interface work takes a lot of effort for stuff that people barely notice (but would notice if it was missing) - e.g., dealing the cards out one at a time, tweening the card position when you click to look closer at it, etc. As a result, the game only really came together in the last 6 hours or so of the competition. So there was a worry that the gameplay just \"wouldn't work\". But I'm glad to say that on the whole it doesn't work too badly. It is not as perfectly balanced as I would like, but the gameplay works and my goal was accomplished.\n\n### What went badly\n- **Being rusty.** Having not taken part for a couple of years, I was much slower at doing some things (mainly DOM manipulation code) than I used to be. Making a small practice game some time in the weeks beforehand probably would have helped with this.\n- **SVG.** I normally use canvas graphics but decided to use SVG this time. The whole web page consists of one big SVG element, and all the code jams stuff into it. This is good for stuff like buttons. But it leads to lots of browser compatibility problems. In particular, the game doesn't look right at all on the Edge browser. Also, I tried to use an asset that was an svg file with an embedded png. This worked fine in Firefox, but Chrome didn't allow it. So I had to scratch that. So what would I do in future? Probably canvas. A mixture of canvas and SVG could work too, if I was sure that the SVG stuff I use is safe to use in most browsers.\n- **Lack of sleep.** Every time I do this, I tell myself to set the scope small, and get lots of sleep. Every time, it doesn't work out. I will let you know when I figure out the solution to this.\n\n","title":"Cold Dream: Postmortem","wayback_source":[]}