{"author_name":"walsh9","cat":"LD #33","comments":[],"epoch":1440546600,"likes":2,"metadata":{"p_key":"13430","p_author":"walsh9","p_authorkey":"56320","p_urlkey":"48687","p_title":"Dragon Tax Return Simulator 2015 \u2013 Post Mortem","p_cat":"LD #33","p_event":"LD33","p_time":"1440546600","p_likes":"2","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"56320","us_name":"walsh9","us_username":"walsh9","event_start":"1440115200","event_key":"29","event_name":"LD33"},"text":"

Dragon Tax Return Simulator 2015<\/a> is\u00a0my first Ludum Dare entry. Once the theme was announced I brainstormed a list of about a dozen ideas, and then narrowed them down based on whether they were 1. doable, 2. interesting. Somehow this dragon tax game idea came out on top. While I was originally trying for a compo entry, when I realized I wasn’t finishing on day 2, I adjusted trajectory toward the jam.<\/p>\n

Tools<\/strong>
\n Javascript – This is a mostly from scratch (libraries used below) HTML5 game. So if it looks bad or doesn’t work for you then I probably didn’t test in your browser\/os.<\/p>\n

Google Fonts – A great resource and allowed me to take full advantage of the “Fonts are allowed.” exception. I doubt I’d have even tried this idea if I didn’t know about Google Fonts.<\/p>\n

Handlebars.js – I’d never used it before but it was great for making templates for all the various forms that got created.<\/p>\n

jQuery – jQueryUI made it super simple to make all the paper draggable.<\/p>\n

The Good<\/strong>
\n I feel like I really got a lot of value out of simple randomization.<\/p>\n

The instructions use random values for most of the ‘rules’ so you can’t just learn the tax code.<\/p>\n

The random name generator was really fun to make even though all it does is\u00a0stick some random syllables together (about half the time it just picks a ‘normal’ firstname from a list). I decided this was not the time to try and figure out markov chains or anything fancy like that. I think this simple randomizer still came out fine.<\/p>\n

\"names2\"<\/p>\n

I’m also happy with how well the random note generation worked out with its simple templates.<\/p>\n

For example here’s the farmer complaint template (with the HTML stripped out):<\/p>\n

Hey {{dragonEpithet}}!<\/p>\n

{{exasperatedComplaint}}
\n You burnt up {{value}} gold worth of my crops!
\n {{farmerAppeal}}
\n {{peasantNotice}}
\n {{partingShot}}<\/p>\n

{{randomName}}, {{location}}<\/p>\n

P.S. {{grovelling}}<\/code><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And the results:<\/p>\n

\"farmer<\/p>\n

It was fun to write all the sentences that filled these templates, but I still want to add more since\u00a0the notes can still get repetitive.<\/p>\n

The Bad<\/strong>
\n Originally, the ‘time limit’ in the game was only going to be 5 minutes. On the second day I actually tried a test run. One thing I noticed was that 5 minutes was nowhere near enough<\/em> time. I used that discovery as an opportunity to cut extra forms, simplify the main form, and increase the time limit to 10 minutes. I probably could have saved myself a lot of time if I’d tried playing the game earlier.<\/p>\n

Also, I probably shouldn’t have waited until the third day to add all the logic that makes it “a game”. I mean stuff like the dialogs, finish state, endgame report, etc. I was kind of pushing my luck as I rushed to get those all in before the deadline.<\/p>\n

Ideas That Didn’t Make It<\/strong>
\n I wanted to add more graphics. Just things like little official seals\/stamps for some of the paperwork. Burnt edges on the papers. A little pixel art dragon claw cursor.<\/p>\n

And I wanted some of the complaints from shopkeepers to be on shop letterheads with randomized shop names but I was running out of time and ended up just reusing the design from the peasant notes.<\/p>","time":"August 25th, 2015 6:50 pm","title":"Dragon Tax Return Simulator 2015 \u2013 Post Mortem"}