{"author_link":"\/users\/kaisercrimson1","author_name":"KaiserCrimson1","author_uid":"kaisercrimson1","comments":[],"epoch":1570566530,"event":"LD45","format":"md","ldjam_node_id":174625,"likes":6,"metadata":{"p_key":"136555","p_author":"KaiserCrimson1","p_authorkey":"1165913","p_urlkey":"352831","p_title":"Post Mortem on Raven Knight Geist (LD45)","p_cat":"LDJam ","p_event":"LD45","p_time":"1570566530","p_likes":"6","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":"1165913","us_name":"KaiserCrimson1","us_username":"kaisercrimson1","event_start":"1570147200","event_key":"78","event_name":"Ludum Dare 45"},"node":{"_collation":{"body_sanitizer":"TextUtils::SanitizeHTML via existing importer","event":"LD45","removed_author":false},"_superparent":159347,"_trust":1,"author":165913,"body":"![GeistItchIO.png](\/\/\/raw\/918\/82\/z\/28ef8.png)\nI've never did a proper post mortem before, so apologies if I'm misusing the term. I wanted to properly gather my thoughts about my game, and what I learned while working on it:\n\nTo begin with, this was my first game jam, and I just kind of spontaneously threw myself into it lol\n\nI didn\u2019t really do a lot of research into the mindset and workflow a Jam actually required, so I ran headfirst into a lot of amateur mistakes. To start, I made the questionable mistake of picking the kind of game I wanted to make before I even knew the theme\u2026 which caused me a lot of headaches down the line. The initial idea I had in mind was actually a 2D character action platformer. To be specific, I envisioned a Mega Man Zero styled game with various mechanics inspired by Devil May Cry and Platinum\u2019s game catalogue.  Obviously, I wasn\u2019t expecting to build the actual game in two days, but I was curious to see how far I\u2019d get regardless. It was surprisingly difficult to figure out what mechanics and features I wanted to keep considering how I knew I wouldn\u2019t be making a fully-fledged game during the Jam. However, as mentioned- a lot of valuable time went into trying to see what mechanics I\u2019d even be able to keep as well as pruning ideas and mechanics off the base idea as opposed to starting with something simple from the onset and developing upwards. I definitely learned a lot about project scope and the dangers of feature creep from this, that\u2019s for sure lol\n\n![originalHealthbar.png](\/\/\/raw\/918\/82\/z\/28f05.png)\n(If you're wondering why the healthbar in the game looks empty, here's why)\n\nI\u2019d initially planned to include a transformation mechanic that would let the player switch between three forms: a gun based form using projectiles, a sword based form, and a melee based form. But I had to cut that since I didn\u2019t really know how to implement it on my own. I eventually settled on just making the player use the gun as I\u2019d had experience with making shooting objects before in Game Maker Studio. I actually went back and forth with the shooting mechanics as well. At one point, the gun would have had limited ammo that you would have had to reload by defeating enemies. However, I quickly realized that such a mechanic wouldn\u2019t have worked very well considering how the gun was the only weapon the player would get, and reloading the gun after every three shots wasn\u2019t very fun. So I decided to make it function based off of the buster mechanics in Mega Man and gave the player infinite ammo, but only three bullets could exist on screen at a time. I really wanted to include a charge mechanic as well, but I couldn\u2019t get it to behave right and ended up scrapping it too.\n\nSo basically, I vastly overshot the scope of what I was able to do at the time and ended up going with the bare minimum of what I envisioned. It sucks to think about how inexperienced I am at the moment, but it is what it is. To be honest, most of my dev time was spent on cutting out mechanics, asset making and visual aesthetics as opposed to coding. I want to find a better method of partitioning my time in the future so I'll be safe when problems arise (as they tend to do in these kind of projects).\n\n\n**Rogues Gallery:**\n\n![enemyPlanning.png](\/\/\/raw\/918\/82\/z\/28ee1.png)\n(I wrote this up before I even knew what I wanted them to look like. The ones in the game were a quick placeholder)\n\nThe enemies are really simple too, right? I initially came up with a handful of enemy variants that would move around and attack the player with slashes, punches, and projectiles to complement the player\u2019s possible form changes\u2026 but I quickly realized that, much like the form changing and melee attacks themselves, these enemies were a bit too far out of reach for me and settled for making them turrets basically. They operate on the same rules as the player, so it wasn\u2019t too hard to port the code over. I repeatedly tried to get their sprites to animate when shooting as well, but I couldn\u2019t get it to work in time. Just another thing I\u2019ll have to figure out now that the dust has cleared lol\n\n**The main man himself:**\n\n![GeistVariations.png](\/\/\/raw\/918\/82\/z\/28ed9.png)\n(From left to right: The melee-based Striker Raven form, sword-based Buster Falcon form, and gun-based Cannon Eagle form)\n\nEven though the graphics are somewhat rushed, I ended up spending a lot of my time trying to polish the main character\u2019s look and feel. Geist is supposed to be a \u201ccool\u201d kind of henshin hero, so I wanted to convey his personality to the player somehow, even though this is a prototype. This is why the ending screen has a picture of him posing with the sword even though it never made it into the actual game lol\n\nThe starting screen has a similar thing going on with the pose Geist takes. It was actually the concept for his melee based form. By the way, this is why both forms have different \u201ccrests\u201d in the art. I probably should have just redrew my assets based on his gun form since it\u2019s the only one that\u2019s actually playable, but I liked them both too much to truly get rid of them. Looking back on everything with a clear mind, I\u2019m actually glad that all three of his forms still found a way into this game somehow.\n\n \n![henshinAnimation.gif](\/\/\/raw\/918\/82\/z\/28ef0.gif)\nSpeaking of which, I mentioned how Geist was supposed to be a henshin hero (he transforms similar to a Kamen Rider or the Power Rangers), but I wasn\u2019t even able to put any shots of Geist\u2019s human self into the game! I planned for the level to open with him transforming into Geist and then letting you control him, but it ended up being too difficult to actually implement properly. I figured that I\u2019d have the player\u2019s sprite point to his transformation animation, and when it was finished, it would then point to his idle transformation, but the player would always get locked into the transformation sprite or ignore that sprite entirely and point to the idle sprite outright, which is why it was ultimately cut. I even drew up an entire set of pre-transformation sprites, but nothing came of them lol\n\n![NewIdleAnimated.gif](\/\/\/raw\/918\/82\/z\/28edb.gif) ![newRun2.gif](\/\/\/raw\/918\/82\/z\/28edc.gif) ![NewJump.gif](\/\/\/raw\/918\/82\/z\/28ede.gif)\n(A few of the aforementioned sprites. I\u2019m especially proud of the subtle coat animation. Can\u2019t wait to work that into the game properly!)\n\n**What went right:**\nFor starters, I actually finished it in time and published it. It\u2019s actually a playable game that I made and I\u2019m proud of it regardless of how it came out in the end. The one thing I wanted to accomplish from entering this Jam was to finish making a playable game that you could actually win and it happened. I know it\u2019s not much, but if you can take away even an ounce of the passion and fun that I had while working on Raven Knight Geist, I\u2019ll be overjoyed! ^_^\n","comments":0,"created":"2019-10-08T19:40:43Z","files":[],"files-timestamp":0,"id":174625,"love":6,"love-timestamp":"2019-10-10T23:09:10Z","meta":[],"modified":"2019-10-10T23:09:10Z","name":"Post Mortem on Raven Knight Geist (LD45)","node-timestamp":"2019-10-08T20:28:50Z","parent":165914,"parents":[1,5,9,159347,165914],"path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/45\/raven-knight-geist\/post-mortem-on-raven-knight-geist-ld45","published":"2019-10-08T20:28:50Z","scope":"public","slug":"post-mortem-on-raven-knight-geist-ld45","subsubtype":"","subtype":"","type":"post","version":524149},"node_metadata":{"n_key":"174625","n_urlkey":"352831","n_parent":"165914","n_path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/45\/raven-knight-geist\/post-mortem-on-raven-knight-geist-ld45","n_slug":"post-mortem-on-raven-knight-geis","n_type":"post","n_subtype":"","n_subsubtype":"","n_author":"165913","n_created":"1570563643","n_modified":"1570748950","n_version":"524149","n_status":"WAYBACK"},"source_url":"https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/45\/raven-knight-geist\/post-mortem-on-raven-knight-geist-ld45","text":"![GeistItchIO.png](\/\/\/raw\/918\/82\/z\/28ef8.png)\nI've never did a proper post mortem before, so apologies if I'm misusing the term. I wanted to properly gather my thoughts about my game, and what I learned while working on it:\n\nTo begin with, this was my first game jam, and I just kind of spontaneously threw myself into it lol\n\nI didn\u2019t really do a lot of research into the mindset and workflow a Jam actually required, so I ran headfirst into a lot of amateur mistakes. To start, I made the questionable mistake of picking the kind of game I wanted to make before I even knew the theme\u2026 which caused me a lot of headaches down the line. The initial idea I had in mind was actually a 2D character action platformer. To be specific, I envisioned a Mega Man Zero styled game with various mechanics inspired by Devil May Cry and Platinum\u2019s game catalogue.  Obviously, I wasn\u2019t expecting to build the actual game in two days, but I was curious to see how far I\u2019d get regardless. It was surprisingly difficult to figure out what mechanics and features I wanted to keep considering how I knew I wouldn\u2019t be making a fully-fledged game during the Jam. However, as mentioned- a lot of valuable time went into trying to see what mechanics I\u2019d even be able to keep as well as pruning ideas and mechanics off the base idea as opposed to starting with something simple from the onset and developing upwards. I definitely learned a lot about project scope and the dangers of feature creep from this, that\u2019s for sure lol\n\n![originalHealthbar.png](\/\/\/raw\/918\/82\/z\/28f05.png)\n(If you're wondering why the healthbar in the game looks empty, here's why)\n\nI\u2019d initially planned to include a transformation mechanic that would let the player switch between three forms: a gun based form using projectiles, a sword based form, and a melee based form. But I had to cut that since I didn\u2019t really know how to implement it on my own. I eventually settled on just making the player use the gun as I\u2019d had experience with making shooting objects before in Game Maker Studio. I actually went back and forth with the shooting mechanics as well. At one point, the gun would have had limited ammo that you would have had to reload by defeating enemies. However, I quickly realized that such a mechanic wouldn\u2019t have worked very well considering how the gun was the only weapon the player would get, and reloading the gun after every three shots wasn\u2019t very fun. So I decided to make it function based off of the buster mechanics in Mega Man and gave the player infinite ammo, but only three bullets could exist on screen at a time. I really wanted to include a charge mechanic as well, but I couldn\u2019t get it to behave right and ended up scrapping it too.\n\nSo basically, I vastly overshot the scope of what I was able to do at the time and ended up going with the bare minimum of what I envisioned. It sucks to think about how inexperienced I am at the moment, but it is what it is. To be honest, most of my dev time was spent on cutting out mechanics, asset making and visual aesthetics as opposed to coding. I want to find a better method of partitioning my time in the future so I'll be safe when problems arise (as they tend to do in these kind of projects).\n\n\n**Rogues Gallery:**\n\n![enemyPlanning.png](\/\/\/raw\/918\/82\/z\/28ee1.png)\n(I wrote this up before I even knew what I wanted them to look like. The ones in the game were a quick placeholder)\n\nThe enemies are really simple too, right? I initially came up with a handful of enemy variants that would move around and attack the player with slashes, punches, and projectiles to complement the player\u2019s possible form changes\u2026 but I quickly realized that, much like the form changing and melee attacks themselves, these enemies were a bit too far out of reach for me and settled for making them turrets basically. They operate on the same rules as the player, so it wasn\u2019t too hard to port the code over. I repeatedly tried to get their sprites to animate when shooting as well, but I couldn\u2019t get it to work in time. Just another thing I\u2019ll have to figure out now that the dust has cleared lol\n\n**The main man himself:**\n\n![GeistVariations.png](\/\/\/raw\/918\/82\/z\/28ed9.png)\n(From left to right: The melee-based Striker Raven form, sword-based Buster Falcon form, and gun-based Cannon Eagle form)\n\nEven though the graphics are somewhat rushed, I ended up spending a lot of my time trying to polish the main character\u2019s look and feel. Geist is supposed to be a \u201ccool\u201d kind of henshin hero, so I wanted to convey his personality to the player somehow, even though this is a prototype. This is why the ending screen has a picture of him posing with the sword even though it never made it into the actual game lol\n\nThe starting screen has a similar thing going on with the pose Geist takes. It was actually the concept for his melee based form. By the way, this is why both forms have different \u201ccrests\u201d in the art. I probably should have just redrew my assets based on his gun form since it\u2019s the only one that\u2019s actually playable, but I liked them both too much to truly get rid of them. Looking back on everything with a clear mind, I\u2019m actually glad that all three of his forms still found a way into this game somehow.\n\n \n![henshinAnimation.gif](\/\/\/raw\/918\/82\/z\/28ef0.gif)\nSpeaking of which, I mentioned how Geist was supposed to be a henshin hero (he transforms similar to a Kamen Rider or the Power Rangers), but I wasn\u2019t even able to put any shots of Geist\u2019s human self into the game! I planned for the level to open with him transforming into Geist and then letting you control him, but it ended up being too difficult to actually implement properly. I figured that I\u2019d have the player\u2019s sprite point to his transformation animation, and when it was finished, it would then point to his idle transformation, but the player would always get locked into the transformation sprite or ignore that sprite entirely and point to the idle sprite outright, which is why it was ultimately cut. I even drew up an entire set of pre-transformation sprites, but nothing came of them lol\n\n![NewIdleAnimated.gif](\/\/\/raw\/918\/82\/z\/28edb.gif) ![newRun2.gif](\/\/\/raw\/918\/82\/z\/28edc.gif) ![NewJump.gif](\/\/\/raw\/918\/82\/z\/28ede.gif)\n(A few of the aforementioned sprites. I\u2019m especially proud of the subtle coat animation. Can\u2019t wait to work that into the game properly!)\n\n**What went right:**\nFor starters, I actually finished it in time and published it. It\u2019s actually a playable game that I made and I\u2019m proud of it regardless of how it came out in the end. The one thing I wanted to accomplish from entering this Jam was to finish making a playable game that you could actually win and it happened. I know it\u2019s not much, but if you can take away even an ounce of the passion and fun that I had while working on Raven Knight Geist, I\u2019ll be overjoyed! ^_^\n","title":"Post Mortem on Raven Knight Geist (LD45)","wayback_source":[]}