{"author_link":"\/users\/jeremy-ryan","author_name":"Jeremy Ryan","author_uid":"jeremy-ryan","comments":[],"epoch":1602161298,"event":"LD47","format":"md","ldjam_node_id":230192,"likes":3,"metadata":{"p_key":"150845","p_author":"Jeremy Ryan","p_authorkey":"1015034","p_urlkey":"367350","p_title":"Spinnerets --- A Post-Mortem","p_cat":"LDJam ","p_event":"LD47","p_time":"1602161298","p_likes":"3","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":"1015034","us_name":"Jeremy Ryan","us_username":"jeremy-ryan","event_start":"1601596800","event_key":"76","event_name":"Ludum Dare 47"},"node":{"_collation":{"body_sanitizer":"TextUtils::SanitizeHTML via existing importer","event":"LD47","removed_author":false},"_superparent":212256,"_trust":14,"author":15034,"body":"![spinnerets_banner.png](\/\/\/raw\/aba\/3\/z\/39a7a.png)\n\nHey everyone! Now that rating has kicked into gear, I thought I'd share some insights and takeaways from my eighth Ludum Dare Compo.\n\n## Overview\n\nFor this event, I ended up going in a different direction than usual - **local multiplayer**. While I don't know as I'd necessarily recommend it, since it places more restrictions on who can accurately review your game, I think the experience was positive overall.\n\nOf course, game design doesn't happen in a vacuum. These are some of my favorite multiplayer games that influenced my design decisions:\n\n- **[0Space (Teknopants)](https:\/\/teknopants.itch.io\/0space)**: Also a game jam game, 0Space is one of my go-to examples of great game design in a multiplayer setting. One thing worth noting is that the gameplay isn't particularly *fast*... it's strategic, and relies on precise timing. *(It's also now free on Itch! Highly recommend!)*\n\n\n- **[12 Orbits (Roman Uhlig)](http:\/\/12orbits.com\/)**: The pinnacle of one-button multiplayer games, 12 Orbits lets you play with up to twelve people on a single keyboard. When I decided to make a game with one-button controls, I took a hint from their key select screen and let players bind to arbitrary buttons.\n\n\n- **[TowerFall Ascension (Maddy Thorson)](http:\/\/www.towerfall-game.com\/)**: Another excellent couch co-op\/competitive title, TowerFall does a lot of things right in terms of replay-ability. Notably, it has a variety of maps and powerups that change how players interact with the game at any given time.\n\n![spider_friends.png](\/\/\/raw\/aba\/3\/z\/39a81.png)\n\n## What went well\n\nOverall, I think I did a pretty good job this event.\n\n- **The Pivot**: I originally was going to make this game a dungeon-crawler rogue-lite with the same theme and controls. I realized the scope for this was likely too large early on, and pivoted to local versus, which was definitely for the better.\n\n\n- **The Polish**: With this reduced scope, I was able to spend more time on polishing the UI, character select screen, animations, and effects.\n\n\n- **The Feedback So Far**: People seem to like the game so far! Which comes as a little bit of a shock, because I *never actually playtested it with multiple people*, just me versus empty players or some of the very early enemy code I had written.\n\n\n- **The Sleep**: I actually took care of myself this weekend!\n\n## What went poorly\n\nStill room for improvement!\n\n- **Rushing the Music**: I think the music turned out decent, given time constraints, but it was really rushed. My usual workflow for music was changed after my student Sibelius license expired, so I ended up actually directly recording me playing my Casio keyboard (after running to Office Depot for a quarter inch adapter). I only had time for two or three takes, and was mostly improvising, so you can hear a few spots where I hesitate or mess up.\n\n- **Scope of Art**: I think I took things a bit easy in terms of visual assets. The game looks clean, but there's not much to it. I actually only did one frame-by-frame animation --- the bullet exploding --- and everything else was with modular animation or no animation at all. I would also have liked to have more interesting map components, like hazards or conveyor belts, to spice up the gameplay further.\n\n- **Collision Code**: My collisions are suspect at best. Occasionally, players will pop through walls. In 48 hours, it's tough to write robust collision code from scratch.\n\n## Going forward\n\nWhile I probably won't be making another local multiplayer game for Ludum Dare anytime soon, it was definitely a fun experience. In the future, I'll probably want to start with some base code for 2D collisions and tile system, since those things took a lot of time this event and are very generalizable.\n\n![sc_2_long.png](\/\/\/raw\/aba\/3\/z\/39a83.png)\n\n### You can play [Spinnerets](https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/47\/spinnerets) here. Have a good event, everybody!\n","comments":0,"created":"2020-10-08T12:10:04Z","files":[],"files-timestamp":0,"id":230192,"love":3,"love-timestamp":"2020-10-08T19:38:16Z","meta":[],"modified":"2020-10-08T19:38:16Z","name":"Spinnerets --- A Post-Mortem","node-timestamp":"2020-10-08T12:49:30Z","parent":225649,"parents":[1,5,9,212256,225649],"path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/47\/spinnerets\/spinnerets-a-post-mortem","published":"2020-10-08T12:48:18Z","scope":"public","slug":"spinnerets-a-post-mortem","subsubtype":"","subtype":"","type":"post","version":700730},"node_metadata":{"n_key":"230192","n_urlkey":"367350","n_parent":"225649","n_path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/47\/spinnerets\/spinnerets-a-post-mortem","n_slug":"spinnerets-a-post-mortem","n_type":"post","n_subtype":"","n_subsubtype":"","n_author":"15034","n_created":"1602159004","n_modified":"1602185896","n_version":"700730","n_status":"WAYBACK"},"source_url":"https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/47\/spinnerets\/spinnerets-a-post-mortem","text":"![spinnerets_banner.png](\/\/\/raw\/aba\/3\/z\/39a7a.png)\n\nHey everyone! Now that rating has kicked into gear, I thought I'd share some insights and takeaways from my eighth Ludum Dare Compo.\n\n## Overview\n\nFor this event, I ended up going in a different direction than usual - **local multiplayer**. While I don't know as I'd necessarily recommend it, since it places more restrictions on who can accurately review your game, I think the experience was positive overall.\n\nOf course, game design doesn't happen in a vacuum. These are some of my favorite multiplayer games that influenced my design decisions:\n\n- **[0Space (Teknopants)](https:\/\/teknopants.itch.io\/0space)**: Also a game jam game, 0Space is one of my go-to examples of great game design in a multiplayer setting. One thing worth noting is that the gameplay isn't particularly *fast*... it's strategic, and relies on precise timing. *(It's also now free on Itch! Highly recommend!)*\n\n\n- **[12 Orbits (Roman Uhlig)](http:\/\/12orbits.com\/)**: The pinnacle of one-button multiplayer games, 12 Orbits lets you play with up to twelve people on a single keyboard. When I decided to make a game with one-button controls, I took a hint from their key select screen and let players bind to arbitrary buttons.\n\n\n- **[TowerFall Ascension (Maddy Thorson)](http:\/\/www.towerfall-game.com\/)**: Another excellent couch co-op\/competitive title, TowerFall does a lot of things right in terms of replay-ability. Notably, it has a variety of maps and powerups that change how players interact with the game at any given time.\n\n![spider_friends.png](\/\/\/raw\/aba\/3\/z\/39a81.png)\n\n## What went well\n\nOverall, I think I did a pretty good job this event.\n\n- **The Pivot**: I originally was going to make this game a dungeon-crawler rogue-lite with the same theme and controls. I realized the scope for this was likely too large early on, and pivoted to local versus, which was definitely for the better.\n\n\n- **The Polish**: With this reduced scope, I was able to spend more time on polishing the UI, character select screen, animations, and effects.\n\n\n- **The Feedback So Far**: People seem to like the game so far! Which comes as a little bit of a shock, because I *never actually playtested it with multiple people*, just me versus empty players or some of the very early enemy code I had written.\n\n\n- **The Sleep**: I actually took care of myself this weekend!\n\n## What went poorly\n\nStill room for improvement!\n\n- **Rushing the Music**: I think the music turned out decent, given time constraints, but it was really rushed. My usual workflow for music was changed after my student Sibelius license expired, so I ended up actually directly recording me playing my Casio keyboard (after running to Office Depot for a quarter inch adapter). I only had time for two or three takes, and was mostly improvising, so you can hear a few spots where I hesitate or mess up.\n\n- **Scope of Art**: I think I took things a bit easy in terms of visual assets. The game looks clean, but there's not much to it. I actually only did one frame-by-frame animation --- the bullet exploding --- and everything else was with modular animation or no animation at all. I would also have liked to have more interesting map components, like hazards or conveyor belts, to spice up the gameplay further.\n\n- **Collision Code**: My collisions are suspect at best. Occasionally, players will pop through walls. In 48 hours, it's tough to write robust collision code from scratch.\n\n## Going forward\n\nWhile I probably won't be making another local multiplayer game for Ludum Dare anytime soon, it was definitely a fun experience. In the future, I'll probably want to start with some base code for 2D collisions and tile system, since those things took a lot of time this event and are very generalizable.\n\n![sc_2_long.png](\/\/\/raw\/aba\/3\/z\/39a83.png)\n\n### You can play [Spinnerets](https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/47\/spinnerets) here. Have a good event, everybody!\n","title":"Spinnerets --- A Post-Mortem","wayback_source":[]}