![\"ldpm-cd\"](\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/ldpm-cd.gif\")
<\/a><\/p>\n The Goal<\/strong><\/p>\n Let’s be honest. \u00a0Entering my first Ludum Dare with what would forever become my “first game ever<\/a>,” I wasn’t setting out to wow the masses, break new ground, or knock anything out of the park. \u00a0I just wanted something that worked and was enjoyable.<\/p>\n The Process<\/strong><\/p>\n I didn’t really have anything except Unity 5 and Adobe Cloud at my disposal, and knowing I had never created a game before, 48 hours wasn’t going to be much time. \u00a0On top of that, my daughter had kept me up the night before, so Friday night work was out of the question. \u00a0I knew I’d have to get sleep and start on\u00a0Saturday morning. \u00a0I would try to make the Compo deadline, but if I couldn’t, sticking to Compo rules and finishing within my own 48 hour window for the Jam would be just fine. \u00a0A personal victory.<\/p>\n I love cheese and decided I’d do a simple defensive style game to protect my cheese. \u00a0And what eats cheese? \u00a0Rats. \u00a0So, I started by creating assets. \u00a0I took pictures in the yard and turned them into a simple 16 x 9 background. \u00a0Grabbed some cheese from the fridge and crumbled it into a plate, took some pics, and created the protective goal asset. \u00a0I Googled rat images for something to look at, pulled out the pen & tablet, and started drawing. \u00a0After I had the main parts of the rat enemy created, I pulled them into Unity 5 and began setting up animations. \u00a0That was the part of Unity that I had previously tinkered with, so I wanted to start with something familiar. \u00a0Fairly soon, the rat could run, sniff the air, and stand idle. \u00a0This was going to be easier than I imagined!<\/p>\n Nope.<\/p>\n I spent the entire day Saturday doing nothing but coding the rat. \u00a0I started by setting up collision detection with the ground, triggering the sniff\u00a0on impact, and transitioning into a run that took it off screen left. \u00a0No destruction. \u00a0Just collide with the ground, run off the screen, and fall for eternity. \u00a0It was late, I was tired, and felt like I was way behind.<\/p>\n Sunday was where I learned the\u00a0most. \u00a0I picked paper airplane as my “unconventional weapon,” folded\u00a0one, took pictures of it, and turned it into an asset. \u00a0I knew deadline was approaching, so I had to take stock of all my ideas and boil them down to the most basic “must haves” and focus on those. \u00a0Everything else would come only if time allowed. \u00a0Which it didn’t. \u00a0I overestimated what I thought I had learned\u00a0about Unity from the 95 hours of tutorial videos I had previously watched. \u00a0So, I spent most of the day cursing the gods and Googling “Unity how to…” every time I tried to implement anything. \u00a0In the end, I got a spawner working, had the rats selecting which of three levels to run on, could pitch an airplane reasonably well, had particle effects, and had object cleanup. \u00a0I knew I had missed the\u00a0Compo deadline, but if I could finish up in the 4 hours after work on Monday, I’d achieve my personal 48 hour goal, simulating time\u00a0I missed on Friday evening.<\/p>\n Monday was the final stretch. \u00a0I mentally allocated what I had to have done in 30 minute increments within hour milestones. \u00a0I started at 5pm tweaking things that I knew had to work better for me to be satisfied. \u00a0I improved the plane throwing, although I knew it was still wrong. \u00a0But I had to move on. \u00a0There had to be a score, and a HUD, and more testing to balance the 10 levels of 20 second waves. \u00a0I crammed and coded and Googled like a maniac. \u00a0With just over an hour remaining, I grabbed\u00a0my phone and started recording sounds. \u00a0I exported those over, tried to attach them to my prefabs, and ended up on Google some more. \u00a0I was adding sounds and tweaking wave timings right up until the 9pm Jam deadline. \u00a0At that point, it was what it was.<\/p>\n Submission<\/strong><\/p>\n When it was time to submit, I realized that I had never even tested the Web Player version of the game, as I’d been testing on Android for faster deployment. \u00a0I also realized I had never really tried to build and host a Unity game. \u00a0So, I spent the submission hour just trying to figure out what in the world I was supposed to do. \u00a0I finished up at the very end of the submission hour, barely. \u00a0Whew! \u00a0I really didn’t plan far enough ahead for this thing!<\/p>\n Afterthoughts<\/strong><\/p>\n Overall, I’m pleased. \u00a0I got to add subtle effects, like rats running away with a bit of cheese off the ground–when I should have undoubtedly been coding something else–and running animations that speed up and slow down, and some funny sound effects. \u00a0It is not the game I envisioned and has it’s issues, of course. \u00a0There are tons of things I know need to be handled differently, or added, or tweaked. \u00a0And the code is an awful, cobbled mess. \u00a0That’s what happens when you can’t get something to work the “right” way, and have to let it “just work” for now. \u00a0But, it works. \u00a0And I enjoy playing it. \u00a0Goal achieved.<\/p>\n I hope you guys enjoy playing Cheesy Defender<\/a>\u00a0too! \u00a0Even if it is a little cheesy… \u00a0\ud83d\ude09<\/p>","time":"April 24th, 2015 10:43 pm","title":"Cheesy Defender \u2013 Postmortem"}