{"author_name":"jcmoyer","cat":"LD #32","comments":[],"epoch":1429732620,"likes":2,"metadata":{"p_key":"17803","p_author":"jcmoyer","p_authorkey":"18573","p_urlkey":"53109","p_title":"Rocket Rabbit: The Post Mortem","p_cat":"LD #32","p_event":"LD32","p_time":"1429732620","p_likes":"2","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"18573","us_name":"jcmoyer","us_username":"jcmoyer","event_start":"1429228800","event_key":"27","event_name":"LD32"},"text":"

Going into Ludum Dare, I knew I wanted to make a shmup. I needed to come up with an unconventional weapon, though. I decided on carrots, and what better protagonist to have than a rabbit that shoots carrots? Initially with the theme I thought I’d make a light-hearted game with bright colors and a ridiculous setting a la Parodius<\/a>, but…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Rocket Rabbit<\/p><\/div>\n

I worked on the game a bit and got bullets and enemies in. After that, I composed a lighthearted track for the first stage then started working on boss music. The boss music came out super tense and action-y. It conflicted with the stage 1 track, and I liked it a lot more. This was Saturday evening mind you; I didn’t really have time to produce any more music, so I said screw it, the game is going to be more serious. I scrapped the first track and started building the game around the boss music.<\/p>\n

Then came the assets to replace my placeholder art. I turned on the boss music and just did this stream of consciousness sort of thing, drawing whatever came to mind. “This is tense; let’s add some blades,” and everything went downhill from there. Suddenly everything was made of metal and it was going to be hardcore.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"blade4x2\"<\/a>

The Blade, a whirling, fast enemy that charges straight at the player while firing barrages of bullets. I really hated this guy during playtesting.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

I’m a programmer, not an artist. It takes a long time for me to make one asset. This was my first time manually rotating a fairly complicated sprite. This guy took at least an hour to finish, which is a ridiculously massive timesink in the grand scheme of things. Looking back, some of the shading is messed up, mainly around the center disc.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"player4x\"<\/a>

That rabbit is wearing goggles and a scarf. You know he means business.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

I had an awful time just getting the player sprite to look passable, as you can see in the timelapse around ~4:00<\/a>. Getting the illusion of depth was hard and lots of dithering conflicted with the style of the rest of the game. Eventually I opted to just layer sheets of hard-edged metal on top of each other and it seemed to work OK.<\/p>\n

<\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Bad<\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

The thing that hits me *every* LD is that I haven’t allocated my time as best as I could. 48 hours is a REALLY strict time limit. You really need to know which corners you can cut and which ones you can’t. Polish is extremely important, and you need to leave time for it!<\/p>\n

The number one complaint I got is that there is no visible feedback for hitting enemies with >1 HP. This would have been a nice addition, but I was so caught up implementing core functionality that I didn’t even have time think of it.<\/p>\n

Among other things I thought of that I wish I could have implemented:<\/p>\n