Hello guys, first of all, I encourage you to play my "mini"game, so as I need 7 votes to qualify, and you will understand this text better. Without further ado, here we go.

🙏🙏 Please, play it 🙏🙏

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/please-mr-postman

What went well?

- Pixel Art. I mean, my background is a programmer, I'm not an artist. Pixel art is what I've used the most, it's what I feel most comfortable with, and although many people are a bit tired of bad pixel art, I think it worked for what I wanted, which would have been harder to do with another style.

• Pixi.js + Typescript Although I've used Gamer Maker and Unity in the past, Pixi.js + typescript is what I've been using more lately, I feel comfortable, it allows me to do things, it creates the games directly on the web, which is more comfortable for the rest of the jammers. Ticks all the boxes

• 1bitdragon It allowed me to make music quickly and easily, and I had a lot of fun in the process. Enjoyable and allows you to make music for people with little notions like me (This is not a promotional post).

• Chill compo. This one is a hard one. In the jams I've always tried to do something that impresses others (I've never succeeded lol), to do something cool, and while it's ok if that's your approach, it's not what I wanted. I didn't want to end up stressed out pushing the limits of my knowledge too much, doing something I've never done before. Or over working on wanting to polish something too much. No, in fact, the first day I didn't do anything, I just read other people's posts and within 24 hours I did something creative and that was it. It's been the ludumdare I've had the best time.

What went wrong?

- Aspect ratio. Not working in a fixed aspect ratio, and making a responsive one. I was really worried about what would happen if the game was full screen. When it came down to it, if I had simply scaled the original aspect ratio instead of worrying about whether it would fill the screen, it would have been the same, it doesn't change anything, and it gave me extra work. Next time I'll work with fixed aspect ratio.

• Resolution. Not being familiar with any particular resolution when it comes to pixel art, I wasted some time at first trying to figure out a pixel art resolution that I was comfortable with. One was too little detail, another was too much, I have to find my sweet spot.

• Browser. The Edge browser was giving me problems and showing me console errors that have nothing to do with the game. For developing a web game it's a very bad thing. Edge happens to be my browser of choice and I use it for everything, so I've been using it for everything, but in order to test the game I've had to do it in Firefox, which is a bit of a pain having to use several browsers when I should just use one. I'll have to format my computer for the next Ludum 🧠 (insert Modern problems require modern solutions meme here)

• Being mobile friendly. I'm concerned about making the game compatible with mobile phones. The original aspect ratio (although it can be played in full screen without problems) is intended to be played on mobiles - portrait orientation - . From the first hour it was one of my worries. Then in the phase of rating games I realised, that it is preferable to play games directly on the PC, and the games that indicated to me that they are preferable to be played on mobile (web) I found it a bit annoying to have to leave the PC and take the mobile to test the game. Me, who has designed a game thinking first of all to be played on mobile lol. The truth is that choosing PC (web) would be the most comfortable and usable for everyone (I am referring to my personal intentions here. Of course I support games on all kinds of platforms and formats).

What to improve for my next Ludum?

Apart from the above mentioned: working with a fixed aspect ratio, finding a pixel art resolution I feel comfortable with and choosing the PC (web) as the only way to play my games, I would like to add the following:

• Integrate a level editor. I'm thinking of Tiled. But for all intents and purposes, for example, if I want to add a background, put it in there, not hardcode it using coordinates. If I want to create a spawn point for spawning enemies, use the editor as well.

• Integrate a dialogue system. Maybe yarn spinner(?). Make me a code base where the sentences appear letter by letter, wordwrap included. Maybe also a decision tree and integrate it with my code.

• Work on a pub/sub or FSM code architecture. This is really more about code efficiency or clean code rather than adding new functionality. But I think it can be a lot more comfortable to work with if you get the hang of it. I also have no problem with continuing to prioritise spaghetti code, by the way.

And with all this I will create my own framework, a kind of starter project that even if it is a pretty custom solution, I will publish it in my github before I start the next compo.

Thanks y'all for reading