{"author_name":"Andrew Quartermain","cat":"LD #31","comments":[],"epoch":1419257100,"likes":1,"metadata":{"p_key":"21830","p_author":"Andrew Quartermain","p_authorkey":"505054","p_urlkey":"57190","p_title":"Super TransGalactian Hyper-Billiards: Postmortem","p_cat":"LD #31","p_event":"LD31","p_time":"1419257100","p_likes":"1","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"505054","us_name":"Andrew Quartermain","us_username":"Andrew Quartermain","event_start":"1417737600","event_key":"26","event_name":"LD31"},"text":"<p>This was my second Ludum Dare compo entry and I&#8217;m really pleased with how far I&#8217;ve come since the first (LD30).<\/p>\n <p>My game&#8217;s called<em> Super TransGalactian Hyper-Billiards 2014<\/em> and you can play it <a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-31\/?action=preview&amp;uid=38469\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n <p><a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-31\/?action=preview&amp;uid=38469\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/compo2\/\/407933\/38469-shot1.png-eq-900-500.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"464\" height=\"348\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n <p>It&#8217;s kind of a real time physics-simulated puzzle game, but I like to think of it a sport played by higher beings in the far reaches of the galaxy.<\/p>\n <p>I made it using libGDX, with the Box2D extension.<\/p>\n <p>I had a few specific objectives for this LD compo: things I&#8217;d never really done before or wanted to improve on.<\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>Create a game with multiple designed levels, clear rules and an ending (ie. not an procedurally generated infinite runner\/jumper or puzzle, etc).<\/li>\n <li>Have a consistent look and feel with graphics, colours, menus and so on.<\/li>\n <li>Make some music (never done this before!).<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p><strong>What went right?<\/strong><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>After a little initial exasperation at the theme, I had breakfast, watched an episode of Big Bang Theory and got an idea that clicked. I think that&#8217;s my favourite part of the process, thinking up something original and fun (I hope), a set of rules and tying up how it&#8217;s all going to fit together over a cup of coffee or two.<\/li>\n <li>The title. I like the title.<\/li>\n <li>Well, I did make some music, which I&#8217;m pleased with and a lot of people seem to like. I used<a href=\"http:\/\/zynewave.com\/\"> Zynewave Podium<\/a> free and a VST called Podolski by u-he and found a couple of nice atmospheric presets\/arpeggiators\/stuff (I don&#8217;t really know much about it) and spent some time putting different bits together. It&#8217;s simple but effective.<\/li>\n <li>I&#8217;m pretty pleased with the graphics. It&#8217;s simple, but using just the three primary colours and simple shapes ties it all together nicely. I used a <a href=\"https:\/\/mudcu.be\/sphere\/\">palette tool from mudcu.be<\/a> to pick the colours (I started out with plain red, green and blue, but didn&#8217;t really stand out nicely). Also added particle effects and some camera shake. They&#8217;re not the best, but I think they add something.<\/li>\n <li>I did indeed make different levels. I wanted to do more, but time ran out a bit fast at the end.<\/li>\n <li>I&#8217;ve got some good feedback over the past two weeks.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p><strong>What went wrong?<\/strong><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>Performance isn&#8217;t great, especially in a web browser. That&#8217;s what you get for throwing in a bunch of explosions\u00a0willy nilly with simulated particles, especially when they happen at the same time. It can drop a lot of frames.<\/li>\n <li>I didn&#8217;t design as many levels as I would have liked or with any real plan as to how they work \/ progress.<\/li>\n <li>There are a few bugs around winning conditions: you can still die after you&#8217;ve won and after you complete the game the winning music carries on playing indefinitely, so it&#8217;s probably a bit annoying to replay.<\/li>\n <li>People have commented it plays too slow. I think they&#8217;re right and that it&#8217;s a combination of me choosing an arbitrary value for acceleration (and not iterating enough on different values) and the performance again.<\/li>\n <li>Making the player one of the pieces doesn&#8217;t feel quite right, as a couple of people have said. I did it so there was a possibility of &#8220;dying&#8221; in the game, but there is still a lose condition when another team wins &#8211; and I could always add something else as a hazard to the player.<\/li>\n <li>I think the capturing of other colours is the wrong way round. It wasn&#8217;t a typo &#8211; I thought that way would be better &#8211; but on reflection it doesn&#8217;t make sense. You should change other pieces&#8217; colour, not your own.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>A lot of these problems are the result of doing things quickly and picking arbitrary numbers for things that &#8220;seem about right&#8221;.<\/p>\n <p><strong>What next?<\/strong><\/p>\n <p>I&#8217;m really pleased with how the game turned out and excited about where it might go. It seems to be pulling in two directions: A slower more thoughtful single player puzzle game and a fast and crazy multiplayer explosion fest.<\/p>\n <p>After ironing out the problems above, I want to make a local multiplayer mode and add some new features \/ types of level, perhaps with non-playable objects like planets \/ stars \/ black holes \/ miscellaneous stuff affecting things. Oh and an AI player (?).<\/p>\n <p>Online multiplayer could be great, but I don&#8217;t fancy my chances trying that just yet.<\/p>","time":"December 22nd, 2014 9:05 am","title":"Super TransGalactian Hyper-Billiards: Postmortem"}