{"author_name":"AgentParsec","cat":"LD #31","comments":[],"epoch":1418197980,"likes":2,"metadata":{"p_key":"22239","p_author":"AgentParsec","p_authorkey":"12468","p_urlkey":"57606","p_title":"Post-Mortem: Finish Your Project","p_cat":"LD #31","p_event":"LD31","p_time":"1418197980","p_likes":"2","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"12468","us_name":"AgentParsec","us_username":"\/author\/agentparsec\/","event_start":"1417737600","event_key":"26","event_name":"LD31"},"text":"<p>The Post-Mortem for my entry, &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-31\/?action=preview&amp;uid=12468\">Finish Your Project<\/a>&#8220;.<\/p>\n <p><a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/fyp_ss.png\"><img class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-417324\" src=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/fyp_ss-300x190.png\" alt=\"fyp_ss\" width=\"300\" height=\"190\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n <p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n <p>When I started out, I spent about 4 1\/2 to 5 hours working on a puzzle game.\u00a0 I actually managed to make it playable, until I realized that (a) the game was boring and repetetive, (b) it didn&#8217;t really have an attainable goal, and (c) it didn&#8217;t have a clear way to &#8216;lose&#8217;.\u00a0 Rather than try to fix it, I scrapped the whole project and with with plan B, which was &#8220;Finish Your Project&#8221;.<\/p>\n <p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n <p><strong>THINGS THAT WENT WELL:<\/strong><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>Animation!\u00a0 I&#8217;m usually terrible when it comes to graphics, but I was super-impressed with how well I managed to make the game look this time around.\u00a0 I&#8217;m really starting to get the hang of the animator in Unity, and though I know I made some mistakes with it or did things inefficiently, I ultimately achieved exactly the look I was going for.\u00a0 I learned a LOT on this one, and it&#8217;s gotten me excited about future projects (not just LD ones, but normal ones as well).<\/li>\n <li>Music went well, as always.\u00a0 My last three LD projects have had music that changes to match what&#8217;s going on in the game, and I&#8217;m beginning to realize this is becoming a theme with me.\u00a0 I&#8217;m also beginning to realize that I&#8217;m perfectly okay with that. ^^<\/li>\n <li>While the gameplay is ultimately repetitive, it does exactly what it&#8217;s supposed to do: convey the monotony of the situation that the main character is in.\u00a0 I added a few random elements to add some variety, but for the most part it becomes &#8216;same @#$% different day&#8217;, which is what I was aiming for.<\/li>\n <li>For once, I squashed all of the obvious bugs before uploading.\u00a0 There&#8217;s still one weird animation glitch, but it happens so rarely that you pretty much have to be trying to get it to run into it.\u00a0 The gameplay runs perfectly though.<\/li>\n <li>It&#8217;s kind of a shame that most of the people playing it won&#8217;t get to see the ending, but I realize there are a lot of LD games out there, so\u00a0spending what is typically around 30 &#8211; 45 minutes completing this one seems unreasonable.\u00a0 I actually really like how it ends though, because I like to think it&#8217;s unexpected.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n <p><strong>THINGS THAT NEEDED IMPROVEMENT:<\/strong><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>I learned a lot about the animator in Unity, but I also learned there&#8217;s a lot for me still to learn.\u00a0 I know there&#8217;s a way to mirror animations left to right, and I just didn&#8217;t\u00a0feel like I had time to figure out how to use it properly, so instead I just made separate animations for facing left and right.\u00a0 This almost broke the game, because switching to these animations caused a weird &#8220;Paper Mario&#8221; effect where it would flip in 2D fashion.\u00a0 I eventually found a way to correct the problem, but it told me there was a better way I could have done this.<\/li>\n <li>I should have had some kind of visual indicator of the areas on the screen you can click on, or some indication that you clicked on them.\u00a0 The method I was going to use initially ended up not working right due to the way sprites are drawn in layers.\u00a0 I came up with a solution but ran out of time to implement it.\u00a0 At the very least, I should have had a sound effect to show you successfully clicked.\u00a0 Which brings me to&#8230;<\/li>\n <li>No sound effects.\u00a0 Up until the very end I was up in the air as to whether or not to have sound effects included, and ultimately decided not to include any; I felt the music and actions tell the story well enough.\u00a0 Part of me still thinks I should have included some, though.<\/li>\n <li>More random events would have been nice, and might have also made it easier to keep the player engaged for the full length of the game.\u00a0 I just couldn&#8217;t think of any to put in that would (a) make sense in the game&#8217;s &#8220;story&#8221;, or (b) didn&#8217;t require a lot of extra work that might have run me over on time.<\/li>\n <li>As mentioned before, it&#8217;s a shame most people won&#8217;t see the ending.\u00a0 I thought it was clever, but maybe it&#8217;s just me.\u00a0 It&#8217;s the risk I ran for making a game that takes so long to beat, in a setting where people want to move on to the next game ASAP.\u00a0 Ah well.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n <p>On to future projects!<\/p>","time":"December 10th, 2014 2:53 am","title":"Post-Mortem: Finish Your Project"}