This was my third Ludum Dare, and I think it went the best so far. It was my first time ever trying to work with Unity’s 2D tools, but they work pretty much the same as the 3D so it was much easier than I had expected to learn. It was also my first time building a game from the ground up to run in a browser, which if anything removes a task, since I can control what sizes the game is played at.

If you’re interesting in checking out Rubble, it’s here

What went well

• Idea – I chose a simple idea, and because of that I was able to have the core mechanics and a few levels implemented before the end of the first day. Simple platforming mechanics are relatively easy to implement using Unity
• Time Management – I did a pretty good job of making myself stick to a schedule. I told myself that the first day would be all code, with maybe some art, and the second all level design. I stuck to this pretty well, but of course I had a few more ideas during the second day that I couldn’t not implement.
• Rubble – I’m really happy with how the rubble mechanics look and work, and how the rubble interacts with other objects.
• Performance – Considering on some levels I have upwards of 100 pieces of rubble on the screen at any one time, I’m quite happy with how Unity and my own code worked to keep the load relatively light, which is important for deploying a browser game.
• Brainstorming – As soon as I saw the final 20 themes, I started jotting down simple ideas for almost all of them. This meant I already had the basic idea for my game before I had to start really designing when the theme was announced.

What went less well

• Level Design – In hindsight, I think it would have been more interesting to use the rubble so that the player moved ‘down’ the tower, and the rubble falls on top of the level. This would have allowed for the rubble to have been a much more interesting part of the game, and not just constantly getting used as a ‘floor’, which made all the work I did on the rubble seem somewhat pointless
• Time Management – I stuck too rigidly to my schedule, which meant I ended up wasting time implementing features like trophies and additional obstacles, instead of making more interesting content, since I still had time left at the end of the first day.
• Sleep! – I ended up not getting enough sleep, and so burnt out with a few hours left that I could have used to make a few more interesting levels. I just added a simple end screen, called it done, and submitted with hours left before the deadline; because I was too tired to think of any more levels.

Tags: 2D, ld31, Ludum Dare, post-mortem, postmortem, unity