{"author_name":"MiniBobbo","cat":"LD #31","comments":[],"epoch":1418090940,"likes":1,"metadata":{"p_key":"22421","p_author":"MiniBobbo","p_authorkey":"22584","p_urlkey":"57793","p_title":"Walk the Plank postmortem","p_cat":"LD #31","p_event":"LD31","p_time":"1418090940","p_likes":"1","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"22584","us_name":"MiniBobbo","us_username":"\/author\/minibobbo\/","event_start":"1417737600","event_key":"26","event_name":"LD31"},"text":"
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My game has an actual menu!<\/p><\/div>\n

So I completed my first ever full Ludum Dare. \u00a0I’ve finished a couple miniLDs but never a completed game in just 48 hours. \u00a0Now that I’ve had a day to stop and reflect on how everything went I\u00a0wanted to get my thoughts down in the time honored “what went well and what didn’t” format.<\/p>\n

Walk the Plank is a pirate captain plank walking simulator. \u00a0The (very loose) plot is a pirate crew that plundered all day and has to make all their hostages walk the plank. \u00a0Unfortunately they waited until late in the day to line them up so in their haste some of the crew got mixed into the line. \u00a0As captain, you have to kick the hostages overboard and throw the crew back onto the ship. \u00a0Each \u00a0round lasts 10 seconds. \u00a0Fail to reach the target number or make\u00a0three mistakes and the level is lost. \u00a0You can play Walk the Plank here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What went well<\/span><\/p>\n

Scope –\u00a0<\/strong>The scope of the game was perfect for me. \u00a0Normally I love complicated games and writing engines, but this time I wanted to make something that was complete and polished. \u00a0The game is dead simple with only two buttons. \u00a0This simplicity\u00a0freed up a ton of time to focus on other areas. \u00a0Even with the simple engine I still only finished 18 minutes before the deadline, so anything more complicated wouldn’t have been done for the compo.<\/p>\n

Code –\u00a0<\/strong>Don’t get me wrong. \u00a0My code is a horrible mess. \u00a0However, the bones are solid which made adding levels and content simple later on. \u00a0Levels 4-7 were added in the last 20 minutes, which is over half the content of the game. \u00a0I made a feature list early on and stuck to it. \u00a0I’m happy that there was absolutely no scope creep at all. \u00a0This is unheard of for me and played a major part in the on-time finish.<\/p>\n

Art<\/strong> – The art went better than I expected. \u00a0I tried something new this time and used InkSpace to draw everything. \u00a0I loved being able to scale the game assets to every size without losing any of the quality. \u00a0Plus, I created a master template for the crew and hostages and then just build arms, feet, bodies, heads, and hats that can all be combined to create a large variety of different characters. \u00a0SVG files are super easy to modify and change to make different characters quickly, so I think overall that efficiency made up for the extra time it took to learn the tools. \u00a0The ship needed a lot more work than I was able to give it though. \u00a0Overall, the art is very functional, and I’m happy with that.<\/p>\n

Polish<\/strong> – I am really happy with the amount of polish I was able to cram into the game in the second day. \u00a0Tweening is quick and easy and I think adds a lot to the overall effect. \u00a0I have states that convey information clearly (I hope). \u00a0Little things like restricting input\u00a0for a second when displaying the results page so\u00a0players don’t accidentally click through it add a lot and I was able to cram it in.<\/p>\n

What went poorly<\/span><\/p>\n

Music<\/strong> – I knew music was going to be painful going into this. \u00a0I\u00a0actually had very few requirements going in. \u00a0I only needed\u00a0a menu piece and a game piece. \u00a0Each round only lasts 10 seconds, so there didn’t even have to be\u00a0a large music loop to fill the space. \u00a0I knew exactly what I wanted for the main menu and was able to create it in about 5 minutes. \u00a0The game piece I struggled with for an hour\u00a0with nothing to show for it before giving up realizing I needed to spend the time elsewhere. \u00a0Instead, I just sped\u00a0up the main menu music for the game. \u00a0It is an extremely short loop (only a couple seconds long) and got on my nerves quickly. \u00a0I thought about cutting it out altogether but settled on just adding a mute button. \u00a0You’re all welcome. \u00a0\":)\"<\/p>\n

Level design<\/strong> – An hour before the deadline I was looking over my rapidly shrinking must-have feature list pretty pleased with myself. \u00a0Then I realized that the last remaining item was actually just\u00a0content<\/em>. \u00a0Crap! \u00a0It is great that my buttons are appearing\u00a0in an aesthetically pleasing manner, but the game was only 3 levels. \u00a0That is about 2 minutes of gameplay. \u00a0I quickly created new pirates and hostages (easy thanks to the art choices) and threw them into the game (easy thanks to the code skeleton). \u00a0I didn’t get to test them out very well though. \u00a0As a result, the levels go from easy to medium to easy, to medium, to freaking impossible. \u00a0Actually, the near impossible last level hid the last “what went poorly” item…<\/p>\n

No game end –\u00a0<\/strong>If you somehow beat the last level it loops you back to the beginning. \u00a0Not that you are ever going to beat the last level, but still. \u00a0If by some miracle someone does beat the last level I would imagine that they would be pretty disappointed that the game doesn’t even acknowledge the miracle that they performed. \u00a0Luckily nobody will ever know this, except for the fact that I just posted it for everyone to see…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This was great fun and I’m loving playing and rating other’s games. \u00a0I’m taking notes about what others have done that I really like\u00a0for next time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>","time":"December 8th, 2014 9:09 pm","title":"Walk the Plank postmortem"}