![\"ld31_00\"](\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/ld31_001.png\")
<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Play (and rate) it here!<\/a><\/p>\n On Friday evening I started brainstorming for the possible themes, paying some special attention to the now forgotten \u2603. I wasn\u2019t particularly keen on it, but judging from people\u2019s reactions on the internet there was a high probability of it being selected. It also felt \u00a0particularly appropriate, as by the time I was scribbling possible game\u00a0concepts\u00a0I was freezing in the cold waiting for a gig.<\/p>\n I regret nothing!<\/p>\n That hour and a half yielded red fingers and around 3 notebook pages of quick and more or less bizarre thoughts, references and ideas. \u201cEntire game\u2026\u201d, as you can see, didn\u2019t get too much love back then (In case you\u2019re curious, I\u2019d just written \u00a0something like \u201ctaking advantage of the UI elements as parts of the gameplay\u201d). Flash forward to Saturday morning. At that point I learn about the chosen theme, curse for around 30s and put my mind to work. While it wasn’t among my favourites by a league, I generally don\u2019t make a big drama about the theme as I can\u2019t fully understand it (the drama) either. I\u2019ve read many complaints about it not being a real theme but a technical constraint, too restrictive, too generic, etc, etc. Even though some of these can be valid points, to me they don\u2019t carry enough weight as to get angry over it. In fact, I feel that restrictions more often than not enhance creativity rather than hinder it, as they force you to get out of your comfort zone, think in a different way and try out unknown routes that can end up in interesting, original takes (as a proof, I\u2019ve already played several today. I\u2019m amazed at what people can accomplish). In this specific case I thought that the theme might work in several ways: as a technical restriction (no scrolling, no separate levels,…) or as…well, a theme (surveillance,…). Waves of stuff coming at you (a reverse beat \u2018em up, for instance), monitoring some action through a display, shooting ranges, fighting, multiple levels crammed into a single view, puzzle games or single-screen arcade games, etc, etc\u2026 All of them seemed like some viable approaches. At some point I seriously even considered to make a TV broadcast programming simulator, but luckily discarded it when I realised that it would probably go way out of scope. In the end I decided to follow the arcade approach and started looking for references.<\/p>\n A couple of screenshots of good old Arabian, some helpful advice and references from Zener<\/b><\/a> pointing me in the right direction, and thus the main concept for Dungeon of Jest<\/b> was born:\u00a0A single-screen platformer with a single level\u00a0where sections of it change as you progress around the game, giving the impression that the dungeon is\u00a0trolling our hero, giving her a more difficult time.<\/p>\n Arabian and King\u2019s Valley 2<\/p>\n I came out pretty happy with the game this time, even though there are lots of room for improvement. To everything that I\u2019ve already mentioned there are lots of things that could make DoJ more interesting (or bloat it :D). For example, just to name a few:<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know if I\u2019ll make a post-compo version with some of these changes (I always say that I will and then don\u2019t do anything, so I\u2019m not going to fool myself this time), but for the next time I definitely hope to at least come better prepared in terms of code (have the language choice clear from the start, ffs!), and become faster (and better!) at asset creation. Well, and probably synthesize a bit more on the postmortem. If you\u2019ve managed to read all the way until here, thank you!<\/p>\n \n Tags: haXe<\/a>, HaXeFlixel<\/a>, postmortem<\/a><\/p>","time":"December 8th, 2014 7:10 pm","title":"Dungeon of Jest: The postmortem that\u2019s longer than the game it is about"}Incep…I mean conception phase<\/b><\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n
\n <\/a><\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n What went right<\/b><\/h2>\n
\n
What could have gone better<\/b><\/h2>\n
\n
\n A better idea given the time constraints would have probably been to define a smaller level layout (with 25×20 there were lots of empty space) and create more of them.<\/li>\n Conclusion and ideas for the future<\/b><\/h2>\n
\n