This was my second LD, so I took it with a more relaxed mindset than the previous one. I aimed for the 48h challenge but if I didn’t have something playable I could always enter the jam. Eventually I’d submit Elyseus for the 48h compo 😀

Tools used:
This was my first Ludum Dare using Unity.
For the graphics I used Photoshop as always.
For the music I used Music Creator 6 and my trusty midi keyboard.
Sfxr and Audacity for the sound effects, with some recordings of my own.

What went right:
Music and sound are hard to get right in so little time. In my last Ludum dare I didn’t even had time to make music. So for this one I gave it more priority.
The first morning I dedicated it to make some music to set the general mood for the game. I originally intended to make another variation for the underworld music, but left it as an optional goal which sadly I didn’t met. But overall I think the music fitted just well enough.
I also wanted to make some satisfying combat sounds. The sounds for the main enemies’ bones exploding deaths were made from a combination of Sfxr explosion sounds and a recording of some dirty cheap dice rolling 😛
The “clink” sound for the shield mechanic, which at first wasn’t even planned to exist but I had to implement it because the combat was so frustrating, was made by hitting my coffee maker with a pen!
Also, the world change effect worked surprisingly good, although it’s a bit incomplete. I wanted to fade the enemies from both worlds to be able to see what was coming, but only got it halfway and the appearing enemies just pop around when you are already in that world, so sometimes it’s a bit unfair.

What went wrong:
The main idea behind Elyseus was a lot bigger in my head, and big is always bad for a jam. For instance I originally planned to have a more simple combat to be able to make it quickly so I could make more features. Features which initially included online play invading other people’s games Dark Souls style… But that was way too much. So I focused on making sure what I did was at least fun to play.
The base objective of the game eventually ended as a cyclical infinite battle with the only possible ending being death. I wanted to make a more positive ending, but didn’t have enough time or any good and clear idea for it.
The other critical point was that to make the cyclical aspect, you could fight against another hero and without online implemented, I had to make an A.I. and A.I. is difficult to make. I spent the majority of the last day trying to make that work, even as shitty an A.I. it ended up being…

Conclusion:
It’s always a learning experience. At the end of it I had a playable game. In my opinion not enough fine tuned as I wanted but playable nontheless. I hope you have fun playing it! I want to know what you think!

Here’s the link to it: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=36237

Tags: compo, postmortem, unity3d