“More an Experiment, than an actual game!”<\/p>\n
The decision to participate at Ludum Dare (for the first)<\/strong> But this time I swore myself to take part in it, if I could imagine a setting under the impulse of the moment. – I couldn’t. I disliked the theme. We both liked the sprites and decided spontaneously to take part in Ludum Dare 30 (Jam).<\/p>\n What went well:<\/strong> What could have been better:<\/strong> What we’ve learned:<\/strong> What i’ve learned:<\/strong> Because we wanted to take part, and not throw away the “game”, we handed it in anyway (approx. half a minute before the time limit ended (and the submission hour began)). We know that it’s not really great, but hey, it was fun to programm, to participate and we had a lot of fun in skype and during the development.<\/p>\n Have a look on it<\/a> and please don’t hate on it, we really know it’s bad.<\/p>\n cheers ~ keddelzz & kuchenkruste<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n Tags: jam<\/a>, java<\/a>, LD30<\/a>, post-mortem<\/a>, postmortem<\/a><\/p>","time":"August 26th, 2014 8:21 am","title":"Space Evolution \u2013 Reflection, Resum\u00e9 or whatever you want to call it"}
\n I did want to compete in a Ludum Dare before, but I hadn’t time.<\/p>\n
\n So I spend the first day of the compo-challenge derping around in various streams and saw a vast amount of people coming up with great ideas.
\n On the morning of the second day I started drawing planets. They were better than expected, so i showed them a buddy of mine (kuchenkruste).<\/p>\n
\n – The sprites turned out to be prettier than I expected. (they’re still far from beeing perfect)
\n – Writing parallel on the same code with my buddy using Saros (http:\/\/www.saros-project.org\/) and Eclipse.
\n > That’s it<\/p>\n
\n – Everything!
\n – We startet to implement a render-routine using int-Arrays (raw pixels), after implementing the rendering of the primitives (ovals, lines, rectangles and polygons), we decided to dump that project and use Java2D instead.
\n ——————————————————
\n – If we were more bound and determined, we would’ve been more motivated.
\n – Our time management. (Also a lot to do in real life, so that we couldn’t work fulltime on the game)
\n – If we’d been more organized, we could have made faster progress in implementing the application frame and the drawing
\n – The fun aspect in the game comes to short, there a not a lot of fun gameplay-mechanics implemented, that we planned to implement<\/p>\n
\n – pixel-pushing (alias working with int-Arrays) is cool (because you learn of how it can be done)
\n – use Java2D instead of pixel-pushing (you can still achieve the pixel-look) and it’s easier to scale and rotate stuff in
\n – premake your own engine or library, if you don’t want to use an existing one
\n – know the libraries you want to use (at least a bit)
\n – prepare everything you can (which is not forbidden in the rules; eg. prepare a development environment, choose an engine or library (or prepare an own))
\n – twinkling and colored stars look better than static, white or yellow ones \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n
\n – Lambdas in Java 8 are great and very powerful!
\n – tell your family (as long as you live with them), that you have something to do at the weekend and you don’t want to do housework during the competition.
\n – Before submitting, test the compiled project jar. (For me it turned out, that during development the game used a different font, than as a compiled jar file)<\/p>\n
\n It is more an experiment, than an actual game. Technically it isn’t even an experiment, but an animated and interactive slideshow through my drawn sprites, in that you can connect planets with a kind of leash.<\/p>\n