{"author_name":"koalamo","cat":"LD #30","comments":[],"epoch":1408989900,"likes":3,"metadata":{"p_key":"26734","p_author":"koalamo","p_authorkey":"40334","p_urlkey":"62166","p_title":"Saman \u2013 Post Mortem","p_cat":"LD #30","p_event":"LD30","p_time":"1408989900","p_likes":"3","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"40334","us_name":"koalamo","us_username":"koalamo","event_start":"1408665600","event_key":"24","event_name":"LD30"},"text":"

It\u2019s finally finished!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Saman is my entry<\/a>\u00a0to LD30.<\/p>\n

Now that it\u2019s over and done with, I\u2019ll talk about what I think of the process and the finished product.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n

The gameplay of Saman involves you controlling a rook (a creature made of rocks) who is defenseless by himself. He does, however, acquire gems from the depths and has learned by throwing them into the ceiling, he generates targeted earthquakes to save him from vile creatures that would do him harm. This aspect of the game involves you avoiding obstacles, (much like a classic arcade game)\u00a0and feeding gems to the overworld.<\/p>\n

On the overworld, a blue man is finding gems scattered outside of his home and invests them in things and buildings which will increase his fortune. This portion of the game is an incremental-style game where you spend the gems you collect on things which grow your fortune\/score.<\/p>\n

Both of these things happen simultaneously and if the rook dies, the game ends.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Theme<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u00a0hated<\/em>\u00a0this theme. Before the competition started I brainstormed some concepts based on what the themes COULD be and I literally left this one blank, thinking this is one out of like 20 possible themes, how likely is it that it gets chosen. It ends up I was in the minority because it seemed A LOT of people picked this. I felt it was not quite as open to interpretation as others on the list, but whatever – I went with it.<\/p>\n

After realizing the theme I took a few hours to think about concepts. I threw away things I thought would be over done (platformers with portals, space stuff, etc.) and started thinking about symbiotic relationships or alternate realities. The idea of a spirit world and something taking place in a graveyard appealed to me, but I couldn\u2019t get a strong handle on the direction I wanted to go in. I had a sort of random muppets\/fraggle rock inspiration and took that direction with the art style and concept where there are things who dwell underground and above ground, and their worlds interact somehow, but didn\u2019t know much more. I was a fan of old arcade games like donky kong and frogger and somehow wanted to implement those ideas into the game. I also liked incremental games, and some of my other concepts had those as a primary mechanic, so had that in the back of my mind.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Time Management<\/strong><\/p>\n

This was my first LD48 so I knew I didn\u2019t want to be TOO ambitious, but I also feel I work\/iterate quickly so I wasn\u2019t sure where to draw the line. I just started making SOMETHING and tweaked until it felt ok. The last day I woke up around 9AM I think and didn\u2019t stop working until around 2 or 3PM, to finally get something to eat. My eyes were burning from staring at the screen non-stop and I just wanted to get the stupid thing finished – adding sounds and menus at the last minute. I was really burnt out in the end, despite me not really messing up my schedule\u00a0too<\/em>\u00a0badly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What I\u2019m Proud Of<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t consider myself a good animator, but sometimes the animations turn out better than you expect, and some of them for this game fall into that category. I think aesthetically the game is pretty good and the core concept is sound. I\u2019m also proud of the fact that I finished and released something I\u2019m not 100% proud of. I will probably be my harshest critic, and I feel that\u2019s ok and important for moving forward and releasing good content.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What I\u2019m Not Proud Of<\/strong><\/p>\n

The sound<\/strong>\u00a0and music was very much a last minute thing. I found a sound generator at tones.wolfram.com and was pleased after generating\/tweaking some weird sounds. The music I\u2019m ok with, despite it being pretty strange. The sound effects, however, are another story. I used\u00a0bfxr for the sound effects and was in a rushed panic to get them in and didn\u2019t have a plan to implement volume control. After putting them in and doing some final test runs, I found the sfx so annoying I put a mute button in place instead of replacing them (out of laziness and lack of time).<\/p>\n

The concept<\/strong>\u00a0I came up with was ok, I felt. There is a saying that goes something like \u2018there is no such thing as a bad idea, only bad execution.\u2019 I find that to be mostly true, and I\u2019m not 100% convinced my execution was where I\u2019d like it to be, even for 48 hours. I blame this partially on me having no real direction, and trying to add depth where it maybe didn\u2019t belong. The end result is a game where you\u2019re basically playing two games at once. this, thematically, is ok, but in practice is a bit weird. Partially I think this is because it\u2019s not something I\u2019ve seen done before, so there\u2019s no real gauge on what it should look like. For example, there is no reason in the game world that the rook dying would cause the incremental portion of the game to stop – but mechanically there needs to be some incentive to work on that portion of the game and keep him alive. I also feel the two halves of the game should be expanded and have more depth, but 48 hours limits your ability to do this quite a bit.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The story and instructions<\/strong>\u00a0are non-existent. I had art and a concept built out where the rook\u00a0was taught by his mother<\/a>\u00a0that the\u00a0gods absorb the power of the gems<\/a>, and call down forces to stop their enemies. Unfortunately I didn\u2019t have time to really make that part of the game. In addition, there are basically no instructions, other than the controls which you can access as you\u2019re playing. This game has enough depth to where I feel even rudimentary instructions really are necessary, but it\u2019s not something that often occurs to me, as you\u2019re testing your game over and over (and obviously know how to play it). I opted to put some instructions on\u00a0the itch.io page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In the End<\/strong><\/p>\n

All in all, it was a fun test of my creativity, but this experience has left me feeling like I\u2019ve released something unfinished, that I\u2019m not entirely proud of – which is the nature of the beast for LD48 hours, I suppose.<\/p>\n \n

Tags: arcade<\/a>, gamemaker<\/a>, incremental<\/a>, journal<\/a>, LD30<\/a>, post-mortem<\/a>, postmortem<\/a>, saman<\/a><\/p>","time":"August 25th, 2014 1:05 pm","title":"Saman \u2013 Post Mortem"}