{"author_name":"jdavidson091","cat":"LD #30","comments":[],"epoch":1408970820,"likes":1,"metadata":{"p_key":"26784","p_author":"jdavidson091","p_authorkey":"41234","p_urlkey":"62219","p_title":"Is my LD30 game postmodern art? Or complete crap? UP FOR YOU TO DECIDE","p_cat":"LD #30","p_event":"LD30","p_time":"1408970820","p_likes":"1","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"41234","us_name":"jdavidson091","us_username":"jdavidson091","event_start":"1408665600","event_key":"24","event_name":"LD30"},"text":"

First… LINK TO MY GAME PAGE:<\/strong> http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-30\/?action=preview&uid=41234<\/a><\/p>\n

Whew, what an experience. This is my first “real” game I’ve made on my own, and it was a great lesson in managing time above anything else. Here’s some screens… I’ll say my excuse for complete crap assets was “it’s art, you don’t get it:”<\/p>\n

\"41234-shot1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(I spent way too much time on creating a Noe-esque, Enter the Void-style intro because why not)<\/p>\n

\"41234-shot3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Art assets = almost nonexistant. But trust me, there’s something going on behind the scenes here. I think. Maybe.<\/p>\n

What is “MMOCRAFT: A CONNECTED WORLD”? You play as a man. I think he’s named Bob. It’s open for interpretation. Don’t worry. You wake up in your room. You can explore your room. Your world is bland and unmoving. But if you explore, you’ll soon discover you can log into your computer, and play WORLD OF MMOCRAFT. You can go on quests. You can grind. You can get frustrated in PVP. You look for a group to run a dungeon, but you might have to re-queue since nobody needs DPS and you should feel bad. You try to get to endgame. Why? Because that’s what you do – shuddup don’t question the MMO format. It’s abstract and weird. I had some big, scripted, meta sequence at the end that reflected on the actions you took to get there, and if it really was a game, and if it really was a connected escape to another world or just a monkey-banging-on-a-typewriter-simulator. It was supposed to happen if you could grind to level 60 under a certain time period, but I had trouble triggering it – maybe I can patch in the REAL end in a game-of-the-year edition steam release. Someday. Right now, it serves as an artistic reflection on the act of leveling in an MMO, and if connecting to a virtual world really is an escape for us, or a masochistic beating.<\/p>\n

Things I learned because I suck (or am I awesome?) at making games:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. Creating a game almost completely in Java in libgdx is verbose compared to modern tools I’ve seen (but haven’t used). Fun for programming – not fun for quick iterations.<\/p>\n

2. Wasted a ton of time creating my own text handling and text outputting classes, utilizing my own font I created. Looking back now, I bet there’s a library out there that gives me the flexibility and animation I needed for text output – I just dove right in and thought I could make it myself.<\/p>\n

3. Don’t wait for the last 20 minutes to create your art – I should have left out some features and made it a little prettier to look at. Wanted to teach myself to create solid pixel art – didn’t happen.<\/p>\n

4. Think small, iterate larger – Have a core concept for your game that you can spin off quickly and expand upon. I just dove right the fack in.<\/p>\n

If my girlfriend doesn’t kill me, I definitely want to do this again in december – and find some easier tools to use beforehand! I guess I have internal ethical issues when creating a “generic” game – I need my game to critique and make you feel. Perhaps next time I’ll let Dong Nguyen influence my design decisions \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Feel free to download HERE<\/a> and check out my github sauce HERE<\/a>. I might push out a quick hotfix later today or tomorrow to deploy it on a website somewhere so it’s easy to experience it!<\/p>\n \n

Tags: connected worlds<\/a>, LD30<\/a>, mmocraft<\/a><\/p>","time":"August 25th, 2014 7:47 am","title":"Is my LD30 game postmodern art? Or complete crap? UP FOR YOU TO DECIDE"}