{"author_name":"Vallar","cat":"LD #30","comments":[],"epoch":1408915200,"likes":1,"metadata":{"p_key":"27031","p_author":"Vallar","p_authorkey":"41060","p_urlkey":"62469","p_title":"Alma\u2019s Post mortem; she was born dead","p_cat":"LD #30","p_event":"LD30","p_time":"1408915200","p_likes":"1","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"41060","us_name":"Vallar","us_username":"vallar","event_start":"1408665600","event_key":"24","event_name":"LD30"},"text":"

Usually I don’t write these; I don’t think people care about what I say much — it isn’t like I am going to win. But… here it is in case someone would like to know what a noob, first timer Ludum Dare participant thought and learned during this event.<\/p>\n

Just a small plug for the game<\/a><\/p>\n

It was 4:00 AM my time when the theme was announced. I was pretty tired and I knew that this is the “real” Ludum Dare (not just another mini one) 6 hours prior to it. Seeing, that I didn’t know much about the competition I ran through the website checking the rules. I generally knew that I needed to make a game within 48 hours. What I didn’t know and surprised me (as well as aggravated me) was that I had to make my own arts and sounds – crap!<\/p>\n

Seeing that I have no art skills (aside from 6 years ago having a modeling hobby and it was strictly ArchViz related) it was near impossible I could get anything looking “good”. Not only that, but I am no musician either and have no tools to do that, I had to search for a random generator.<\/p>\n

Anyway, with 6 hours prior to the competition I did a few things that I think were leading to a good start in general:<\/p>\n

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  1. I started dumping ideas into a notepad file. While the theme wasn’t announced, I could generally come up with ideas that could pretty much fit all themes (adventure game with puzzles a la Memoria, double jumping mechanic platformer, etc…)<\/li>\n
  2. I determined what engine I am going to use no matter what — I picked Construct 2 as I have been using it for quite sometime. While in general that was a good move in general, it turned it out to be a bad choice (more on that later).<\/li>\n
  3. I started immediately searching for music generators and I found a really cool and easy tool here<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  4. The decision was to enter the competition and not the jam. Though it didn’t come immediately.<\/li>\n <\/ol>\n

    Let’s start with number 4. At first, I wanted to actually get into the Jam. After all my art was failing me; I was trying to draw some stuff on paper and it didn’t work out in the 6 hours prior to the announcement. I panicked and I started looking into \/r\/gamedevclassifieds and \/r\/INAT for any Ludum Dare posts. I even went to the Ludum Dare Reddit part. Not sure why but the posts there kind of gave me that vibe that I shouldn’t do the jam. So I decided to do the competition.<\/p>\n

    I decided to stay up rather than go to sleep and wait for the theme. That was good since a lot of people in the IRC chat was saying that it looks like Connected Worlds would be the theme so I started\u00a0scribbling some notes about Alma; an adventure game that is controlled like The Walking Dead starred by a young (8-10) year old girl that uses her environment to create her own adventures through imagination.<\/p>\n

    The time came and I found it was Connected Worlds indeed so I went with Alma’s idea \u00a0and I hit the bed.<\/p>\n

    I woke up the next morning and started immediately on papers leaving the engine and all of that. I made the level progression (quire different from what you see in the game. It was supposed to have longer levels with much more content and conversation as well as 3 cut scenes) along with some of the conversations as notes. On top of that I made some squiggly looking graphics on paper.<\/p>\n

    I started with the graphics since it is the worst thing and I thought if I finished early I could always “polish” it. What I didn’t notice, is that it was already 12 hours into the first day. So I started experimenting with Pexyl Editor and Photoshop. 2 hours later I had Alma and the guard. Once I noticed the time, I dumped everything down just throwing whatever I could think of as “art” done in either Photoshop (throwing shapes and gradients) or the editor in Construct 2.<\/p>\n

    The thing I learned, art isn’t quite hard to make, it just needs patience, iteration and an eye to look for details (which are a lot of things I didn’t have the time for).<\/p>\n

    It is when I started combining the art and forming the conversations that I saw the problem of Construct 2. That engine was amazing for arcade games, platformers, shoot em ups, etc… but to create conversations that are simple or 2-3 choices… it is a nightmare and a lot to account for. I ended up scrapping all the choices but one meaningless conversation choice and I don’t know why I add it and didn’t take it out.<\/p>\n

    Not only that, but it isn’t quite fluid in\u00a0handling items being looked at and not in inventory or items in inventory and being looked at and not used. You have to set a lot of variables and deal with distance and things got entangled in a mess fast. I thought of changing and perhaps learning Visionaire Studio but decided against it. What I did was limit the interaction with items as much as possible to 3 states:<\/p>\n