{"author_name":"nxT","cat":"LD #29","comments":[],"epoch":1399262100,"likes":1,"metadata":{"p_key":"29951","p_author":"nxT","p_authorkey":"25909","p_urlkey":"65417","p_title":"Postmortem: SUPER ROBO GARDEN ADVENTURE","p_cat":"LD #29","p_event":"LD29","p_time":"1399262100","p_likes":"1","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"25909","us_name":"nxT","us_username":"nxt","event_start":"1398384000","event_key":"22","event_name":"LD29"},"text":"

This post was originally posted on my Tumblr.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The 29th installment of Ludum Dare ended over a week ago now, but I\u2019d like to write a post now, reflecting on how the weekend went.<\/p>\n

The game I made, SUPER ROBO GARDEN ADVENTURE, can be found\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"screenshot3\"<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a top-down action game, with pixel-tastic graphics. To start: here\u2019s a broad outline of things that went well and things that didn\u2019t go quite so well.<\/p>\n

GOOD STUFF:<\/strong><\/p>\n

– I made something almost finished, by myself, in forty-eight hours.<\/p>\n

– The thing I made looked pretty decent, IMO<\/p>\n

– I managed my time pretty well, all things considered.<\/p>\n

– I wrote my first proper game in Haxe \/ HaxeFlixel.<\/p>\n

– I learnt a whole lot about lots of different things.<\/p>\n

– The most important good thing that happened over the weekend, however, was the Skype Call I was part of. More on that in a sec.<\/p>\n

– I had an absolute blast!<\/p>\n

NOT – SO – GOOD STUFF<\/strong><\/p>\n

– The game I made had no clear direction because I sat around scratching my head with no viable ideas.<\/p>\n

– The game is mechanically weak. I totally made up all the mechanics in the last few hours.<\/p>\n

– The game doesn\u2019t have any music, because I\u2019m a lousy musician and I\u2019m not comfortable with any music software.<\/p>\n

– The game is buggy. Obvious stuff that should have been fixed easily was left too late, and stuff was forgotten in the final rush.<\/p>\n

– The game hasn\u2019t got any tutorialization – this isn\u2019t so important, but it makes it harder for people.<\/p>\n

– The game\u2019s controls are sluggish and animation is slow to change because of unoptimized code.<\/p>\n

The best part of the whole weekend was the Skype conversation I was a part of.\u00a0Folmer Kelly<\/a>, a gamedude I admire a lot, tweeted out his Skype name inviting people to be a part of theme discussion. I quickly responded and added Folmer, just because I could, and joined a group of people who I think all assumed that I knew some other person. The chat quickly evolved into a place to share ideas, get feedback and show WIP. This was really useful, because it inspired me to keep going (I guess because I wanted to prove myself) and produce something good. The chat, post-LD, has evolved into a general developer chat, which is really cool, and I\u2019ve met a bunch of really cool and talented people.<\/p>\n

My goal for the next Ludum Dare is to produce something more thematically and stylistically interesting; I want to innovate a little more. I trapped myself into going for one specific genre this LD, and I think that was because I was unconfident about my programming ability.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I can\u2019t wait for the next one!<\/p>","time":"May 4th, 2014 10:55 pm","title":"Postmortem: SUPER ROBO GARDEN ADVENTURE"}