{"author_name":"Nic V.","cat":"LD #29","comments":[{"author_name":"dector","time":"May 4, 2014 5:14 pm","epoch":1399241640,"text":"Like this cute and minimalistic wallpaper.","spam":"N"}],"epoch":1399230720,"likes":1,"metadata":{"p_key":"29961","p_author":"Nic V.","p_authorkey":"36404","p_urlkey":"65427","p_title":"Sprout Postmortem","p_cat":"LD #29","p_event":"LD29","p_time":"1399230720","p_likes":"1","p_comments":"1","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"36404","us_name":"Nic V.","us_username":"njvas","event_start":"1398384000","event_key":"22","event_name":"LD29"},"text":"<p>This was my first Ludum Dare\u00a0and the first time I had done a solo jam. It was far more tiring than I had expected, but also incredibly fun! I just wanted to quickly break down the results\u00a0of last weekend in the hopes that next time I can learn from my mistakes.<\/p>\n <p><strong>What Went Right<\/strong><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>While the game didn&#8217;t end up being everything I wanted, I did, at least, finish\u00a0<em>something<\/em>.<\/li>\n <li>I really wanted to make something adorable, and I think I achieved that at a base level.<\/li>\n <li>My code ended up being way more organized than I expected which really helped at certain times.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p><strong>What Went Wrong<\/strong><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>The game isn&#8217;t really fun <img src=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-includes\/images\/smilies\/frownie.png\" alt=\":(\" class=\"wp-smiley\" style=\"height: 1em; max-height: 1em;\" \/> The balance is all wrong, there isn&#8217;t enough to do, and the player has no agency over the various seeds they get during each round. I kind of knew the 3rd one would be a problem, but I guess my tired brain gave me hope that it wouldn&#8217;t be that bad&#8230; my brain was wrong.<\/li>\n <li>I didn&#8217;t really get started until Saturday afternoon, so I dove into the idea before actually designing it really. All I knew when I started was that I wanted an adorable thing running around singing to flowers.<\/li>\n <li>I got very little sleep not because I was crunching, but because I was excited. This led to a pretty bad bug in the 11th hour that, under other conditions, I would have easily fixed. But instead, that bug cost me about 4 hours of precious time.<\/li>\n <li>My code ended up being way more organized than I expected. This is also in the &#8220;What Went Right&#8221; category, but while it helped in certain situations, I think it slowed me down overall.<\/li>\n <li>Just scope in general. Even though what I produced is very small in scope, I think it was still a little too large for the amount of time I had to work that weekend. I am used to doing jams with at least 3 other people, so I guess I forgot to take that into account when scoping.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>All in all, I&#8217;m happy I got to participate. I will definitely join in on the next one and (hopefully) I&#8217;ll be able to fix some of my previous blunders. Until then, I&#8217;m going to put a little more effort into making Sprout fun and see what happens <img src=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-includes\/images\/smilies\/simple-smile.png\" alt=\":)\" class=\"wp-smiley\" style=\"height: 1em; max-height: 1em;\" \/><\/p>\n <div id=\"attachment_360694\" style=\"width: 179px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/sprout.png\"><img class=\"wp-image-360694 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/sprout-169x300.png\" alt=\"Sprout iPhone wallpaper\" width=\"169\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/sprout-169x300.png 169w, http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/sprout-550x976.png 550w, http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/sprout.png 640w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 169px) 100vw, 169px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sprout iPhone wallpaper<\/p><\/div>","time":"May 4th, 2014 2:12 pm","title":"Sprout Postmortem"}