{"author_name":"samooJAM","cat":"LD #29","comments":[],"epoch":1398872760,"likes":0,"metadata":{"p_key":"30128","p_author":"samooJAM","p_authorkey":"505379","p_urlkey":"65598","p_title":"Pearl Diver: The Post-mortem","p_cat":"LD #29","p_event":"LD29","p_time":"1398872760","p_likes":"0","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"505379","us_name":"samooJAM","us_username":"samooJAM","event_start":"1398384000","event_key":"22","event_name":"LD29"},"text":"<p><strong>Background<\/strong><\/p>\n <p>I\u00a0didn&#8217;t come up with any clever ideas so I started with creating the diving controls and let the game take shape during the development.<\/p>\n <p><strong>Stuff to improve<\/strong><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>The pearls were too big, making finding them too easy.<\/li>\n <li>Make some parts of the terrain much higher to make it less plain and boring<\/li>\n <li>Add\u00a0underwater ruins. Making pearl diving more interesting and challenging. Some pearls could be hidden inside the ruins.<\/li>\n <li>Some people reported they couldn&#8217;t get the radar work, actually it&#8217;s a sonar. Maybe they didn&#8217;t understand how it works or there is a bug.<\/li>\n <li>The camera is in fixed position in relation to the player&#8217;s position. It&#8217;s a lazy solution and I want to add a proper camera follow that doesn&#8217;t go behind walls etc.<\/li>\n <li>The player model is mirthless and animations of it are unwieldy. I spent over 3 hours to model the player and add animations. It&#8217;s been always such time consuming process.<\/li>\n <li>I don&#8217;t have Unity Pro, so I couldn&#8217;t add any fancy post-processed water effects. \u00a0Also I made the fog bright instead of dark as it would be logical way to make an underwater scenery. I realized that just in last hours and didn&#8217;t want to change the art style anymore because it looked good nevertheless. The abstract\/low poly\/minimalist style\u00a0allowed the artistic freedom.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p><strong>Stuff that was\u00a0alright<\/strong><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>I believe this is my best ludum dare \u00a0graphics wise.<\/li>\n <li>I&#8217;m still proud of diving controls even though I just tried to mimic super mario 64 diving controls.<\/li>\n <li>Randomized sea plants and creatures look cool!<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p><strong>What next<\/strong><\/p>\n <p>I&#8217;ll consider making a post compo version. Depends if I have enough motivation, time and if I see it valuable. I&#8217;m also making a minimalist strategy game prototype. Follow me on twitter for updates <a title=\"www.twitter.com\/samoojam\" href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/samoojam\">www.twitter.com\/samoojam<\/a><\/p>\n <p><a title=\"Play and rate!\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-29\/?action=preview&amp;uid=11043\">Play and rate!<\/a><\/p>\n <div style=\"width: 507px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/compo2\/342546\/11043-shot0.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"497\" height=\"280\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pearl Diver<\/p><\/div>","time":"April 30th, 2014 10:46 am","title":"Pearl Diver: The Post-mortem"}