I thought I’d make a post to mention a few things now that it’s all over.<\/p>\n
This was my first Ludum Dare. \u00a0I’ve known about the competition\u00a0for quite a long time now, even played some of the games in the past. \u00a0But I honestly never saw myself competing in it. \u00a0I didn’t think I could ever produce anything worth showing in just two days. \u00a0I get stuck on things sometimes (like collision detection), and then the little glitches bother me enough that I just stay focused on that one aspect\u00a0until it’s completely sorted out, or lose all my sanity trying. \u00a0I don’t know if that’s being a perfectionist or just being stubborn, but either way, I never thought I’d compete in Ludum Dare because of such things. \u00a0I never even intended on competing this time, but at the last minute I thought it might actually be fun. \u00a0I’ve been staring at one particular project a lot lately, complex and 3D, and I figured it would be a nice break to do something simple. \u00a0And it’s good experience, if nothing else.<\/p>\n
I ran into two snags along the way which held me up. \u00a0One was, surprise surprise, collision detection. \u00a0I’m using the box method, and when that’s not perfectly implemented then you run into a lot of issues of clipping through walls. \u00a0Depending on the problem, sometimes that presents itself as if no collision detection was there at all, or alternatively,\u00a0getting\u00a0ripped through the wall and spit out somewhere else across the map. \u00a0There would be times where I thought I’d fixed everything, but then a little annoying bug would show itself, and I kept going back to that same code. \u00a0Eventually I perfected it though, and I was pretty happy with that. \u00a0But I lost time nonetheless.<\/p>\n
The other timesink was trying to make the game run as a Java applet. \u00a0I probably spent almost two\u00a0hours on that before finally deciding to cut my losses. \u00a0I kept getting Java permission problems, regardless of self-signing the JARs. \u00a0I figured if this is how it’s going to act with just the default Java permission settings then it’s going to be just as bad for everyone else trying to use it. \u00a0I don’t know if it was something on my end or something with LWJGL (I saw reference to an issue similar to mine on a forum which was said would be fixed in a later version, so I dunno), but unfortunately I wasn’t able to have a web version.<\/p>\n
The artwork took me a bit of time, and it changed along the way, but I would say that that was more just part of the regular development rather than being a problem. \u00a0I’m not an artist, but sometimes I manage to come up with something that I like. \u00a0I have to admit, I’m pleased with how it came out overall.<\/p>\n
Other than the two\u00a0frustrating issues of collision and applets, I actually had a lot of fun. \u00a0Having a time limit really pushes you to come up with code that just works for that specific purpose instead of thinking too far ahead and trying to make it more robust. \u00a0 I guess that comes from the mindset of not wanting to rewrite code when you realize you need to add something in later. \u00a0But in this case that was fairly irrelevant.<\/p>\n
I worked right up near the time limit, only quitting about ten minutes till so that I could package it up and upload it. \u00a0Since this was my first Ludum Dare, I wanted to be done and submitted by the actual deadline. \u00a0I realized there was an hour-long submission window, but I figured better safe than sorry. \u00a0The website got hit pretty hard too, so I’m glad I got mine in when I did.<\/p>\n
As for the game itself, they always say that the sign of a good one is one that you enjoy playing yourself. \u00a0 I honestly do enjoy floating around and shooting things. \u00a0I definitely think that it’s something I want to develop a bit further. \u00a0I wanted to add things like earthquakes, maybe rocks falling, taking damage when you fall or hit your head too hard (the HP system was added at the very last minute, so I barely got bats hurting you implemented!), more enemies (like spiders), a thrust bar (which you have to either replenish, or it regenerates, I’d have to try it), a title screen and game over condition, etc etc. \u00a0I wish I could have made a more complete game to submit for the contest, but I’m still pretty pleased with what I managed to accomplish.<\/p>\n
I can say with confidence that I’ll be participating again. \u00a0It was a great experience, and as a master procrastinator, I can say that anything that motivates you to make something is worth involving yourself\u00a0in!<\/p>\n
<\/p>","time":"April 28th, 2014 10:10 am","title":"The Next Day"}