{"author_name":"Novodantis","cat":"LD #28","comments":[],"epoch":1388177760,"likes":2,"metadata":{"p_key":"34080","p_author":"Novodantis","p_authorkey":"31428","p_urlkey":"69625","p_title":"LITH \u2013 A short Postmortem","p_cat":"LD #28","p_event":"LD28","p_time":"1388177760","p_likes":"2","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"31428","us_name":"Novodantis","us_username":"\/author\/novodantis\/","event_start":"1386892800","event_key":"20","event_name":"LD28"},"text":"<p>So it&#8217;s been more than a week since Ludum Dare Jam #28 ended, but what with the holiday period I&#8217;ve not had much chance to really sit down and write about <a title=\"Go play LITH you guys!\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-28\/?action=preview&amp;uid=31428\">LITH<\/a>; my first Ludum Dare and first games jam. I had a huge amount of fun doing this game! As an archetype of the Perfectionist, it was cathartic to just plough on with things and it meant I got a huge amount done in a very short space of time.<\/p>\n <p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-28\/?action=preview&amp;uid=31428\"><img class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-319342\" alt=\"Play LITH!\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Lith_title-550x344.png\" width=\"550\" height=\"344\" srcset=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Lith_title-550x344.png 550w, http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Lith_title.png 954w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n <p><em><strong>What Went Right<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li><strong>Mood\/Theme<\/strong> &#8211; The game quickly snowballed from a concept I&#8217;d had in my mind in an embryonic form for quite some time, although it was the &#8220;You Only Get One&#8221; theme that gave it the characteristic bank-your-points twist. And I&#8217;ve had a lot of encouraging feedback about how genuinely creepy it is, which is just what I had in mind at the start. So big success there!<\/li>\n <li><strong>Music &amp; Sound<\/strong> &#8211; So often this is an element that gets overlooked even in professional games, but thanks to the musically talented <a title=\"Rich Webb's site\" href=\"http:\/\/www.webbtunes.com\/\">Rich Webb<\/a>, I feel LITH does well here. The feedback on this has been hugely positive, also!<\/li>\n <li><strong>Engine<\/strong> &#8211; Not that I had any hesitation about using <a title=\"The best game engine ever, MAYBE??\" href=\"http:\/\/unity3d.com\/\">Unity<\/a>, but I doubt I could have gotten this level of graphical sheen, immersion and usability; on both PC and Mac; using anything else. Well done, you guys! You should drink a smoothie or something.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p><em><strong>What Went Wrong<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li><strong>Coder Down!<\/strong>\u00a0&#8211; Unfortunately, we lost a team member fairly early on, so I had to quickly re-arrange plans as I&#8217;d not intended to be coding. As a result, the code has committed more crimes than a recurring cartoon supervillain.<\/li>\n <li><strong>Rushed Art<\/strong>\u00a0&#8211; Sort of related to the above. Most of the art was draft quality or thrown together very hastily (I&#8217;d planned to make the Liths look more like stone monoliths with glyphs and all that; as it is, they actually just have their lighting map over flat grey and look too much like Daleks). Most of the time I simply didn&#8217;t get around to replacing it.<\/li>\n <li><b>Daft AI\u00a0<\/b>&#8211; The AI was mostly worked on last minute. To begin with, the Liths were like psychics and far too hard to evade. They also ping-ponged off walls very erratically. In my attempts to make them smoother and more believable, they&#8217;ve also become rather stupid and get stuck in rooms sometimes. AI is one of those things that can easily go backwards, especially with such tight timescales!<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>So there you have it! I aim to continue working on LITH after the Jam and see what we can make of it. Overall, I&#8217;m happy with how the game turned out, and look forward to the next&#8230;<\/p>\n <p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n <p style=\"text-align: right\"><strong><em>About Novodantis:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n <p style=\"text-align: right\"><em><a title=\"He's also, like, really modest too, bee-tee-dubs\" href=\"http:\/\/www.novodantis.com\/\">Alexander Webb<\/a> is a writer and professional game designer living in the UK. He currently works on strategy games for mobile.<\/em><\/p>\n <p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n \n <p>Tags: <a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/tag\/lith\/\" rel=\"tag\">LITH<\/a><\/p>","time":"December 27th, 2013 3:56 pm","title":"LITH \u2013 A short Postmortem"}