{"author_name":"X-0r","cat":"LD #28","comments":[],"epoch":1387383480,"likes":1,"metadata":{"p_key":"34250","p_author":"X-0r","p_authorkey":"25053","p_urlkey":"69797","p_title":"Aftermath\u2026","p_cat":"LD #28","p_event":"LD28","p_time":"1387383480","p_likes":"1","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"25053","us_name":"X-0r","us_username":"x-or","event_start":"1386892800","event_key":"20","event_name":"LD28"},"text":"

Well, I guess I should also recap my thoughts about the compo – Not everything turned out as expected. Still, I managed to pull off enough for a playable release.<\/p>\n

What went well:<\/p>\n

Enemy collisions. I still don’t know if it’s efficient to calculate the distance between each enemy on each frame, but… yeah it works flawlessy for about 20-30 at a time, before it starts to lag.<\/p>\n

Sound effects. There’s a free VSTi plugin called “engine” – it produces nice sounds about all types of electric and gas-powered engines. I used it for the laser sound (with a lot of pitching) and for the explosion (with a lot of time-warping and cutting). I can’t say that it makes me a good sound designer, but I’m happy with what I made out of it \":)\"<\/p>\n

What I should have thought about a second time:<\/p>\n

Graphics. I created all my assets (with the exception of the particles and guns) in Blender. I decided to use pre-rendered frames to make objects “rotate” in an isometric area. For the floating enemies, it were like 16 frames, the factory was only a single frame, the resource collecting tower had some light animation going on.\u00a0However… I completely underestimated the fact of how tedious it can be to show an animated object (the player’s exosuit) from all these directions. It took me a lot of time to get it right, after all, the light needed to stay in the correct location, the render-size needed to be sufficient without cutting off the model or it’s shadows, etc. etc.<\/p>\n

Content. I set my goals too high. I wanted to have a huge map, maybe even procedural generation, and ended up with… the regular 550×400 px area. I even got a second enemy rendered, but I never got to add it to the game…<\/p>\n

GUI. Well, it’s a sci-fi themed game, so one would expect a shiny GUI. But as with most of the other things… I lacked the time, and ended up simply printing the stats down as plain text.<\/p>\n

Intro. I wonder how many deductions I’ll get concerning the theme interpretation. I wanted to create a nice cinematic intro, showing the stripmined earth, and the humans looking for resources elsewhere – only the leader of the alien race faces them “You only get ONE planet to destroy”. In the end… I put it as a simple text behind the “About” button.<\/p>\n

Music. Initially, I planned to compose a nice track for the game. I ended up with a few sound effects, but … no music at all. Not enough time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All in all, I’m quite content how it turned out. I’ve also added a post-compo version, since people wanted to use the mouse for shooting (and while I was at it, I also added the shield to the RMB).<\/p>\n

That’s about it. Now back to some more LD gaming =)<\/p>","time":"December 18th, 2013 11:18 am","title":"Aftermath\u2026"}