Now that I’ve rested up again and my sanity has returned, I feel ready to write a postmortem for the game I made for LD28!  You can play my game here:

You only get one… WORLD!

I am a South African, so the competition started at 04h00 in the morning on Saturday, making it difficult for me to be there from the start!  It was my first Ludum Dare and it was loads of fun! Thanks to everyone who’s rated my game so far!  I will be sure to rate any commenters on my game!

What went right:

• I have a lot of experience with most of the tools I used (openfl, aseprite, audiotool), which made for quick progress across the board.
• My brainstorming session early on the Saturday morning went really well and I found an idea that I was pretty excited about in about 2 hours.  After that I could hit the ground running!
• I drew up a rough schedule the night before the competition and I stuck by it more or less!  It helped me keep my eye on the big picture!
• I used the pomodoro technique and it helped me to stay focused a lot!  It also helps you keep track of the time and keep  your eye on the ball!  I can vouch for its efficacy!
• I didn’t know beforehand how good my pixelart would be under pressure, but creating the art for the game went pretty smoothly and I am really happy with the final result!
• Audiotool was used to compose the music pretty quickly and I can highly recommend it!

What went wrong:

• I wasn’t able to get to bed early enough on the Friday evening and ended up sleeping until 07h00 instead of getting up at 04h00!
• I didn’t prepare for theme very well beforehand.  Next time, I will brainstorm the day before on each of the possible themes so that I have a few ideas once the theme is announced.
• The strategic view took me a lot longer than I planned!  Pixel art world maps are not easy!
• I didn’t have time do a lot of the stuff I was planning from the start, like a crowd of noisy observers to the debate, better balancing and a victory screen…  There was just too much to do!

That’s about it.  Overall it was a really positive experience, I think I had quite a bit of luck on my side!  I hope you will play/rate my game and leave a comment so that I can return the favor!