{"author_name":"m12y","cat":"LD #28","comments":[],"epoch":1387254060,"likes":1,"metadata":{"p_key":"34377","p_author":"m12y","p_authorkey":"28907","p_urlkey":"69924","p_title":"Clueless Postmortem","p_cat":"LD #28","p_event":"LD28","p_time":"1387254060","p_likes":"1","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"28907","us_name":"m12y","us_username":"m12y","event_start":"1386892800","event_key":"20","event_name":"LD28"},"text":"

I made Clueless<\/a> this past weekend in my first Ludum Dare. A brief postmortem:<\/p>\n

Things that went well:<\/h3>\n

Tooling<\/h4>\n

I ended up super happy with all of my tooling choices: libgdx, Box2D, and Tiled among others. Everything more or less work as expected and was easy enough to learn (though I spent too much time learning on the spot), and ending up with an HTML\/JS deliverable was nice. I also had a blast working with Java in IntelliJ all weekend.<\/p>\n

Friends<\/h4>\n

Getting together with coworkers to hack near each other made the weekend much more enjoyable. The mutual energy kept us all focused on our games, but ping-pong and board game breaks provided much needed relaxation after hours of heads-down coding. Having people to bounce ideas off of also proved helpful when I got in a rut. And most importantly, I\u2019ll always chose a shared experience over one I have alone.<\/p>\n

Shipping<\/h4>\n

I almost called it quits mid-Sunday, but I\u2019m glad I followed through and ended up with something shippable. I feel like I\u2019m in a really good place for future LDs.<\/p>\n

Things that went less than well:<\/h3>\n

Nailing down the idea too late<\/h4>\n

I didn\u2019t have a clear idea of what my game was going to be until ~5pm on Saturday, leaving me with not a ton of time to build and polish it.<\/p>\n

Graphics<\/h4>\n

Artistic skills are not something I\u2019ve spent much time developing. And it shows.<\/p>\n

Movement<\/h4>\n

The guest\u2019s movement is my least favorite thing about Clueless. It looks awkward, and it leads to games where there are no killings for at least a minute. The worst part is that I knew how to make it better, but I ran out of time. Maybe I\u2019ll fix this after voting is over and release v1.1.<\/p>\n

Box2D overkill<\/h4>\n

My final product ended up not really needing the sophisticated physics engine I spent time learning and building against. Some of the intermediate versions of the project leaned on it pretty heavily, but by the end I could\u2019ve gotten away with simple AABB collision detection.<\/p>\n \n

Tags: LD28<\/a>, libgdx<\/a>, postmortem<\/a><\/p>","time":"December 16th, 2013 11:21 pm","title":"Clueless Postmortem"}