{"author_name":"mactinite","cat":"LD #27","comments":[{"author_name":"","time":"September 14, 2013 12:38 pm","epoch":1379180280,"text":"This is what made me go and play your game. Amazing work!","spam":"N"},{"author_name":"","time":"September 14, 2013 1:33 pm","epoch":1379183580,"text":"Also thought I&#8217;d let you know that you have the highest reported score so far, second to mine  of course \ud83d\ude09 lol","spam":"N"}],"epoch":1379100240,"likes":3,"metadata":{"p_key":"37911","p_author":"mactinite","p_authorkey":"26320","p_urlkey":"73527","p_title":"Night Stalker Postmortem","p_cat":"LD #27","p_event":"LD27","p_time":"1379100240","p_likes":"3","p_comments":"2","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"26320","us_name":"mactinite","us_username":"\/author\/mactinite\/","event_start":"1377216000","event_key":"18","event_name":"LD27"},"text":"<p>It&#8217;s a bit late for a postmortem, being 3 days till the end of voting, but I have been wanting to write one and have been to busy to get to it so here we go.<\/p>\n <p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n <h2><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">Overview<\/span><\/h2>\n <p>First of all I&#8217;ll start off by saying this was my first Ludum Dare, and really my first game jam; I&#8217;m really happy that it went successfully for me. Now let&#8217;s get into it, starting Ludum Dare 27 I had an idea of what I wanted to do. I had this idea that I would have a zombie game with no violence from the player, sort of an obstacle avoidance game. I started working on it right away. Fortunately I quickly realized that this idea could not be realized in the 48 hours given. I quickly came up with an idea for a basic stealth game (with some inspiration from friends, of course). My initial vision for the game was huge, I had to lay down and count to ten before I could calm down and start to shrink it down and I think I made sacrifices in the right areas. If you are interested you can go play the game <a title=\"Night Stalker\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-27\/?action=preview&amp;uid=26320\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n <p><a title=\"click to go to the Night Stalker Ludum Dare page\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-27\/?action=preview&amp;uid=26320\" target=\"_blank\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-296156 aligncenter\" alt=\"26320-shot0\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/26320-shot0-300x187.png\" width=\"300\" height=\"187\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n <h2><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">What I Would Change<\/span><\/h2>\n <p>Going through the development process I spent a lot of time testing for bugs myself and fixing them in programming which led to other areas of my game, such as art and sound, suffering. I think the best thing to do would be to have some people to test my game for me. Unfortunately I don&#8217;t really have the resources for that yet. Another thing I would do is to establish a code base before starting development; I found myself rewriting scripts I had written a million times before. As for the game I&#8217;m not quite sure what I would change; I felt like it had a good game mechanic and is simple enough to be played easily, yet complicated enough to make for interesting game play. I would have liked to add more to Night Stalker: implement some obstacles, bigger levels, more interesting scenery, etc. Even though I did not get everything I wanted implemented I feel like it was a great first run and an amazing confidence booster; with the compo I had that urge to make a game again, to create a world, and I did and it felt great.<\/p>\n <p><a title=\"click to go to the Night Stalker Ludum Dare page\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-27\/?action=preview&amp;uid=26320\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-296157 aligncenter\" alt=\"26320-shot1\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/26320-shot1-300x187.png\" width=\"300\" height=\"187\" srcset=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/26320-shot1-300x187.png 300w, http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/26320-shot1-550x343.png 550w, http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/26320-shot1.png 947w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n <h2><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">Post Compo\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n <p>After the compo I took a step back from my PC for awhile, I attended PAX Prime here in Seattle, had some friends over, and brewed on the idea of continuing development on Night Stalker. Now that the judging is almost over, and I&#8217;ve been getting mostly positive feedback and good criticism I think I&#8217;m ready to work on a post-compo version of the game. I want to take it a step further though. I&#8217;m shifting all my extra time that I usually use for experimentation and slowly piecing together another game of mine to work on a more realized version of Night Stalker (perhaps a name change to something a little less &#8220;disturbed teenage boy&#8221; ) . I plan on adding some &#8220;dimension&#8221; quite literally and also some more depth in the game play and story areas. If anyone is interested in checking it out I&#8217;ll be doing updates as I go on my website <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bearmacstudios.com\" target=\"_blank\">bearmacstudios.com<\/a>. if you read through all of this I seriously commend you and thank you. I wish I could have participated more in the community, but perhaps I&#8217;ll embrace it more come next compo.<\/p>\n <p>Until next time,<\/p>\n <p>Hunter &#8220;Mactinite&#8221;<\/p>\n <p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n <p>tl;dr<\/p>\n <p>Ludum Dare 27 was amazing, check out what I made if you want <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-27\/?action=preview&amp;uid=26320\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>, and I&#8217;ll be expanding upon this idea and detailing it on my website\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bearmacstudios.com\" target=\"_blank\">bearmacstudios.com<\/a><\/p>\n <p>&lt;3<\/p>","time":"September 13th, 2013 2:24 pm","title":"Night Stalker Postmortem"}