Play Here

Tools Used:

Flash
FlashDevelop
Audacity

Summary:

This was definitely not my first games jam game, in fact i’ve done quite a few including but not limited to: Global Games Jam, Brains Eden, GameHack and more. However, this is my first games jam that i participated in alone, if you don’t include the NanoLD which was only 48 minutes long! I’m a designer by day and at jams I only usually do design and code, this time i enjoyed getting my hands dirty with the art side of things. I also had some fun editing foley sounds in audacity which i haven’t done since my first year in University! 

What Went Well:

• Fast Pace: I have had a fair bit of good feedback relating to the pace. The objective i set myself was to create a fast paced turret defense game, i’m pretty happy with the pace.
• Art: I haven’t really done much art in the past so it was nice to try my hand at it, i’ve had some pretty positive feedback relating to it too. I’m happy with how it fits with the style of the game.
• Length: The length of the game is over 5 minutes (assuming you reach the end). I aimed to make a game that it was easy to fill with content once I had a solid base to work with.
• Theme: Initially i really struggled to come up with an idea for the theme but overall i’m very happy with how it relates to the theme and i think it’s pretty clear.
• Strategy: I wanted to make a game where players had to think about their actions. I think so far there is a basic necessity for planning, but this definitely relates to the balancing and it needs some improvement.

• Balancing: The game is very unbalanced at the moment, I struggled to find time near the end to balance the game so there’s a lot of issues relating to the difficulty curve.
• Estimation: I was constantly battling with issues relating to the turrets and enemies. I’ve never made a tower defense game and i definitely underestimated a few of the aspects.
• Time Management: I wasn’t able to start until a good 12-13 hours after the theme was announced, it was 2 in the morning when it was announced and i was otherwise occupied in the morning. I also had work early Monday which meant making sure i had a reasonable sleeping pattern unlike previous jams I’ve attended! This meant that I didn’t get as long to work on the game as i’d like.
• Originality: This definitely wasn’t an overly innovative idea, even though i got to try some new things and i really enjoyed the jam i think i’d like to try something a little different next time.

Thanks everyone for the delightful feedback, i’ve really enjoyed Ludum Dare and am looking forward to the next one already

Shameless plug: There’s a few in-dev screenshots on my new blog here.