Alright, so my entry, Chrono Escape, is about a scientist kidnapped by the government, and has to escape using his time machine prototype.

You can play it HERE.

 

The Bad

I’m starting with the things that went badly, and I’ll begin with the big one.

Programming.

The programming is an absolute mess. I used GameMaker8.1, which isn’t fast to begin with, but I also use horrible lazy and inefficient programming practices to create the elements I didn’t know how to make.

For example; the lighting system. For that, I used a while loop to determine the distance from you to the block directly in front of your mouse. Next, repeat this 7 more times for the blocks at angles -20, -15, -10, -5, 5, 10, 15, and 20. Each while loop takes a relatively large amount of CPU, so it’s no wonder that the game lags so badly with 3+ people with lighting on screen. After doing this, it draws triangles between all the points given, then subtracts them from the black square drawn over the entire screen.

But wait; there’s more. Besides being horribly inefficient, the lighting was also inaccurate.
It was only accurate up to 5 degrees, and became very dicey at far distances. Now, to calculate if the guard sees you, it does the same calculating as above, with 8 while loops. And if he’s far enough away, you can still technically be in his site, but he still won’t see you because you “fell between the lines”

Cutscenes

I did all the cutscenes in the last hour of work, and they were, in a word, bad.

I mean, they convey a story well enough, but they don’t really fit with the rest of the graphics, they’re sloppily drawn, and they’re inconsistent between each other.

I really could have done them better, but I don’t see how in that time frame.

 

 

 

 

The Alright…

Music

The game’s music was an ambient track I recorded live off my keyboard in one take. That is, by far, the easiest way for me to get music, but the ambient style didn’t really mesh with the high-strung style of the game. I wish I’d had enough time to make a proper techno track that really would have done the game justice.

Level Design

I feel the early levels were very good, actually. It seems like I did a good job of guiding beginnings through the first steps under a controlled, yet extremely hard, environment. However, if a player is good enough to get past the first 10 levels or so, they might begin to notice a slow change. After I’m finished introducing the player to everything, my level designs became more and more hacky. I’d just throw a level together, test it to make sure it was possible, then throw it in the game. I’m also disappointed because I don’t think I did the concept justice in terms of complex, paradox based levels that are so clever that you’re astounded for minutes after you beat it.

 

 

The Good

Concept

Seriously, this is one of the best concepts I’ve ever come up with in my 7 years as a game designer. It’s really deep with clever puzzles, elements, boss fights, and a whole lot of other wonderful things. I might well continue the game afterwards just because it’s so damn fun to work on.

Graphics

Again, some of the best pixel art I’ve ever made. I think this is one of the first times someone’s ever complimented my graphics, without referring to it as an “interesting” style or somesuch.

 

So there you have it. My own, overly critical, opinion. I hope I do well in this LD, but I’m not sure I made the game for it.

Ah well. Just don’t forget to play the game HERE!