(link to the game : http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-27/?action=preview&uid=26486 )

About time I made a post mortem about my first Ludum Dare ever ! (And not my last)

First Day :

Seeing the theme before going to sleep didn’t help me in the research for a game idea, I was sure it would somehow but nope, of course the Ludum Dare was timed with me going back home, so I had to basically search an idea and start making the game inside a driving car, but it was worth it because if I hadn’t done it I wouldn’t have had the bases ready AT ALL.
Finding an idea, I think it took 30 minutes, a pen and a paper, I wanted to make something original and not a WarioWare/McPixel clone, and then I had this grid image in my head, and then “What if there was a delay of 10 seconds between the moment you press the key and the movement” and it was done, I had found my idea.
For the visual style, I wanted to replicate a computer kind of style, really electronic feel to it, and I adapted the story as such.
Also, trying to figure out several ways to implement the movements was fun, at first I went with physics but it was glitchy, then I went with raycasting but it was even worse, I finally settled on the game checking which tile ID was next and moving the player if it was not the one pre-defined.
Also, the joy I felt when it was working was amazing.
Thank god I never stay’d in front of a problem for too long or else it would’ve sucked so much time, I prefered to ask Elisee (creator of CraftStudio the game maker I used to make the game) for help (I never planned in participating to the 48 hours comp, just the jam)
And this was day 1, I managed to get a movement system working. (And I even have the first “level” I did which was really a prototype)

Second Day :

Waking up and on the computer I go !
The game was too easy, it needed a little spice, so I said to myself, “Why not make some doors and locks” and okay let’s roll with it, plus I’ll be able to borrow the code from my other game Subversion, this is when it struck me, it was not in the library (I had wiped my disk a few weeks ago) and I said to myself : “Oh I just backed it up elsewhere, but….. where actually ?” and this is when I started to stress, I searched everywhere, every inch of my laptop, every inch of my hard drive, my two external hard drives, NOTHING, I couldn’t believe it (And I still can’t) HOW COULD I’VE NOT BACKED UP THE PROJECT !? I tried GetDataBack but I couldn’t find anything, the whole game I worked weeks on is just gone like that and that really pissed me off, but I needed to move on and continue, to make an homage to him (Which had practically the same visual style) and I started coding the trigger system which is a basic trigger pos minus player pos and if 0 then remove the block at X-Z and I then started making more levels and I asked my friend Thoune if he’d like to help me on that and he agreed and that really boosted the number of levels, and I told myself “Since he’s going to make levels I should make a score system”, it was a challenge so I said to myself, let’s go then ! I streamed a bit of it here : http://www.twitch.tv/jordo76/b/451330923 and I was really pleased with the result.
After that I went to sleep.

Third Day :

Waking up and, let’s go on the computer !
There was a lot of levels that Thoune did that I needed to implement and since it took a long time to playtest and everything I went right away into it and this is where some troubles appeared that cost me hours, for some reason the player was not synching to the map, the first issue was on the Tutorial level and that was awkward because it worked fine yesterday, I eventually figured out how to fix it by moving the stage to a set coordinate, I think it happened thrice, after porting a few levels I went ahead and created some sounds, it was the first time I created sounds (I used SFXR) so I was never sure, but the response was great so I guess I managed that !
I then went ahead and asked a friend of mine if he did chiptunes, we talked for a bit and I gave him full control on the music, and it turns out the response was again, great so this was a good thing, at one point there was only 2 hours left,I started streaming : http://www.twitch.tv/jordo76/b/451962808 we had no ending and no last level, so I went ahead and created the last level “DATA SCRAMBLED” which was designed to be the hardest since you’ve to go around the whole map several time, I think it take more than 220 moves to complete it, after that I coded the endgame (not going to spoil you :P) which is REALLY simple and quick but it sync with the game “story” (or description of the game on the Ludum dare page) at that point there was 1 hour left on the clock and this is where I tweaked the difficulty on levels a little, when there was 30 minutes left I went ahead and added little humorous text on almost every levels and thus it was done !
My first Ludum Dare game !

This was a great experience overall, and as I already said I’m participating in the next (Except if I really have NO ideas or can’t due to some personal reasons)

Tags: postmortem