{"author_name":"graebor","cat":"LD #27","comments":[],"epoch":1377558060,"likes":1,"metadata":{"p_key":"38403","p_author":"graebor","p_authorkey":"11713","p_urlkey":"74021","p_title":"NXTWPN10 Postmortem","p_cat":"LD #27","p_event":"LD27","p_time":"1377558060","p_likes":"1","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"11713","us_name":"graebor","us_username":"graebor","event_start":"1377216000","event_key":"18","event_name":"LD27"},"text":"<p>My game is done and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-27\/?action=preview&amp;uid=11713\">submitted<\/a>!<\/p>\n <p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/NXTWPN10_1.jpg\"><img class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-288780\" alt=\"NXTWPN10_1\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/NXTWPN10_1-300x168.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" srcset=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/NXTWPN10_1-300x168.jpg 300w, http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/NXTWPN10_1-550x308.jpg 550w, http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/NXTWPN10_1.jpg 1354w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n <p>Here&#8217;s a quick post-mortem\/summary on how things went. I&#8217;ll probably post some more detailed thoughts about how things went and what I learned later on my blog, but I&#8217;m posting here first to sign off on my submission and wrap things up.<\/p>\n <p>The good:<\/p>\n <ul>\n <li><strong>Feel<\/strong> &#8211; I&#8217;m really happy with how the visuals and the feel of moving the ship around and shooting turned out.<\/li>\n <li><b>Pacing<\/b> &#8211; On Friday when the theme was announced, I spent 3-4 hours roughing out a concept. I slept on it, and then hammered away at it for about 10 hours on Saturday. A few more hours on Sunday (mostly audio work), and an hour&#8217;s worth of bug-fixing and polish today. This spread of hours across the weekend felt the most successful of any jam I&#8217;ve done before. I was never too tired\/unfocused to work on the game, but I never felt overwhelmed with tasks. I guess I&#8217;m getting better at this part!<\/li>\n <li><strong>Playtesting<\/strong> &#8211; This was the first time I posted WIP builds online during a jam, and the feedback I got from doing so really took the game to a higher level and kept me motivated. I did in-person playtesting as well, but getting feedback from different sources really helped keep things feeling fresh.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>The bad:<\/p>\n <ul>\n <li><strong>Difficulty Curve<\/strong> &#8211; Since all the weapons\/enemies are random, difficulty doesn&#8217;t ramp up the longer you play. The result of this is new players sometimes feel overwhelmed, and experienced players get bored. This problem comes up in a lot of games I make, I&#8217;ll have to practice dealing with this specifically.<\/li>\n <li><strong>Sound Effects<\/strong> &#8211; I fell back on using SFXR for the sounds, which is fine, but I&#8217;m going to make it a goal to get a bit more creative with audio than just bleeps and bloops next time.<\/li>\n <li><strong>Unoriginality<\/strong> &#8211; At a glance, the game bears a lot of similarity to games like Geometry Wars, and the aesthetic is even pretty similar to a game I made previously called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.graemeborland.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/return_screen1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">Return<\/a>. I think I put enough unique elements into this game to make it worthwhile, but I still felt like I was using existing games as a crutch to prevent myself from having to make too many tough design choices. Next time I&#8217;ll challenge myself to deviate more freely from existing gameplay tropes\/visual styles.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>Now to give it a bit of time and think about what I&#8217;ve learned from doing this jam. Overall it was a very positive experience! Time to go rate some games <img src=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-includes\/images\/smilies\/simple-smile.png\" alt=\":)\" class=\"wp-smiley\" style=\"height: 1em; max-height: 1em;\" \/><\/p>","time":"August 26th, 2013 6:01 pm","title":"NXTWPN10 Postmortem"}