Background:<\/p>\n
This weekend was the last weekend before my kids go back to school after summer break \u2013 the house was a mess, we had no groceries, and the Monday after the challenge (today) marks my 12th<\/sup> wedding anniversary.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t have high hopes of participating, but Saturday morning I took a peek at the theme just in case. \u00a0\u00a0And, well, I made something.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Clarity of vision<\/strong> \u2013 as soon as I read the theme, I only had one idea \u2013 a platform game where you have 10 seconds to get the goal, drawing on random placement of elements to create the variety.\u00a0\u00a0 Throughout Saturday I thought about how this random element could be built (if I could find any time to build it) as I did the laundry and coerced my daughter to clean her room.<\/p>\n Construct 2 is awesome-sauce<\/strong> \u2013 I had the idea and just\u2026 built it.\u00a0 For the most part, actually development went super smooth with very few surprises.\u00a0 If you haven’t heard of C2 yet, it is\u00a0what I consider to be the mac-daddy of 2D game engines.<\/p>\n Decent learning experience<\/strong> \u2013 Even with such a small project, I managed to learn some really useful ideas.<\/p>\n Fun game<\/strong> \u2013 In the end, I\u2019m quite pleased with the outcome of this little game.\u00a0 Despite the issues, the overall gestalt of the game is pretty fun (at least for me).\u00a0 It is uncommon for me as creator to be surprised and challenged by levels in my own game \u2013 so this has really felt nifty to me.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Giving the Competition the focus it deserves<\/strong> \u2013 As mentioned earlier, this Ludum Dare has been sandwiched in between a great many other things.\u00a0 It\u2019s still a great exercise, but I feel I could have given and gotten more if I had more time within the weekend to focus on it.<\/p>\n Polish \u2013<\/strong> As a result of the last item, there are so many aspects of the game that could have been tightened, but were not.\u00a0\u00a0 A bit of refinement on the controls and the aesthetic could have better prepared this game to be in fighting condition.<\/p>\n Implementing portals<\/em> in the game<\/strong> \u2013 The game was more or less finished on Saturday night minus sounds and the transportation portals.\u00a0\u00a0 It took a good 3 hours to get them working more or less the way I wanted, but I\u2019m not convinced they added very much to the gameplay.\u00a0 All said and done, they probably took more than a third of my development time.<\/p>\n Missing the deadline<\/strong> \u2013 Although done by about 11:45pm, I forgot about the time it takes to take a screenshot, export the project, \u00a0upload everything to ftp, and write up the page on the Ludum Dare website.\u00a0 Then (midnight) I thought I submitted my game, but was missing information and didn\u2019t realize until this morning.\u00a0 Whoops.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a little Vanilla<\/strong> \u2013 Although I really like this little game, it is a fairly familiar and predictable experience.\u00a0 The same idea could have used a more interesting control scheme \u2013 making it far more memorable.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t the worst thing ever, but it is bit of a lost opportunity.<\/p>\n Overall, it has been an AWESOME experience.\u00a0 This is my 2nd Ludum Dare and can’t wait until the next one!<\/p>","time":"August 26th, 2013 9:26 am","title":"10 Seconds to PLAY post mortem"}What went well:<\/b><\/h2>\n
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What could have been better:<\/b><\/h2>\n