{"author_name":"DaleP","cat":"LD #27","comments":[],"epoch":1377483360,"likes":2,"metadata":{"p_key":"38681","p_author":"DaleP","p_authorkey":"25195","p_urlkey":"74299","p_title":"Time Loopy","p_cat":"LD #27","p_event":"LD27","p_time":"1377483360","p_likes":"2","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"25195","us_name":"DaleP","us_username":"dalep","event_start":"1377216000","event_key":"18","event_name":"LD27"},"text":"<p>Here&#8217;s my first Ludum Dare compo entry, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-27\/?action=preview&amp;uid=25195\"><strong>Time Loopy<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n <p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-27\/?action=preview&amp;uid=25195\"><img class=\"alignnone\" alt=\"First few seconds of the game, Time Loopy\" src=\"http:\/\/timeloopy.dalepricewebdesign.com\/demo.gif\" width=\"680\" height=\"499\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n <p>It&#8217;s a game about being stuck in a ten second time loop and using your past selves to overcome challenges, written in ImpactJS (HTML5). Some thoughts:<\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>I&#8217;m happy with how the character design and animation turned out, and the time travel mechanic works surprisingly well. However\u2026<\/li>\n <li>The game isn&#8217;t really polished at all. It&#8217;s too easy to miss the dialogue, you end up having way too many versions of yourself which get in the way if you&#8217;re not fast enough to complete the level (with no way to reset them except reloading the game), and there are no menus to speak of.<\/li>\n <li>I didn&#8217;t have time to get enough people to playtest the tutorial portion, so I have no idea if it makes sense to anyone other than me. The overall level design could have been better if I hadn&#8217;t been rushed during that part.<\/li>\n <li>I only got to make one level. I spent too much time getting the time travel mechanic to work well (and getting ImpactJS to be deterministic at a mostly reliable framerate so the playback of past selves would work), and it also doesn&#8217;t make for easy level design when the player gets put back at the beginning every ten seconds and has to deal with multiple versions of theirself from the past. I may explore the concept more when I have time to make better and more varied levels (perhaps the player could be required to use the past selves to distract enemies? maybe he\/she has to make sure the past self doesn&#8217;t die or get injured?)<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>Good luck to everyone in the jam as you&#8217;re finishing up, and thanks to the LD staff for making this a fun event.<\/p>\n <p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n <p>&nbsp;<\/p>","time":"August 25th, 2013 9:16 pm","title":"Time Loopy"}