{"author_name":"bvanschooten","cat":"LD #26","comments":[],"epoch":1368652620,"likes":3,"metadata":{"p_key":"42603","p_author":"bvanschooten","p_authorkey":"14520","p_urlkey":"78238","p_title":"8 games in 48 hours: timelapse and infographic","p_cat":"LD #26","p_event":"LD26","p_time":"1368652620","p_likes":"3","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"14520","us_name":"bvanschooten","us_username":"bvanschooten","event_start":"1366934400","event_key":"16","event_name":"LD26"},"text":"

As promised, a timelapse and graphical analysis of my LD48 project, minigames octacade. Let me first explain something about the workflow used here.\u00a0 I batched several activities in order to save time.\u00a0 Before even knowing what games I was going to develop, I created 70 random sprites, and 15 tiles and backgrounds.\u00a0 After that I developed the games one by one.\u00a0 For each game I selected graphics using a “graphical selector” that shows different combinations of sprites, tiles, and backgrounds.\u00a0 After the games were finished, I created all sounds for all games, as well as explosions and particle effects, in a single session.<\/p>\n

The batch activities are called “general activities” in the graphs below.\u00a0 Other general activities are programming that is not related to a specific game, deployment (uploading, creating LD entry, creating screenshots), and “other” (not classified).<\/p>\n

Some graphics were created during game development as needed, these are classified under the particular game that the graphics were created for.\u00a0 This accounts for about 1-2 hours of development total.<\/p>\n

\"ld26-infographic\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Some conclusions:\u00a0 I created too few tiles at the start, given how little time it takes to do it batch-wise.\u00a0 More colour schemes to choose from would have been useful.\u00a0 The backgrounds are the most time-consuming, not shown under “backgrounds” are about 30 minutes of creating backgrounds during game-specific development.\u00a0 A more automated process for making them tileable etc. would have been useful.\u00a0 Sound also took more time than I expected. I spent a lot of time unsuccessfully mutating sounds in sfxr.\u00a0 Actually adding the sounds in the code took hardly more than 2 minutes per game. Surprising is that deployment actually took significant time, so this could be further optimised too.<\/p>\n

About equal amounts of time were spent on each specific game.\u00a0 An interesting fact is that the game I spent the least time on (Axis Invaders) was actually the most popular with the reviewers, and the game I spent the most time on (Digger) is my own least favorite. Story of my life… this is what inspired me to do this project in the first place.\u00a0 In the wild, some of my simplest and even roughest games seem to be appreciated the most.\u00a0 Once I find out which games people like most, I can concentrate on further polishing these games.<\/p>\n

And here is the timelapse which the analysis was performed on:<\/p>\n