{"author_name":"CagedRat","cat":"LD #26","comments":[],"epoch":1367792760,"likes":0,"metadata":{"p_key":"42706","p_author":"CagedRat","p_authorkey":"557","p_urlkey":"78341","p_title":"Minima: Postmortum","p_cat":"LD #26","p_event":"LD26","p_time":"1367792760","p_likes":"0","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"557","us_name":"CagedRat","us_username":"cagedrat","event_start":"1366934400","event_key":"16","event_name":"LD26"},"text":"<p>So I made a game. I think it&#8217;s pretty good. Definitely the best game I&#8217;ve made solo. I wanted to not just finish, but to created something very polished. For the most part, I think I succeeded.<\/p>\n <p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-26\/?action=preview&amp;uid=557\">Play it now!<\/a><\/p>\n <p>Friday I discover the core mechanic of my game. Saturday I perfected the core mechanic. Sunday was for polishing and play testing.<\/p>\n <p>V1 was a physics puzzle game where the moving pieces would paint on the background. I didn&#8217;t really like the aesthetics and it sucked, so I scrapped it.<br \/>\n <a href=\"http:\/\/www.screaminggoose.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/v2.png\"><img class=\"alignnone  wp-image-51\" alt=\"v2\" src=\"http:\/\/www.screaminggoose.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/v2.png\" width=\"624\" height=\"484\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n <p>For V2, I wondered if exploring the world of Mondrain would be interesting, so I quickly hacked up a random maze generator:<br \/>\n <a href=\"http:\/\/www.screaminggoose.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/v3.png\"><img class=\"alignnone  wp-image-50\" alt=\"v3\" src=\"http:\/\/www.screaminggoose.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/v3.png\" width=\"624\" height=\"484\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n <p>I tweaked it a bit so that instead of generating a static square, the world would be created as the user moved through it. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.screaminggoose.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/v4.png\"><img class=\"alignnone  wp-image-52\" alt=\"v4\" src=\"http:\/\/www.screaminggoose.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/v4.png\" width=\"624\" height=\"484\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n <h2>What went right<\/h2>\n <ul>\n <li>Unity3D. It&#8217;s so easy. Minima is only about 1700 lines of code. I got to spend a lot of time tweaking game play instead of fighting with complex code. Also I can target Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms for free! I even built it on iOS fairly easily.<\/li>\n <li>The theme. I can&#8217;t draw. The theme let me stick with boxes and make them interesting.<\/li>\n <li>Pentatonic scale. I can&#8217;t compose music. Procedural music from walking around worked out great. Next time I would like to experiment with other scales or fifths.<\/li>\n <li>Playtesting. I got some great initial feedback Sunday morning and was able to tweak it.<\/li>\n <li>Talking blue cube. I was under about making the cube talk. Making it not talk seemed to fit the theme better, but making it talk increases player motivation. Everyone really hates Blue, so I think leaving it talking was the best call.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <h2>What sucked<\/h2>\n <ul>\n <li>The ending. I underestimated how much people need to know when to stop playing. I thought the ending was clever, but it&#8217;s only clever if you&#8217;re me.<\/li>\n <li>Analytics. I really wish I had put analytics in the game so I could know how far people go. Next time it will be a core feature.<\/li>\n <li>Unity 3D. It&#8217;s great, but I got reports of failures on the web build. I had no way of debugging it. Eventually I figured out what the problem was when I ported it to iOS.<\/li>\n <li>Web hosting. I started the weekend with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.screaminggoose.com\">www.screaminggoose.com<\/a> being broken. I&#8217;m all fixed, but next time I&#8217;ll have my web hosting fixed up before hand.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>So, it was awesome. Thank you everyone that played my game!<\/p>\n \n <p>Tags: <a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/tag\/postmortem\/\" rel=\"tag\">postmortem<\/a><\/p>","time":"May 5th, 2013 5:26 pm","title":"Minima: Postmortum"}