{"author_name":"Smaxx","cat":"LD #26","comments":[],"epoch":1367392200,"likes":1,"metadata":{"p_key":"42898","p_author":"Smaxx","p_authorkey":"19197","p_urlkey":"78533","p_title":"Rocky Flight Balloon!","p_cat":"LD #26","p_event":"LD26","p_time":"1367392200","p_likes":"1","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"19197","us_name":"Smaxx","us_username":"smaxx","event_start":"1366934400","event_key":"16","event_name":"LD26"},"text":"

…and then I completely forgot about posting something about the finished game.<\/em><\/p>\n

Well, I’ll do that now:<\/em><\/p>\n

Here is Rocky Flight Balloon<\/a>!<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"screenshot\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I ran short on time, so I had to scrap the not-so-perfectly working bramble code and replace it with some simple rocks, which is also the reason for the new name.<\/p>\n

But overall, that’s not necessarily a bad thing: I really like the new direction which also offered me a rather simple Background Story.<\/p>\n

From the first feedback I got\u00a0here and off-site, I’m quite tempted to port the whole game to mobile platforms — namely Android — because I can imagine it working rather well to pass some time on a touch screen device.<\/p>\n

I tried recording me solving the “Impossible” difficulty, yet I just couldn’t pull it off (one attempt I’ve been off the goal by about one screen…) and at once another hour had passed…<\/p>\n

Feel free to try it<\/a>, if you manage to solve “Impossible”, make sure to record it, I’d like to see. But don’t be disappointed if you can’t pull it off: the “level generation” is completely random, so this game requires perception, planning, reaction, and luck<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A short post-mortem<\/strong><\/p>\n

I had quite some fun participating this time, despite being rather short on time. Finding some idea to do has been rather hard for me (“Minimalism” is sooo minimalistic idea wise and so generic!).<\/p>\n

At first I haven’t been 100% sure about the art style, which is completely different from my last entry, Black Knight Blockade<\/a>. Especially with a white unicolored background the game looked just too simple.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, adding the sunset as well as the mountain range solved this problem rather well.<\/p>\n

The player character works rather nice, considering his simple design; someting that really got me by surprise. I might adapt that style for future games.<\/p>\n

Not being able to create some mean looking collidable brambles has been a small bummer, but as mentioned above, the rocks work rather well, too.<\/p>\n

I’ll most likely spend next weekend looking for opportunities to port the whole thing to Android (I’m not really a big fan of Java). If this is successfull, I’m definitely going to add more things to the game like different obstacles (birds? brambles?) and make the game more configurable, possibly even adding some way to speed up or slow down the game also providing some kind of highscore.<\/p>\n

Some people suggested adding some kind of\u00a0progress or score display, but I’m not really sold on this. I tried to keep the UI minimalistic (i.e. non-existant) to have a clean and clear look. I don’t think I’ll depart from that. Also, just to mention it, the mountain range works as some kind of hidden progress indicator. The smallest mountain disappears once you’ve reached the goal. Just have a look yourself using the easiest difficulty.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One more\u00a0last thing…<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’m still looking for a cute name for this still nameless hero(ine):<\/p>\n

\"floating\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So, if you want, get creative: I don’t want him\/her to stay nameless I think.<\/p>\n \n

Tags: a flight of thorns<\/a>, postmortem<\/a>, rocky flight balloon<\/a><\/p>","time":"May 1st, 2013 2:10 am","title":"Rocky Flight Balloon!"}