{"author_name":"Mach60KAS","cat":"LD #26","comments":[{"author_name":"","time":"April 30, 2013 9:33 am","epoch":1367332380,"text":"Wow, GREAT post-mortem! Voting on your submission now","spam":"N"}],"epoch":1367331540,"likes":3,"metadata":{"p_key":"42975","p_author":"Mach60KAS","p_authorkey":"5788","p_urlkey":"78610","p_title":"Treasure! Postmortem and Timelapse","p_cat":"LD #26","p_event":"LD26","p_time":"1367331540","p_likes":"3","p_comments":"1","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"5788","us_name":"Mach60KAS","us_username":"mach60kas","event_start":"1366934400","event_key":"16","event_name":"LD26"},"text":"<p>So, I managed to finish off my game just in time for submission hour last night. There&#8217;s not much, but it&#8217;s really been a great learning experience! If you&#8217;re interested, you can find the submission page at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-26\/?action=preview&amp;uid=5788\">http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-26\/?action=preview&amp;uid=5788<\/a>. I&#8217;ve put together this postmortem for anyone interested in the myriad problems that can occur if they&#8217;re looking to join in Ludum Dare:<\/p>\n <p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>Timelapse<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n <p><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fTF38_gsfhw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n <p>For my third Ludum Dare and my third game, even though I preferred it to my other games I was a little bit disappointed. Why? It&#8217;s simple &#8211; inexperience with javascript pushed me beyond the 48-hour target and into the Jam.<\/p>\n <p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>Tools and Software Used<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sublimetext.com\/\">Sublime Text 2<\/a> was used for all the Javascript code, HTML and CSS. I even edited the maps exclusively with it!<\/li>\n <li>Photoshop CS5 64-Bit was used for the tileset, sprite and image design.<\/li>\n <li><a href=\"http:\/\/famitracker.com\/\">Famitracker<\/a>, an excellent NES tracker was used to create the sound effects.<\/li>\n <li>Google Chrome for testing.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>What went right?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>The stylistic choice of an 8-colour palette really helped simplify the graphics work, and using a set of tonally similar colours makes the graphics easier on the eyes.<\/li>\n <li>Tileset design was just as easy as I&#8217;d remember it!<\/li>\n <li>I had written a system in javascript for loading files and calling specific tiles from tilesets in another project a few weeks prior &#8211; a lot of the initial code (which I was writing before I had a fully-formed idea) came naturally.<\/li>\n <li>Thankfully, working with canvas and javascript for game logic proved to be quite intuitive in the end.<\/li>\n <li>Level construction was quite an easy task once I figured out the many quirks of my systems; it took just a few hours to extend out from a single room to an entire complex of rooms!<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>What went wrong?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>Having never so much as looked at collision checking code, writing this (very important) system took a significant amount of time.<\/li>\n <li>Writing the game logic was unfortunately troublesome at first while I tried to figure out where each step should occur in the update queue.<\/li>\n <li>Being a newbie at javascript, it felt a bit like writing the rendering and control systems took far longer than it should have taken. Ideally I should have anticipated this and prepared an engine in advance or researched an already-existing one.<\/li>\n <li>Map editing by text was painful. And I do mean that with all sincerity. I had a look at Ogmo engine mid-compo but I ultimately decided that decoding the file format would have been far too much trouble.<\/li>\n <li>Sprite design is&#8230; not exactly my cup of tea.<\/li>\n <li>I could have probably managed my time more efficiently, or planned it out at all.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>Thoughts for next time:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>Have way more experience with your chosen programming language!<\/li>\n <li>Plan out your time well, even if bugs do crop up it&#8217;s good to keep a rough idea of what you want to have finished by a certain time.<\/li>\n <li>Have an engine you want to use picked out in advance! Unless of course there isn&#8217;t an engine quite suitable for your idea.<\/li>\n <li>Ideally, write something simple enough that you can finish with enough spare time to write sound effects and\/or music. They really complete the experience, and it really sucks not having any completed in time.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>If you&#8217;ve read this through, then thanks a lot for your time! Now you can return to rating all of the wonderful games that LD48 gives rise to. <img src=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-includes\/images\/smilies\/simple-smile.png\" alt=\":)\" class=\"wp-smiley\" style=\"height: 1em; max-height: 1em;\" \/><\/p>\n <p>-Mach<\/p>","time":"April 30th, 2013 9:19 am","title":"Treasure! Postmortem and Timelapse"}