{"author_name":"Ranmara","cat":"LD #26","comments":[{"author_name":"wonderwhy-er","time":"April 30, 2013 5:35 am","epoch":1367318100,"text":"Yeah, LD is good at making you do it while usually you can’t for some reason.
\n Great game!","spam":"N"}],"epoch":1367315160,"likes":3,"metadata":{"p_key":"43008","p_author":"Ranmara","p_authorkey":"22529","p_urlkey":"78643","p_title":"Critical Failure \u2013 Post Mortem","p_cat":"LD #26","p_event":"LD26","p_time":"1367315160","p_likes":"3","p_comments":"1","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"22529","us_name":"Ranmara","us_username":"ranmara","event_start":"1366934400","event_key":"16","event_name":"LD26"},"text":"

Hi there, we linked our game last night but were too tired to write a proper post mortem.<\/p>\n

When we heard the theme was “minimalism” our entire team groaned, as it was the one theme we had all down voted. However, \u00a0we had to press on so we brain stormed to come up with our own take on minimalism – as you play the game, rather than gaining upgrades and the game becoming more complex, you sacrifice abilities to stay alive. By the end of the game you are surviving on -minimal- power! A little tenuous but it gave us an idea we could all be enthusiastic about.<\/p>\n

\"Yay,<\/a>

Yay, you killed the initial boss!<\/p><\/div>\n

Play Critical Failure (Flash)<\/a><\/p>\n

Overall we are very happy with the game. It came together easily in the end, however because both our designer and programmer had to work Monday, we didn’t get the time we would have liked to polish the game. The control system needs tweaking, some of the dialogue text is buggy and not synced correctly, and we didn’t have time to play through the game enough to test the ending (I think at the moment it returns to the main menu too soon). That said, we did get a lot of features implemented – all the side panel buttons work and give interesting functions (rather than just stat changes) and the game is enjoyable to play if you can see past the issues.<\/p>\n

We have tried to make games together before but never made much progress, mostly because 2 or 3 of our team work in game development and they often don’t have the time and energy to make games out of work as well. So LD was a great chance for us all to get a finished product to show what we can achieve.\u00a0As an artist I was amazed at watching my images come to life and start moving – it was like magic.<\/p>\n

If we were to do it again? Hopefully we would get a theme that was more to our tastes. That being said, I do understand now why people wanted minimalism – very simple but experimental games keep the features list as low as possible for polish and testing. Given a second time around I would look for ideas that can not only be completed in the time, but also finished up and properly tested as well.<\/p>\n

Would love to Ludum Dare again!<\/p>\n

– Sam, lead artist.<\/p>","time":"April 30th, 2013 4:46 am","title":"Critical Failure \u2013 Post Mortem"}