{"author_name":"iambored2006","cat":"LD #26","comments":[],"epoch":1367225940,"likes":1,"metadata":{"p_key":"43299","p_author":"iambored2006","p_authorkey":"22590","p_urlkey":"78935","p_title":"Against the Current \u2013 post mortem","p_cat":"LD #26","p_event":"LD26","p_time":"1367225940","p_likes":"1","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"22590","us_name":"iambored2006","us_username":"iambored2006","event_start":"1366934400","event_key":"16","event_name":"LD26"},"text":"<p>Port mortem is where you write what went good and what went bad, right? Well, let&#8217;s get to it then-<br \/>\n First of all, here&#8217;s my entry- http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-26\/?action=preview&amp;uid=22590<br \/>\n I was going to post it in the compo, but then my computer became crazy and I had no internet connection. It&#8217;s sad, really, but looking at my game now, I think it fits the jam better.<\/p>\n <p><strong>What went good:<\/strong><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>In terms of code quality, this project exceeds almost all of my other projects in every aspect.<\/li>\n <li>I was having fun doing the graphics, even though they&#8217;re probably the crappiest you&#8217;ll find here.<\/li>\n <li>I found out that most of the utility classes I wrote months ago, such as Animation and Font, work seamlessly, so that if I when I start new projects, I&#8217;ll have all the boiler-plate code already available and know it works. I had fun abstracting code which I usually have to look at the whole time I&#8217;m working on my project, so all in all, my framework worked nicely.<\/li>\n <li>I&#8217;m happy with the concept of the game. I came up with it within 10 minutes of seeing what the theme is, and I don&#8217;t feel like I could have improved upon it had I waited 5 more hours. The idea fit the theme, was extremely east to implement, and worked nicely throughout the process. It&#8217;s not really a good game at all, but that wasn&#8217;t the point for me.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n <p><strong>What went bad:<\/strong><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>Saturday- us Jews can&#8217;t use electronics on Saturday. It meant I had to join when everyone else was already 13 hours into the jam, but this is just a minor gripe. I had lots of spare time.<\/li>\n <li>I realized, when it was too late to reformat the framework, that the game state framework I&#8217;ve been planning for the past few weeks has a flawed core function. It means I couldn&#8217;t make a menu screen, a (real) pause screen, or a level editor. This is my next problem:<\/li>\n <li>I&#8217;m already awful at level design, having to code a level every time was just too much. If I&#8217;d made a level editor from the beginning, I would probably have made double the amount of levels in the final product, which is a measly 7.<\/li>\n <li>I wasn&#8217;t satisfied at all with the sound effects BFXR generated, so in the end there isn&#8217;t any sound in the game at all, which is a shame. For future projects I&#8217;ll know to ask friends to make the audio instead of a cheap (but sometimes effective) sound generator.<\/li>\n <li>It&#8217;s the same with graphics- I don&#8217;t really care that my graphics suck, but when I started writing the actual gameplay I&#8217;d already worked for more than an hour trying to set up the framework, which is way more than the usual for me, and when I got the core gameplay set up, I started working on the basic sprites. Their cruminess, along with the sucky feel the game had in the beginning, got me seriously demotivated. I was even considering scrapping the idea and starting anew, but then I read some posts of people who had done just that and regretted it, so I pushed on, and I&#8217;m glad I did.<\/li>\n <li>I was really shoddy with how I implemented collision detection and other things of the sort, so that adds up to the game total crumminess. I know how to write good collision detection code, so that&#8217;s not really a problem for future games.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n <p>All in all, this was a really fun experience. I&#8217;ll be sure to participate in august, and in the meantime, let&#8217;s rate some games!<\/p>","time":"April 29th, 2013 3:59 am","title":"Against the Current \u2013 post mortem"}