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Tools<\/strong><\/p>\n This was my second LD that I used Game Maker on. While I’m beginning to get comfortable using the engine, there was still a lot of research needed during the whole process to get features working. I’d say I spend 3-5 hours during the compo just fighting with my lack of knowledge with the engine.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Graphics:<\/strong><\/p>\n I had no real plan for graphics during the development, they just basically evolved from one item to the next.\u00a0 I wish I had spent the first few hours sketching out artwork and a color palette. That would of course lead to using Inkscape to develop the art and then export to bitmap for final finish in The GIMP.<\/p>\n I also wish I had made time for doing animations as well. My first bit of animation was just manipulation of the x and y offset to reflect stricks and hits by the players; and that was way things were going to be until after 3-4 hours of developing my animation base on those offsets I discovered that the HTML5 runner for GameMaker didn’t like how I used local vars for this. As I didn’t want to try and port all of that into something that worked, I ditched the mechanic and side-tabled animation to be picked up later (frame animation coupled with particles + sound… which didn’t actual happen due to time constraints).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sound:<\/strong><\/p>\n I really only had time do the first stab at game sounds; had I made more time for it, I would have had layered sounds so that they didn’t sound so weak.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Music:<\/strong><\/p>\n My plans were, if I had time, to bang out a tune in Sunvox; that generally takes 1-2 hours, so I had to sacrifice that time to get the game to\u00a0 a playable state.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Gameplay:<\/strong><\/p>\n All through development I wanted to get the game to where it was at submission time, then take time out to develop additional content. After that I would have balanced out the gameplay to something enjoyable. I ran out of time there.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What worked:<\/strong><\/p>\n My toolchain<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What didn’t work:<\/strong><\/p>\n My time management skills<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Conclusion:<\/strong><\/p>\n As has been said time and time again, get a working game in your first 6-8 hours. If it takes longer than that, you will be late. The problem was that I let the bithead in my try to use engine mechanics that I had never used before; so that resulted in inflated development time.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Credits:<\/strong><\/p>\n \n