{"author_name":"saguaro","cat":"LD #24","comments":[],"epoch":1346319300,"likes":0,"metadata":{"p_key":"51597","p_author":"saguaro","p_authorkey":"14557","p_urlkey":"87291","p_title":"Young Earth Road Trip Postmortem","p_cat":"LD #24","p_event":"LD24","p_time":"1346319300","p_likes":"0","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"14557","us_name":"saguaro","us_username":"saguaro","event_start":"1345766400","event_key":"12","event_name":"LD24"},"text":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/2012\/08\/30\/179639\/screenshot0002-3\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-179643\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/screenshot00022-300x225.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-179643\" srcset=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/screenshot00022-300x225.png 300w, http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/screenshot00022-550x412.png 550w, http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/screenshot00022.png 1008w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n <p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-24\/?action=preview&amp;uid=14557\">Play\/Rate<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n <p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-24\/?action=preview&amp;uid=14557\">Young Earth Road Trip<\/a> was my first LD game. I had a great time (for the most part: see Period of Despondency), was able to include all of the major features I wanted, and learned a lot.<\/p>\n <p><strong>What Went Right<\/strong><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li> My game plan worked very well.  Friday brainstorm, Saturday build, Sunday polish.  <\/li>\n <li> I only had one strong concept idea, but I was able to develop the rest of the story and the game play very quickly once I decided that my core idea was, &#8220;YEC pilgrimages to the Creationist Museum.&#8221;  <\/li>\n <li> I narrowed my scope early on.  The original neighborhood had eight neighbors, plus Miguel&#8217;s house at 316 and a few other locations, but I decided to go with the four strongest characters and only have 4 locations. <\/li>\n <li> Gained confidence in my graphic abilities.  I mentioned this when I finished the game, but I thought the real crutch would be graphic assets.  But once I got started, the graphics part went very quickly and the assets are &#8220;good enough&#8221; to convey the story and some of the humor.  <\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p><strong>What Went Wrong<\/strong><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li> Most notably, music.  I &#8220;scouted out&#8221; music tools beforehand and decided, &#8220;Oh, I&#8217;ll just use inudge.&#8221;  Somehow, I didn&#8217;t notice that inudge had no convenient way to export the song, so when I started working on music about three hours before deadline I realized I was stuck.  My computer doesn&#8217;t have speakers, so I couldn&#8217;t even record a crappy version that way.  I didn&#8217;t trust myself to learn how to use new software before the deadline, so I ended up pecking out something on piano for the ending (the rest of the game has sound, but no music).<\/li>\n <li> My Period of Despondency: Early afternoon Sunday I started to wear down.  I was tired and I wanted away from the computer.  The game was technically complete, but there were a lot of graphics, music, and sounds to add.  I didn&#8217;t think I would be able to finish the ending sequence, which required a lot of new images.  Fortunately, I got a second wind (had to give myself a little pep talk there).<\/li>\n <li> When I leave an asset, I really leave it.  Forever.  On a number graphic assets I told myself I&#8217;d come back and add detail work, but never did.  In the future I&#8217;d go ahead and spend the extra minutes polishing up each one before I move on.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p><strong>The Future<\/strong><br \/>\n I ran out of time for a few things, like a parallax bus-driving scene and blinking eyes, but overall I was able to include everything major that I planned for.  With the exception of adding music and a splash screen, I probably won&#8217;t make any changes (and I might not even make those, since this game is a nice time capsule of my current skill level).  But I&#8217;d like to take some of the things I learned (like how to make the random God hints) and apply them to new games.<\/p>\n \n <p>Tags: <a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/tag\/ld24\/\" rel=\"tag\">ld24<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/tag\/postmortem\/\" rel=\"tag\">postmortem<\/a><\/p>","time":"August 30th, 2012 4:35 am","title":"Young Earth Road Trip Postmortem"}