{"author_name":"patrickgh3","cat":"LD #24","comments":[{"author_name":"Cake&amp;Code","time":"August 28, 2012 2:50 pm","epoch":1346183400,"text":"I know how you feel about the parts you don&#8217;t want to do&#8230; menus\/transitions are just boring to code aren&#8217;t they? xD","spam":"N"},{"author_name":"johnfn","time":"August 28, 2012 4:37 pm","epoch":1346189820,"text":"&#8220;I procrastinated on the parts I didn\u2019t want to do, such as making a title screen, screen transitions, ending cinematic, and saving progress&#8221;","spam":"N"}],"epoch":1346181000,"likes":1,"metadata":{"p_key":"51686","p_author":"patrickgh3","p_authorkey":"14266","p_urlkey":"87381","p_title":"I guess this is a post-mortem of sorts","p_cat":"LD #24","p_event":"LD24","p_time":"1346181000","p_likes":"1","p_comments":"2","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"14266","us_name":"patrickgh3","us_username":"\/author\/patrickgh3\/","event_start":"1345766400","event_key":"12","event_name":"LD24"},"text":"<p>I feel I should share some thoughts, if only so I can read them some time in the future.<\/p>\n <p><strong>What went right:<\/strong><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>I came up with a game idea I really liked only about an hour into the competition. I was able to spend 95% of the time implementing\/reworking that idea instead of trying to think of one from scratch.<\/li>\n <li>The level design and basic code and graphics were all finished halfway through. I was able to spend the rest of the time adding some polish, and doing the code that didn&#8217;t directly impact the gameplay, such as the ending scene. I wasn&#8217;t too rushed at the end.<\/li>\n <li>I made backups which alleviated a significant amount of frustration when I encountered a game-crashing bug. Gosh it&#8217;s annoying how Construct sometimes doesn&#8217;t tell you what caused the error!<\/li>\n <li>Being pretty experienced in Construct allowed me to glide through all the coding without having any serious problems. I pretty much knew exactly how to do everything from the get-go. There was no confusion with how to use the editor, etc.<\/li>\n <li>Real life didn&#8217;t get in the way! I was able to work the whole 2 days.<\/li>\n <li>No computer \/ internet problems.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p><strong>What went wrong:<\/strong><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>Overall, Construct classic is a great program, but there are\u00a0<span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">many<\/span> small bugs, both in the editor and in the applications it exports. These caused small bits of frustration in development, but more importantly it prevented at least 1 person from being able to play the game due to a crash. When working in Java, I know that no matter what, the application is guaranteed to work everywhere if it works on my machine.<\/li>\n <li>I realized at the very end that some ambient music would have made the game feel a ton better to play. I just put off finding or making it because I knew it would be a tough job, and it just didn&#8217;t get done.<\/li>\n <li>There are a few bugs that I never discovered from playtesting, and I only found them when my friend told me. None are game-breaking, but they&#8217;re just kind of small annoyances.<\/li>\n <li>I procrastinated on the parts I didn&#8217;t want to do, such as making a title screen, screen transitions, ending cinematic, and saving progress. I ended up having to do them all in the last 7 hours, which was when I was the most rushed. I didn&#8217;t have much time to play through the whole game multiple times and find obscure bugs.<\/li>\n <li>I thought and thought, but wasn&#8217;t able to come up with a fitting title. I think this is one of the hardest things to do in making a game. No joke. I&#8217;ve had this problem on every single one of my projects.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>Overall I&#8217;m very pleased because this is the first game I have finished ever that I am actually proud of and want people to play it and might even show it to my friends. Playing all the entries is so far very fun and pretty humbling.<\/p>\n <p>&nbsp;<\/p>","time":"August 28th, 2012 2:10 pm","title":"I guess this is a post-mortem of sorts"}