{"author_name":"djtjj","cat":"LD #24","comments":[{"author_name":"Cake&amp;Code","time":"August 28, 2012 4:08 pm","epoch":1346188080,"text":"Tackling a new framework for LD is definitely challenging, glad to hear you made it through the grinder with a playable game! A lot of people don&#8217;t, so give yourself a pat on the back.","spam":"N"}],"epoch":1346178900,"likes":0,"metadata":{"p_key":"51691","p_author":"djtjj","p_authorkey":"14700","p_urlkey":"87386","p_title":"Ludum Dare #24 Post Mortem","p_cat":"LD #24","p_event":"LD24","p_time":"1346178900","p_likes":"0","p_comments":"1","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"14700","us_name":"djtjj","us_username":"djtjj","event_start":"1345766400","event_key":"12","event_name":"LD24"},"text":"<p>So one Ludum Dare later, and now the world has &#8220;<span style=\"color: #3366ff\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-24\/?action=preview&amp;uid=14700\"><span style=\"color: #3366ff\">Disgruntled\u00a0Paddles VERSUS Evolution<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span>&#8220;.<\/p>\n <p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/2012\/08\/28\/paddles-v-evolution-postmor\/screenshot-2-30\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-178420\"><img class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-178420\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Screenshot-21.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"512\" height=\"256\" srcset=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Screenshot-21-300x150.png 300w, http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Screenshot-21.png 512w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n <p>I&#8217;m not quite sure yet whether that&#8217;s a good or bad thing.<\/p>\n <p>More or less it&#8217;s a pong game that evolves based on active (none of that behind the\u00a0scenes\u00a0passive evolution or\u00a0adaption\u00a0here) into\u00a0different\u00a0play styles.<\/p>\n <p>This is the first game I&#8217;ve completed since the 5th grade (it has been in layman&#8217;s terms a veeeeeeeery long while), I&#8217;m glad to finally not feel guilty when I tell people I make games&#8230; (&#8220;Awesome! so can you show me anything you&#8217;ve done?&#8221;\u00a0 &#8220;&#8230;um well, I can show you about 13 unfinished projects, 25 if you count\u00a0unutilized\u00a0sign\u00a0documents.&#8221;)<\/p>\n <p><strong>WHAT WENT RIGHT:<\/strong><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>The Design \/ Scope: I took the time to think about what I was doing, I got up saw the theme and started\u00a0spit-balling. My initial idea was to do pretty much what I ended up doing except that instead of evolving PONG \/ Breakout clone I was going for evolving jRPG clone, but threw it out almost\u00a0immediately\u00a0due to excess of scope. I spent an hour drawing blanks after that, but\u00a0eventually\u00a0I\u00a0realized\u00a0I could maintain the unique aspects of my initial idea and maintain a smaller scope simply by switching to a simpler Genre, the &#8220;first genre ever&#8221; came pretty quickly, then I\u00a0realized\u00a0I could go crazy non-liner by adding breakout (and for a short period of fantasy space invaders) elements (which is something that didn&#8217;t exist in the original jRPG idea). What really helped me with all of this was how modular everything was, excising elements from the design (as I did with plot mutations,\u00a0visual\u00a0mutations and a space invaders evolutionary path) didn&#8217;t effect the\u00a0integrity\u00a0of any other element, just the game\u00a0variety.<\/li>\n <li>Slick \/ Java: I come from a background of trying to\u00a0handle\u00a0very &#8220;abstracted&#8221;\u00a0visual\u00a0programs, Game Maker, Stencyl, and RPG maker which I could never quite get a hold of given the amount of &#8220;workarounds&#8221; needed to implement certain features or genres I desired, Java more or less gave me complete control. Slick was just great to work with, simple and\u00a0intuitive\u00a0and with a wealth of\u00a0tutorials, I went in knowing nothing about the framework and by day 2 I felt I had enough\u00a0knowledge\u00a0to tackle any (2d) project I desired.<\/li>\n <li>Food: I had some leftover pasta, which I ate each day for lunch. I used a store\u00a0boughttomato\u00a0based sauce which I spiced up with some ripe\u00a0freshly\u00a0cut tomatoes, olive oil, &#8220;chunky&#8221; sea salt, and\u00a0parmesan. For dinner I&#8217;d eat\u00a0either\u00a0a combination of veggies and meat balls or low fat\u00a0yogurt\u00a0and something bread based.\u00a0Throughout\u00a0the whole jam I felt satisfied, full, and\u00a0digestively\u00a0undisturbed.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p><strong>WHAT WENT WRONG:<\/strong><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>Planning code structures: Not really something I won&#8217;t repeat next time, but I spent about an hour planning my code structure day one, but as it turns out this is a big no-no when you&#8217;re walking into a framework \/ library system you&#8217;r unfamiliar with. I&#8217;d have\u00a0probably\u00a0made the same mistakes had I not planned out, but having to dump all the code work on the first day <em>and<\/em> lose that hour\u00a0probably\u00a0wasn&#8217;t good.<\/li>\n <li>Slick: As I said slick was awesome, but -turns out- new technology is not your friend during a game jam. As I mentioned I made a drastic mistake on my first day in regards to how I understood slick&#8217;s structure, and I ended up having to dump most of the coding I had done that day. Not to mention I had never ever exported a project out of Eclipse, which was troubling once I figured out whatever I exported didn&#8217;t work. I still don&#8217;t know the reason why, but a series of (probably\u00a0redundant) workarounds later I finally got \u00a0working, and three hours almost ended up going down the drain. All in all the lost time ended up costing me balance testing, AI, and Sound.<\/li>\n <li>No Testers Lined up: Sure I ended up barely making the\u00a0deadline, I&#8217;m not\u00a0referring\u00a0to basic bug testing, but even afterwards I had no way of knowing whether the mac or\u00a0Linux\u00a0versions were working at all which as it turned out weren&#8217;t, I think I&#8217;ve got it fixed, but I have no way of knowing\u00a0until\u00a0someone with\u00a0Linux\u00a0or OSX comes forward with a confirmation. Having some testers lined up from day one could&#8217;ve cleared this up earlier.<\/li>\n <li>No Kittens: Seriously guys. This one is on you.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>So, thar you have it. My first java game, my first game Jam. To many more! Hopefully I&#8217;ll get time this weekend to fix some annoying glitches, balance and speed things up where needed, add sound and post a post-LD version for y&#8217;all to enjoy. Till then: Toodles! (I&#8217;ll be playing other entries now. Forever.)<\/p>\n <p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/2012\/08\/28\/paddles-v-evolution-postmor\/screen-3-7\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-178439\"><img class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-178439\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Screen-31.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"261\" height=\"133\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n <p>-Sam (you can find\u00a0<strong>Disgruntled\u00a0Paddles VERSUS Evolution\u00a0<\/strong>over -&gt; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-24\/?action=preview&amp;uid=14700\"><strong><span style=\"color: #3366ff\">here<\/span><\/strong><\/a>)<\/p>\n \n <p>Tags: <a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/tag\/jam\/\" rel=\"tag\">jam<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/tag\/ld24\/\" rel=\"tag\">ld24<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/tag\/post-mortem\/\" rel=\"tag\">post-mortem<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/tag\/postmortem\/\" rel=\"tag\">postmortem<\/a><\/p>","time":"August 28th, 2012 1:35 pm","title":"Ludum Dare #24 Post Mortem"}