{"author_name":"Guardian_Bob","cat":"LD #24","comments":[{"author_name":"","time":"August 28, 2012 9:31 am","epoch":1346164260,"text":"It&#8217;s a good thing that there&#8217;s a lot of unique ways to interpret the theme then, instead of only one way to do it!","spam":"N"}],"epoch":1346160600,"likes":1,"metadata":{"p_key":"51712","p_author":"Guardian_Bob","p_authorkey":"15211","p_urlkey":"87407","p_title":"Post LD48\u2026  What Worked and What Didn\u2019t","p_cat":"LD #24","p_event":"LD24","p_time":"1346160600","p_likes":"1","p_comments":"1","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"15211","us_name":"Guardian_Bob","us_username":"guardian_bob","event_start":"1345766400","event_key":"12","event_name":"LD24"},"text":"<h1><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-24\/?action=preview&amp;uid=15211\"><font color=\"black\">Sheep Breeder<\/font><\/a><\/h1>\n <h2>The Good<\/h2>\n <ul>\n <li>Following the Theme\n <ul>I was able to get a more strict adherence to the theme than most. Let&#8217;s be honest here, &#8220;evolving&#8221; a gun at random isn&#8217;t really evolving. It is mutating. For true evolution you need generations and traits passed on.\u00a0 In playing a number of games I&#8217;ve seen this issue side stepped. My wife who is a sheep farmer (where you breed to get certain traits) has been educating me for years, so I felt I had a very good grounding in reality for this game.<\/ul>\n <ul>&nbsp;<\/ul>\n <ul>Basically with a theme like evolution you can:<\/p>\n <li>Complain<\/li>\n <li>Make the game you want and ignore the theme<\/li>\n <li>Make the game you kinda want that you can kinda claim follows the theme<\/li>\n <li>Follow the theme &#8211; ignore the consequences<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <ul>&nbsp;<\/ul>\n <ul>I&#8217;m glad I followed the theme, even if it felt more challenging.<\/ul>\n <\/li>\n <li>Content Generation\n <ul>This is more luck than anything else. I could use real sheep for sounds and pictures.<\/ul>\n <\/li>\n <li>VirtualBox\n <ul>While it might make playing some games harder, this was a blessing for me while developing.  Taking a snapshot as I was developing was far easier than using any kind of SCC or other backup system.  Time lapse became simple, you can even see the virtual machine reboot in my <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XHHUlmXAbz8\">timelapse video.<\/a><\/ul>\n <\/li>\n <li>Visual Studio 2012\n <ul>Microsoft hasn&#8217;t changed Visual Studio much in the past years.  Yes it is themed differently, but it works basically the same which helped a lot.  I only stated using it 3 days before the compo so this worked out.  It could have gone the other direction fairly easily.<\/ul>\n <\/li>\n <li>.Net 3.5\n <ul>I was able to make a game that will run on just about any Windows based machine without installing anything extra.  This made me quite happy.<\/ul>\n <\/li>\n <li>SFML\n <ul>I only used the audio portion, and barely scratched the surface of this 3rd party library.  I appreciate the ease of use and clean structure.<\/ul>\n <\/li>\n <li>Lack of Bugs\n <ul>Watch my <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XHHUlmXAbz8\">timelapse video<\/a>, there are very few show stopping bugs.  Taking care while constructing my classes helped immensely with this.<\/ul>\n <\/li>\n <li>Finishing\n <ul>The last game I did was in Hypercard nearly 20 years ago.  Tic-tac-toe.  I&#8217;m proud that I was able to finish with something playable.<\/ul>\n <\/li>\n <li>Own Webserver &#8211; Semi-Live Stream\n <ul>On the VM host I was able to use the timelapse software to create screen shots as I worked.  Those were saved on a network drive and shared via webpage as I was going along.  This semi-live stream kept my server from dying (even though there was over 2 GB of files downloaded) while people were watching.  There&#8217;s something to be said for owning the entire chain.<\/ul>\n <\/li>\n <li>Sleep\/Food\n <ul>Typically I get 6 hours of sleep.  I got 7 each night during the Ludum Dare.  I know my brain was in over drive as my body kept yelling &#8220;Consume All The FOOD!&#8221;  I was able to finish without coffee or any soda with caffeine.  Beer did help as well at night to settle things down.<\/ul>\n <\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <h2>The Bad<\/h2>\n <ul>\n <li>Following the Theme\n <ul>I had an awesome idea for parallel worlds\/companion that I would have loved to do.  Maybe next time.<\/ul>\n <\/li>\n <li>Content Generation\n <ul>I can&#8217;t draw to save my life.  I can&#8217;t make sounds\/music.  I focused on the core game play as a result.  The screenshot doesn&#8217;t look as interesting as most entries.<\/ul>\n <\/li>\n <li>Visual Studio 2012\n <ul>Microsoft hasn&#8217;t changed Visual Studio much in the past years.  They haven&#8217;t fixed the bug where the tool generates a 32-bit icon it can&#8217;t edit.  What&#8217;s worse, the default color pallet for the icon editor is all shades of gray, with no standard 8 bit pallet provided.  Intellisense stopped working.  You&#8217;d think after 7 years they could get this right.<\/ul>\n <\/li>\n <li>Lack of Experience\n <ul>I haven&#8217;t done a lot of game design, so this was tough in many ways for me.<\/ul>\n <\/li>\n <li>Food\n <ul>I needed more variety in my food choices.  It would have made me much happier.<\/ul>\n <\/li>\n <li>Time\/Features\n <ul>I had to drop a major feature that would have helped a lot with the game.  The bi-annual fair, which was supposed to give the player money and help them see their progress.  I just couldn&#8217;t do it in time.<\/ul>\n <\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <h2>I Almost Soiled My Trousers When&#8230;<\/h2>\n <ul>\n <li>.Net 3.5 + SFML + VirtualBox\n <ul>I was using a 32-bit version of Windows 7.  I had to submit my entry a few hours early due to another engagement.  Right before I submit I tried my game on the host OS.  It crashes with no information.  I bring up the event viewer and see that SFML had an invalid image exception.  <i>Invalid Image?  I&#8217;m not using the image library.  WTF?<\/i>  Then it hits me.  My host is 64 bit and the VM is 32.  The invalid image exception isn&#8217;t related to media at all, it is the dll image.  I quickly force my project to build in 32 bit mode.  That diving catch prevented many other headaches later on.<\/ul>\n <\/li>\n <\/ul>","time":"August 28th, 2012 8:30 am","title":"Post LD48\u2026  What Worked and What Didn\u2019t"}