{"author_name":"SFX","cat":"LD #24","comments":[],"epoch":1346086620,"likes":0,"metadata":{"p_key":"51854","p_author":"SFX","p_authorkey":"10908","p_urlkey":"87552","p_title":"End Humanity! \u2013 Post Mortem","p_cat":"LD #24","p_event":"LD24","p_time":"1346086620","p_likes":"0","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"10908","us_name":"SFX","us_username":"sfx","event_start":"1345766400","event_key":"12","event_name":"LD24"},"text":"<p>Mission complete!\u00a0 I (mostly) finished my 2nd Ludum Dare game, <a title=\"Go kill all humans\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-24\/?action=preview&amp;uid=10908\">End Humanity<\/a>.\u00a0 Since post-mortems are the thing to do, I shall be doing that thing.<\/p>\n <p><strong>What went well<\/strong><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li><a title=\"LOVE has the best library names\" href=\"http:\/\/love2d.org\">L\u00d6VE<\/a> is still great, and Lua is still&#8230;alright.\u00a0 It was a pleasure to work with.\u00a0 I can&#8217;t recommend it enough.\u00a0 Supposedly there&#8217;s a potentially working web-player for L\u00d6VE.\u00a0 I&#8217;ll need to see if it will work with my game.<\/li>\n <li>I was able to come up with an okay game idea based on the terrible, terrible theme.\u00a0 I take that back, it&#8217;s not terrible, it&#8217;s just that I didn&#8217;t expect it to win.\u00a0 I had a decent idea of what I could do for most of the last 20 themes, but I had no idea what to do for &#8220;evolution&#8221;.<\/li>\n <li>I was able to finish the &#8220;core&#8221; of the game relatively quickly.\u00a0 Making placeholder art really helped, although some of the placeholder art I ended up using.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p><strong>What could have gone better<\/strong><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>I wanted to make a game that was different from my <a title=\"Save that planet!\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-23\/?action=preview&amp;uid=10908\">last game<\/a>, but I made another shooter.\u00a0 Not that I have anything against shooters, I just wanted to do something a bit different.<\/li>\n <li>I think should have spent a few minutes making very simple and effortless placeholder sounds and music in addition to the placeholder art.\u00a0 I think it&#8217;s easier to program the sound\/music initially instead of towards the end like I did with this game.\u00a0 In retrospect, some of the placeholder art could have been simpler; e.g., the plane could have been a giant triangle.<\/li>\n <li>sfxr and Audacity were quite handy, but I wish I had the time to use my mic and at least attempt to get some better sounds.<\/li>\n <li>I wish I had time to put a tutorial in.\u00a0 If not that, at least a help screen.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p><strong>What went horribly wrong<\/strong><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>I think I tried to make my game too big.\u00a0 I only put 24 hours into the game.\u00a0 If I had put in the 30 hours that I originally planned to, then I think I would have been fine.\u00a0 But I didn&#8217;t.\u00a0 I didn&#8217;t get to add all the abilities, enemies and features (e.g., mute) I wanted to add.\u00a0 Also, I didn&#8217;t get a chance to properly balance the difficulty.\u00a0 I tried to at least make the game beatable (unlike my last game), but I&#8217;m a bit worried I made the game too easy.\u00a0 Now that I think about it, it might just not get hard quickly enough (that&#8217;s what she said).\u00a0 I think the later waves might be a bit brutal.<\/li>\n <li>Since I ran low on time, I just forgot to do certain things.\u00a0 I forgot to turn off the FPS counter off.\u00a0 There are no sounds or graphics for the heal and toxic cloud (which is now an invisible toxic cloud) abilities upon activations.\u00a0 I completely neglected to make the ground something other than a green slab of green.\u00a0 I&#8217;m sure other neglected things will come to me later this week.<\/li>\n <li>It took me 2 hours to come up with and record all of the music, and that&#8217;s terrible (too long).\u00a0 I&#8217;m not too pleased with how the battle music turned out.\u00a0 Also, I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s properly EQed.\u00a0 Since I was so strapped on time, I didn&#8217;t get a chance to go back and readjust the levels like I had wanted to.<\/li>\n <li>Art is still hard!\u00a0 Pinta is okay when it works, but it&#8217;s a bit buggy.\u00a0 Gimp is nice, but too meaty for my mouse drawing abilities.\u00a0 Maybe I should invest in a tablet.\u00a0 I figure it would be easier to draw things with a tablet than using a mouse to do psuedo-pixel art.\u00a0 I&#8217;m not really that into pixel art anyway.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>So that&#8217;s pretty much it.\u00a0 Have you destroyed humanity yet?\u00a0 <a title=\"Seriously, protect your children!\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-24\/?action=preview&amp;uid=10908\">You probably should<\/a>.\u00a0 I&#8217;m sure this is where people start doing the self-promotion; e.g, telling people to follow them on various social things.\u00a0 Unfortunately, I&#8217;ve no wares to pimp.<\/p>","time":"August 27th, 2012 11:57 am","title":"End Humanity! \u2013 Post Mortem"}