{"author_name":"Mach60KAS","cat":"LD #24","comments":[{"author_name":"Demian.J","time":"August 27, 2012 1:43 pm","epoch":1346092980,"text":"Seeing that you have a romantically apocalyptic Wallpaper as your desktop background was enaugh for me to give you a fav. I think the Captain would agree with me. She is such a lovly lady, don&#8217;t you agree?","spam":"N"}],"epoch":1346077980,"likes":2,"metadata":{"p_key":"51884","p_author":"Mach60KAS","p_authorkey":"5788","p_urlkey":"87582","p_title":"2052 Postmortem","p_cat":"LD #24","p_event":"LD24","p_time":"1346077980","p_likes":"2","p_comments":"1","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"5788","us_name":"Mach60KAS","us_username":"mach60kas","event_start":"1345766400","event_key":"12","event_name":"LD24"},"text":"<p>Well, this Ludum Dare was certainly many orders of magnitude easier than the previous one; for that, I&#8217;m beyond infinitely thankful. Where the previous LD had me basically begging for death in the last few hours, I felt far more relaxed overall working on a more simple piece of interactive fiction &#8211; considering I find writing to be far easier than coding! The game itself can be found <a title=\"2052\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-24\/?action=preview&amp;uid=5788\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>. As before, I&#8217;ve put together a timelapse video of the process (though it&#8217;s nowhere near as exciting as the one I made for Quark).<\/p>\n <p><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2xRGMb3v034?fs=1&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n <p>I&#8217;m really, genuinely pleased with the result this time around, and I&#8217;d really best get on to the actual Post Mortem itself!<\/p>\n <p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>What Went Right?:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li><strong>I analysed more or less exactly how much free time I had over the weekend, and planned accordingly.<\/strong> Having failed to keep my weekend free, I had somewhere in the region of 16 hours of time to work on a game &#8211; so I decided that I&#8217;d need to make a far easier project if I wanted to have a completed entry. Hence, why I decided on writing interactive fiction.<\/li>\n <li><strong>Choosing a far easier project majorly cut down on stress. <\/strong>Unlike the previous Ludum Dare, I wasn&#8217;t freaking out or obsessing over the clock. With a far easier project in the works, I could afford the time to take it easy and more or less relax.<\/li>\n <li><strong>Twine is fantastic, and extremely easy to use. <\/strong>I had never used it before this weekend, and yet in no time at all I had grasped not only how to work it, but also to customise virtually all facets of 2052&#8217;s design. Having prior experience with CSS helped out here, naturally, but CSS is so user friendly that allowing the user to build their own stylesheets was a fantastic idea in and of itself.<\/li>\n <li><strong>I ate well and got plenty of sleep over the weekend.<\/strong><\/li>\n <li><strong>I cut out all the supernatural elements I had originally planned for the story.<\/strong>\u00a0Seriously, that stuff just does not gel well with dystopian Sci-Fi.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>What Went Wrong?:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li><strong>I had entirely neglected to secure the weekend off. <\/strong>A laundry list of real life obligations cropped up, and I should have prepared against them far in advance.<\/li>\n <li><strong>My story lacks a high amount of interactivity. <\/strong>I feel if I had more time, I would have based all of the elements in the story on player choice &#8211; just now it reads more like fiction scribbled onto an html document rather than true interactive fiction.<\/li>\n <li><strong>Some more art would have helped to set the mood.<\/strong> I only had the time to create the opening graphic, and I feel more small graphics like that would have helped to show the world of 2052 to players.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>Things to Consider for Next Time:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li><strong>Actually take the time off work!<\/strong><\/li>\n <li><strong>I should have far more interactivity in any future IF I make &#8211; otherwise it just isn&#8217;t fun.<\/strong><\/li>\n <li><strong>I shouldn&#8217;t feel restricted to the standard definition of a &#8216;game&#8217; either: Ludum Dare is all about experimentation!<\/strong><\/li>\n <li><del><strong>Submit more food pictures.<\/strong><\/del><strong>Keep on having fun with LD &#8211; I should try to relax and keep away from overbearing pressure when I need to.<\/strong><\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>That&#8217;s it for this overview of my second Ludum Dare experience, I might post again later to show some of the LD highlights once I&#8217;ve reviewed 100 games or so. If not, then I&#8217;ll see you all again in December!<\/p>","time":"August 27th, 2012 9:33 am","title":"2052 Postmortem"}