{"author_name":"aquasheep","cat":"LD #24","comments":[],"epoch":1346064780,"likes":0,"metadata":{"p_key":"51914","p_author":"aquasheep","p_authorkey":"13033","p_urlkey":"87612","p_title":"Post-Mortem-Post: Static","p_cat":"LD #24","p_event":"LD24","p_time":"1346064780","p_likes":"0","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"13033","us_name":"aquasheep","us_username":"aquasheep","event_start":"1345766400","event_key":"12","event_name":"LD24"},"text":"<p>Hello all! I hope everyone feels pretty happy with what they&#8217;ve produced, and I can&#8217;t wait to have time to sit down and play more entries and start reviewing! As for my game, Static, here&#8217;s the rundown:<\/p>\n <h3>The Good<\/h3>\n <ul>\n <li>Got a cool idea Friday night after brainstorming for a while.<\/li>\n <li>It was an idea that I knew I could actually do even with my tiny amount of experience with LibGDX and total lack of sophisticated game dev know-how.<\/li>\n <li>Static has every feature that I wanted to add to it, and *crosses fingers* no game-breaking bugs.<\/li>\n <li>Static is pretty fun to play and mess around with.<\/li>\n <li>Instead of the usual obsessing over the music for ever, I just did it, and it works pretty well.<\/li>\n <li>Eclipse, Git, and my laptop cooperated pretty well for the duration.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <h3>The Not-So-Good<\/h3>\n <ul>\n <li>Got a bit of a late start on Saturday, could&#8217;ve gotten up earlier.<\/li>\n <li>The game is a definite CPU hog (but it&#8217;s still playable!)<\/li>\n <li>Lack of planning and realizing GWT is complicated prevented the intended web version from happening. As far as I knew applets just happened&#8230;<\/li>\n <li>No Android version because of the performance issues.<\/li>\n <li>Code could be *much* cleaner; particularly on Sunday, I found myself implementing more than a few magic numbers, and I didn&#8217;t change them for lack of time.<\/li>\n <li>No menu screen. I have yet to figure out the proper way to do this with LibGDX, either through scene2D or TWL; all of the tutorials I found were just too dated for this fast-paced engine.<\/li>\n <li>Because of the lack of menu screen, the controls are a small wall of text in-game, but they are organized, legible, and hopefully, clear.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <h3>Conclusions:<\/h3>\n <ul>\n <li>LD is a lot of fun!<\/li>\n <li>It&#8217;s important to focus on something that you know you can do and as many people have said, not try to learn much during the compo.<\/li>\n <li>Porting to web is hard; learn it in advance if you intend to do it.<\/li>\n <li>Enjoy your time, and don&#8217;t panic!<\/li>\n <li>Spend some time reading Twitter and the main page; there&#8217;s fun and inspiring stuff on there.<\/li>\n <li>If you have trouble concentrating (like me), there&#8217;s no better cure than LD. I was really amazed at how focused I could be on a project that was fun and very challenging to do, and extremely rewarding!<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>Overall, I think I did pretty well with a *hopefully* fun sand-box game, a different interpretation of the theme, and a fun time coding. I can&#8217;t wait for the next one when I&#8217;ll have learned some more of the intricacies of game programming and can make something more sophisticated. In the meantime, however, please enjoy playing and rating <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-24\/?action=preview&amp;uid=13033\">my game<\/a>; I&#8217;ll be sure to play yours as well!<\/p>\n <p>Thanks to everyone in the LD community for a great and truly inspiring time! Here&#8217;s a screenshot (and link \ud83d\ude09 representing both my game and my evolution during the compo. Enjoy!<\/p>\n <p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-24\/?action=preview&amp;uid=13033\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/compo2\/163678\/13033-shot0.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>","time":"August 27th, 2012 5:53 am","title":"Post-Mortem-Post: Static"}