{"author_name":"A Common Hero","cat":"LD #24","comments":[{"author_name":"elbowroom","time":"August 26, 2012 5:14 pm","epoch":1346019240,"text":"hmm.. I read your post, what about just entering the game for Jam?
\n Either way, I think you might be missing the point of entering LudumDare for the first time. I think I might be borrowing this metaphor from mcfunkypants and here it is:
\n When you enter the LudumDare you are at ‘level 1’ in fast paced game making. Your main purpose is to plan really small and simple and try to complete a playable game. The mission here is to realize that making a game fast or at all for that matter, should not be about graphics, level editors and enemies, it should just be *in my opinion* about 1. some simple rules that any child could understand and are intuitively explained simply by playing or watching someone play. 2. You can win or not win. 3. There is some challenge and it’s fun (that is where the magic is). .
\n When you are ‘low lvl’ at fast paced game making, all you should really focus on is making a working game as quickly as possible, you can explore deep ‘ground breaking’ ideas any day of the year. Joining Ludum is more about starting and finishing a simple idea(to help fight procrastination). Once you master that, the next lvl I think would be completing a game with less bugs and a little polish and better yet, more fun than the last.
\n What I am saying is that you could take the time to join LudumDare, and maybe aim for making a short simple game instead of a game engine. \":)\" I think another important lesson is that sometimes complex is not better than very simple, especially if complex means incomplete.","spam":"N"}],"epoch":1346017980,"likes":1,"metadata":{"p_key":"52210","p_author":"A Common Hero","p_authorkey":"0","p_urlkey":"87909","p_title":"As Predicted, Yet Not As Planned","p_cat":"LD #24","p_event":"LD24","p_time":"1346017980","p_likes":"1","p_comments":"1","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":null,"us_name":null,"us_username":null,"event_start":"1345766400","event_key":"12","event_name":"LD24"},"text":"

Well I have failed, completely and utterly.\u00a0 I know what you’re thinking, “you still have an hour and a half, keep working!” but no, let me give you a rundown of what needs to be accomplished just to get the game in a semi-playable state:<\/p>\n

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-Fix an error where some of my files in the level editor save nonsense rather than what they are meant to.\u00a0 At this stage this is the kind of thing that might make your manager shrug and say, “cut that feature completely,” but (admittedly do to a poor decision on my part) without the ability to use this editor I can’t create levels for my game, without saving there is no editor, and without levels there is no game.\u00a0 The poor decision on my part was to design my game in such a way that writing the levels “by hand” in a .txt is, while technically possible, not feasible.\u00a0 It could literally take me half an hour to write one level.<\/p>\n

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-While I do have AI routines for movement through the levels, I have no levels.\u00a0 So I have never tested this feature, and we all know a feature you haven’t tested is a feature you never added.\u00a0 So even if I fixed my problem with my files, I’d have to inevitably fix the problems here.<\/p>\n

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-Design more than one enemy.\u00a0 OK, here we’re starting to get into territory of what are technically luxuries.\u00a0 If my goal here was to just release a game of any sort to say, “Yes I submitted something to Ludum Dare,” then I would only need one enemy.\u00a0 Frankly, for the last three hours that was my goal.\u00a0 Still, there’s no real game here with only the one enemy I do have, even the “enemy” I have would need some tweaking before he even becomes a threat.\u00a0 I do not consider a game with no challenge to be a game.<\/p>\n

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-Give the player some options.\u00a0 Currently all my player can do is move in the x and y coordinates.\u00a0 There’s literally nothing to this game if that is all the player can do.<\/p>\n

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-Program in a win condition.\u00a0 I have a win condition, in my head and on paper, but it isn’t there yet.<\/p>\n

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I don’t think I need to go on.\u00a0 I know this pretty much makes me a quitter, but I don’t see the point in working on this game any more than I have tonight.\u00a0 I’m going to continue on with the project as I would have after a successful Ludum Dare, but not tonight.\u00a0 I need to stop coding for a while.\u00a0 Even with that being said, I didn’t do as good a job keeping in touch about what I was making, so if it ever gets released in any form, you’re not going to recognize it.\u00a0 Oh well.<\/p>\n

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Despite all of my defeatism above, I’m very happy I entered this contest.\u00a0 I learned a lot over the last two weeks, and I have some direction for where to go in the future.\u00a0 What I did manage to make was something I could never have made two weeks ago, and given just a little more time I might have actually had something worth submitting.\u00a0 That alone is a very good feeling.\u00a0 I might not enter the next Ludum Dare (we’ll see where I feel I am when the time comes) but someday I’m going to be back here again someday, and that’s when I’ll succeed.<\/p>\n

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Thank you for your time.<\/p>","time":"August 26th, 2012 4:53 pm","title":"As Predicted, Yet Not As Planned"}