{"author_name":"Gjarble","cat":"LD #24","comments":[],"epoch":1345853580,"likes":0,"metadata":{"p_key":"54133","p_author":"Gjarble","p_authorkey":"5467","p_urlkey":"89836","p_title":"I\u2019m In!","p_cat":"LD #24","p_event":"LD24","p_time":"1345853580","p_likes":"0","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"5467","us_name":"Gjarble","us_username":"gjarble","event_start":"1345766400","event_key":"12","event_name":"LD24"},"text":"<p>Congratulations to the Evolution theme, which has FINALLY been chosen! \u00a0It&#8217;s a bit tricky to find a non-obvious idea for this one, but at least it&#8217;s not too similar to previous LDs! \u00a0I&#8217;ve got a few ideas brewin&#8217;, but naturally, I&#8217;m afraid a bunch of other people will have thought of the same things. \u00a0I suppose with thousands of games out there, it&#8217;s hard to have something COMPLETELY unique- execution is important, too! \u00a0However, I <em>am<\/em> trying to shy away from what I bet is the most obvious idea: a game where the player character or enemies get upgrades or change form (\u00e0 la Altered Beast) over time.<\/p>\n <p>My tools:<\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>Haxe with Physaxe or AS3 with Flixel, depending on the idea<\/li>\n <li>DAME for tilemap editing, should I need it<\/li>\n <li>Photoshop CS3 for whatever I can pass off as art<\/li>\n <li>GarageBand (or Famitracker if I&#8217;m feeling generous with my time budget) for music<\/li>\n <li>bfxr for sound<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>Also, remember last Ludum Dare, when I was one of several people who did a postmortem survey and promised to release statistics with the results? \u00a0Well, unfortunately, due to some stuff that happened to everyone in the class I was doing the survey for, I didn&#8217;t get to do a real analysis of the results. \u00a0When this compo&#8217;s over, I&#8217;ll take a crack at the analysis and post what I come up with!<\/p>\n <p>I guess I should have goals, too, so here are some goals I&#8217;m coming up with off the top of my head:<\/p>\n <ul>\n <li><strong>Spend less than half my time programming.<\/strong>\u00a0 That way, I can spend more time working on the ever-elusive polish: level design, art, music, sound effects, and so on.<\/li>\n <li><strong>Actually have music.<\/strong>\u00a0 I have not yet released an LD game with music; I&#8217;ve always run out of time before I could compose some.<\/li>\n <li><strong>Not get distracted so much.<\/strong> \u00a0I am my own worst enemy in these sorts of things; my mind gets carried away all the time. \u00a0Part of the reason I do Ludum Dare so much is to train myself to focus, and I plan on continuing that here.<\/li>\n <li><strong>Oh, and KITTENS!<\/strong> \u00a0I will work cats into this somehow if it kills me. \u00a0There&#8217;s too many kitten-haters out there.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>Good luck to everyone, and remember to have fun!<\/p>","time":"August 24th, 2012 7:13 pm","title":"I\u2019m In!"}