{"author_name":"eelfroth","cat":"LD #23","comments":[],"epoch":1336390680,"likes":3,"metadata":{"p_key":"55828","p_author":"eelfroth","p_authorkey":"7288","p_urlkey":"91546","p_title":"Belated Timelapse and Post Mortem","p_cat":"LD #23","p_event":"LD23","p_time":"1336390680","p_likes":"3","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"7288","us_name":"Eelfroth","us_username":"eelfroth","event_start":"1334880000","event_key":"10","event_name":"LD23"},"text":"<p>Originally, I intended to write a post-mortem and include this timelapse recording for illustration. <del datetime=\"2012-05-07T13:49:57+00:00\">But apparently in these days I can find neither the time nor the energy to write such a thing.<\/del><strong> Scroll down to read it!<\/strong> So here is my timelapse. There are a lot of screen messages in there &#8211; enjoy!<br \/>\n And don&#8217;t forget to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-23\/?action=preview&amp;uid=7288\" title=\"Extensionism\" target=\"_blank\">play and rate my game<\/a> \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n <p><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Nq1yB3KGXIE?fs=1&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n <p><strong>Post Mortem<\/strong><\/p>\n <p><em>&#8212;Tools&#8212;<\/em><br \/>\n Ok, I should at least give you a list of tools I used and how they worked out for me.<br \/>\n I made this game in Processing, and I just used the standard code editor that comes with this API. It&#8217;s probably more basic and tedious than full blown IDEs, but &#8211; at least for a small project like this &#8211; it worked pretty well.<\/p>\n <p>My sprites and fonts were drawn in in GIMP. I didn&#8217;t make a lot of them (there&#8217;s just one 2&#215;2 tileset for objects and one 3&#215;3 for the walls), but still there are quite a few comments saying how good my game looks. I think, I kind of got a hang of how to set a good mood through interesting colors and effects programming (do your eyes bleed yet?)<\/p>\n <p>For level editing I used the game itself. I implemented a tiny little editing-mode where I could just click on any point of the game window and a wall would appear there. Later I added a save_level() function where I could just press &#8216;s&#8217; and save the current layout to a file. When wrapping up the game I just disabled the editing functions. I liked this method and intend to keep using it for future projects.<\/p>\n <p>Sadly, there was no time to add sound to the game, but I would have used Audacity and MilkyTracker. Music would probably be unfitting, but some ambience would be nice.<\/p>\n <p><em>&#8212;Content&#8212;<\/em><br \/>\n The texts that appear in between levels were supposed to add someting poetic or philosophic to my game, but I wrote them ten minutes before the deadline so the formulations are still a bit rough. The basic thoughts are already there, though.<\/p>\n <p>So there was the deadline, the game submitted, but it still had no title. I came up with the word &#8220;extensionism&#8221; and googled it. I&#8217;ve never before heard about <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Extensionism\" title=\"Extensionism\">this metaphysical theory<\/a>, but it sounded interesting, so I went with it. Had I found this earlier, I would have incorporated it into my game somehow.<br \/>\n <div id=\"attachment_144095\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Gescanntes-Dokument.jpg\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Gescanntes-Dokument-300x230.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"230\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-144095\" srcset=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Gescanntes-Dokument-300x230.jpg 300w, http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Gescanntes-Dokument-550x422.jpg 550w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">My notebook.<\/p><\/div>What about the game mechanics? Are they fun? Are they interesting? I&#8217;m still not shure. Initially, I was quite convinced my concept would work out, but it was only bare bones and I racked my brain to come up with good additions to it. This is my main &#8220;what went wrong&#8221; this time: too much time was spent (read wasted) on doubtfully overthinking my mechanics. If there&#8217;s one thing that had to be perfect, it was the concept! And the bad thing is, it isn&#8217;t. All that crate-pushing Sokoban-likeness is just plainly tedious. Because of this, I almost abandoned the project alltogether, but luckily, my pride protected me from this fate. In retrospective I guess, I was on the right path from the beginning, and I just have to accept that 48h-games are never big, sublime masterpieces (although, some of you have come pretty close :)). Well, I&#8217;m always pretty harsh on myself, so I&#8217;m even more thankful for all the positive comments on my submission page. Apparently, I made something interesting after all.<\/p>\n <p>Oops, I just recognized this text has accidentally become a real post-mortem. Forget about the very first paragraph (exept the part where I tell you to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-23\/?action=preview&amp;uid=7288\" title=\"Extensionism\" target=\"_blank\">play my game.<\/a> )! <\/p>\n <p>Thank you for reading!<\/p>\n \n <p>Tags: <a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/tag\/post-mortem\/\" rel=\"tag\">post-mortem<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/tag\/postmortem\/\" rel=\"tag\">postmortem<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/tag\/timelapse\/\" rel=\"tag\">timelapse<\/a><\/p>","time":"May 7th, 2012 6:38 am","title":"Belated Timelapse and Post Mortem"}