{"author_name":"Codheadz","cat":"LD #23","comments":[],"epoch":1335214620,"likes":0,"metadata":{"p_key":"56172","p_author":"Codheadz","p_authorkey":"1516","p_urlkey":"91892","p_title":"It\u2019s a small world or rather what a strange idea that did not work","p_cat":"LD #23","p_event":"LD23","p_time":"1335214620","p_likes":"0","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"1516","us_name":"Codheadz","us_username":"codheadz","event_start":"1334880000","event_key":"10","event_name":"LD23"},"text":"<p>Well the theme for Ludum Dare 23 was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-23\/\" target=\"_blank\">Tiny World<\/a> and for some reason, early Saturday morning the best I could come up with whilst trying to limit the scope was something based on the the Disney boat ride &#8220;<a title=\"It's a small World\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/It%27s_a_Small_World\" target=\"_blank\">It&#8217;s a small world<\/a>&#8220;.\u00a0 Now in retrospect this was probably not the best idea I&#8217;ve had for a game.<\/p>\n <p><strong>The concept<\/strong><\/p>\n <p>If you have been on the ride you will know its a musical ride with a very catchy and incredibly annoying theme song.\u00a0 The concept was that being driven mad by the song, you have to attack the characters from the ride floating in your mind to reduce the songs volume and return to sanity.\u00a0 See sounds great at 3:00 am <img src=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-includes\/images\/smilies\/simple-smile.png\" alt=\":-)\" class=\"wp-smiley\" style=\"height: 1em; max-height: 1em;\" \/><\/p>\n <p>Have a listen to see what the song sounds like if you have not had chance to experience it.<\/p>\n <p><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nxvlKp-76io?fs=1&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n <p>I also planned to use a mix of images inspired by <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mary_Blair\">Mary Blare<\/a> who actually helped design the rides look.\u00a0 The &#8220;player&#8221; would be based on the <a title=\"Doom Lost Soul\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bing.com\/images\/search?q=doom+lost+soul&amp;qs=n&amp;form=QBIR&amp;pq=doom+lost+soul&amp;sc=2-14&amp;sp=-1&amp;sk=\">Lost Souls<\/a> from Doom.\u00a0 No idea why I thought this would be good mix.<\/p>\n <p>No idea of how to win really, I guess I just hoped that it would fun to an extent, but was pinning my hopes of the visuals being interesting enough to hold the attention of the player.<\/p>\n <p><strong>The delivery <\/strong><\/p>\n <p>Well I have very limited time to write code, so have to make use of the night shift when the kids are asleep.\u00a0 To prevent all hell the next day I force my self to sleep rather than stay up all night with a target of at least 4 hours.\u00a0 Its just not fair to inflict my grumpyness on the rest of the world for a bad game.\u00a0 So this gives a very limited amount of time to code in over the weekend.<\/p>\n <p>This coupled with taking on the challenge of Silverlight as a delivery medium resulted in very slow progress with the majority of my time spent fighting my lack of experience with XAML and not creating.\u00a0 I do like Silverlight as a medium and may use it in future projects.<\/p>\n <p>The audio, which I never actually got to record was to be myself singing\/humming the theme tune.\u00a0 Thankfully for all, I never recorded anything.<\/p>\n <p><strong>The game<\/strong><\/p>\n <p>I&#8217;m not sure I can really call it a game, but due to my lack of momentum and poor concept I threw in the towel early Sunday evening, for both the Compo and the Jam.\u00a0 If you are still interested you can play\/run what I have by clicking the image below:<\/p>\n <p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.codheadz.com\/ld23\"><img src=\"http:\/\/blog.codheadz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/LD23_Game.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n <p><strong>So what I have I learnt?<\/strong><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>With limited time, stick with a technology that you know.\u00a0 6-7 hours is not the time to take on something new.<\/li>\n <li>If the concept is not working, drop it quickly and try something else.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>If you want the code, you can find it here: <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.codheadz.com\/index.php\/ludum-dare-23-tiny-world\/\">http:\/\/blog.codheadz.com\/index.php\/ludum-dare-23-tiny-world\/<\/a><\/p>\n \n <p>Tags: <a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/tag\/net\/\" rel=\"tag\">.net<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/tag\/disney\/\" rel=\"tag\">Disney<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/tag\/ld23\/\" rel=\"tag\">ld23<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/tag\/silverlight\/\" rel=\"tag\">Silverlight<\/a><\/p>","time":"April 23rd, 2012 3:57 pm","title":"It\u2019s a small world or rather what a strange idea that did not work"}