Hi everyone,

This was my first Ludum Dare entry.
It was a lot of fun doing it!

What was important for me was to learn some tools that I haven’t used yet,
and to make a complete game that is playable and hopefully fun.
My graphic skills are very limited, so I decided to go on pretty abstract graphics and use a lot of particle systems for effects.

I used the starling framework for AS3, and its particle systems engine for the effects.
These were the new tools I enjoyed learning and using. I think in these kind of 48-hour effort you can really get a good experience with a library or technology,
and I’m sure it will help me in future games.

I started the contest with about 1-2 hours of thinking and pretty much knew what I would do.
Then I started programming the mechanics. I intended to finish them, and when I’m happy with how things were to move on to graphics, music & sound.
However, after about 6-7 hours of working, and having slept not that much the night before, I was too tired to continue with solving some bugs (even though they weren’t many),
and felt I’m pretty closed on the mechanics and that they are working. Even though I didn’t have any level designed yet except for the simple first one.
So I moved on to deal with the effects and music. I ended up the day very late, but with most of the graphics done and with a simple music which I felt decent with
and hoped to improve it if time permits.

I think that was my first mistake, at this point, I should have built levels and tested the game play some more, since the following day I made some drastic gameplay changes without having
enough time to balance them. What I decided on the second day was that the ship didn’t move in an astroids-like manner physics, and couldn’t rotate while moving. This turned out to be crucial
for the gameplay, since it forced the player to plan his path wisely, so that shooting didn’t cause him to turn specifically. However, I still kept the ship accelerating a bit, so that moving
in long straight lines was better than moving in short more frequent straight lines.

This made the game fun in the difficulty level and playability, but very unintuitive and strange for most players.
I didn’t have much time to thing about this, and left it as is. But I believe what was important to do at this stage was either change the ship metaphore to fit the new mechanics
(maybe a soldier walking, pulling his gun only when he stops, and then rotating turns the gun, or something the like) or forfeit the nice game play I had and move back to astroids-like movement
to keep the intuitivness of the game intact.

Anyway, I think I learned a lot from this experience.
I find it very interesting to think about how players will react to the mechanics.

I think if at some point on the early second day I would have gotten some people to play the game and tell me what they think,
this would have pointed out the mechanics problem earlier and allowed me enough time to fix it.
Once you decide the mechanics are done and start working franticly on the other details, it’s hard to take a step back and think if any major thing needs changing.

I ended up the second day with the level design and balancing of the times. I was happy with that.
I took the time to make sure the game is possible to solve and that I managed to solve it.
Many people thought the times were too tight, so maybe I was too harsh with that.
I might have deducted 10% of difficulty out of each level just for fairness and the possibility to appeal to players that are less good at the game than I was,
after playing quite a lot for testing I might say.

And one last lesson – it’s very hard to call it a night on the first day when you feel you didn’t accomplish enough to finish it.
I couldn’t do it. I kept on going until I was happy and that was what forced me to do music and graphics instead of the core mechanics issues & bugs.
I think at this point, I should have gotten some sleep, and started fresh on day 2.
It’s hard starting day 2 since it’s the last day and you want to be closed on a lot of things to feel less pressure, but at the end it was a bad decision,
since I was much less effective without the sleep I needed.

I would be happy to hear your thoughts about my conclusions and the game itself!

Here’s the game: Feeling Alone

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Thanks,
Idan