{"author_name":"Felipe Budinich","cat":"LD #22","comments":[],"epoch":1324509060,"likes":1,"metadata":{"p_key":"60083","p_author":"Felipe Budinich","p_authorkey":"2502","p_urlkey":"95835","p_title":"Phares Postmortem","p_cat":"LD #22","p_event":"LD22","p_time":"1324509060","p_likes":"1","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"2502","us_name":"Felipe Budinich","us_username":"felipe-budinich","event_start":"1323993600","event_key":"8","event_name":"LD22"},"text":"

I came into this Ludum Dare with one clear objective; to develop a game using HTML5 to evaluate the Impact Game Engine<\/a> (it passed with flying colors, tho I’m still hoping that someone ports Flixel<\/a> to JavaScript). Besides that, I had no further plans, so when I saw the theme, I was a bit troubled, how can I make a game about being Alone?<\/p>\n

So I decided to think about job occupations that lead you to loneliness, and while I went through the list the weirdest one was “Lighthouse Keeper”. So I scoured the web searching for a Lighthouse with a cool name, but I found none that I liked, so I decided to create a fictional one, that somehow made this idea pop into my mind:<\/p>\n

\"My<\/a>

Yes my notepad is rainbow colored<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

“You are the Lighthouse Keeper<\/del> at Styx River, your job is to persecute souls trying to escape hell, it can get lonely, but jumping on ghosts sure is fun and it’s pretty comfy.”<\/em><\/p>\n <\/blockquote>\n

For some reason, I saw the tarot card “The Tower” and I felt that it was fitting, so I dropped the idea of being the Keeper, and the player became the Lighthouse itself. For the mechanics I concieved Space Invaders meets Hop & Bop platformers<\/a>. Sounded pretty easy at first, but the execution proved difficult and it does need a lot of playtesting to get right.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What went right:
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

a.- The Music:<\/strong> As usual I took a public domain music score (Danse macabre, Op. 40, by French composer Camille Saint-Sa\u00ebns.), recorded some sound effects (cards shuffling and hitting the table), and a public domain fireplace sample that I looped. I was very pleased with the final product, I think it properly represents the core concepts: We are all alone and the same in death (Danse Macabre), We all share the same destiny(Tarot), and the fires of hell that served as setting. Once again I used Audacity<\/a>, Aria Maestosa<\/a> and GXSCC<\/a>.<\/p>\n

b.- The Framework:<\/strong> Impact Game Engine was pretty intuitive to use and extend, even for a first time user, I only missed per pixel collision.<\/p>\n

c.- The Concept:<\/strong> The idea is great, I’ll keep working on it.<\/p>\n

d.- The Art:<\/strong> I loved the Art. I drew on paper, then took a picture with my webcam and painted in Photoshop, it went smooth as silk but…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What went wrong:
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

a.- The Art:<\/strong> Spent too much time on Art creation. Last time I think that no one realized that my Art style was Atari-like on purpose (I even implemented a Pixel Bender shader to simulate screen ghosting after the screen flashes), so this time I decided to go for a painterly style, that also happened to be more labor intensive. In the end I could have used a couple more hours on coding.<\/p>\n

b.- The IDE:<\/strong> I was too stressed out to properly install and configure Eclipse, I was stuck with Komodo Edit.<\/p>\n

c.- Server Stuff:<\/strong> Spent too much time trying to configure PHP on my laptop to run some tools.<\/p>\n

d.- Platform:<\/strong> HTML5 audio support is not there *yet*, had to implement a quick hack with SoundManager 2<\/a>.<\/p>\n

e.- Language:<\/strong> I had no prior game dev experience with JavaScript, I was left wondering how to implement a global variable registry. Also, I got to find an IDE with proper code completion, Komodo did not autocomplete variables I had declared on the same *.js file.<\/p>\n

f.- Execution:<\/strong> The concept was hard to execute successfully, I should have playtested more, and also I should have investigated prior implementations. Now I have homework: Why does Mario bounce off enemies the way he does?<\/p>\n


\n <\/strong> Phares, Jam Entry<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n \n

Tags: Phares<\/a>, postmortem<\/a><\/p>","time":"December 21st, 2011 6:11 pm","title":"Phares Postmortem"}