{"author_name":"wintermute","cat":"LD #22","comments":[{"author_name":"RyanMan56","time":"December 18, 2011 2:00 pm","epoch":1324234800,"text":"Don&#8217;t worry, you&#8217;re not the only person unable to finish a game.","spam":"N"}],"epoch":1324234140,"likes":1,"metadata":{"p_key":"60742","p_author":"wintermute","p_authorkey":"18233","p_urlkey":"96495","p_title":"I\u2019m out.","p_cat":"LD #22","p_event":"LD22","p_time":"1324234140","p_likes":"1","p_comments":"1","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"18233","us_name":"wintermute","us_username":"wintermute","event_start":"1323993600","event_key":"8","event_name":"LD22"},"text":"<p>I&#8217;m done. I have not finished my game but the last thing I want to do now is programming. All the motivation is gone and so are fun and excitement. Yesterday I worked for about 20 hours and today for about 12 hours and the &#8216;thing&#8217; I managed to create by now doesn&#8217;t even deserve to be called a &#8216;game&#8217;. What was the problem? I don&#8217;t really know.<\/p>\n <p>My progress so far: A nice working base for a game. The\u00a0 game itself isn&#8217;t really existing: 2 halfway working levels (including solid, non-solid and ladder tiles &#8230; at least they worked!) and the player&#8217;s character that doesn&#8217;t do anything but following your keys (no jumping and stuff like this) &#8211; that&#8217;s not really a game.<\/p>\n <p>What went wrong? As said before: I can&#8217;t say, but there are some things I want to change in the future:<\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>doing the warm-up<\/li>\n <li>planning the program: I went straight on to the programming. In the beginning I wanted it to be a shooter, many hours of exhausting coding later I thought the theme would fit better to a simple puzzle game, but when I saw I wouldn&#8217;t finish on time, I changed everything to a &#8220;do this &#8211; do that &#8211; press this button &#8211; use that item&#8221; game. If I focused on a single game idea from the beginning I would be cheering right now. All in all the programming was a waste of time.<\/li>\n <li>paying more attention to graphics: Until some hours ago I just used my dev sprites (grid maps, hitbox sprites etc.). When I finished the first level I already had a bad feeling about the time. When I began with the second level some time ago, I thought about giving up.<\/li>\n <li>structuring the code: Because this is my first LD I was extremely stressed from the beginning and just did the code. If a teacher or a professional looked at it, they would commit suicide, that means: One <strong><em>big <\/em><\/strong>main function and a bunch of structs without methods, getters\/setters and inheritance.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>It&#8217;s really a pity that everything worked out as feared. I wasted my weekend sitting in front of a computer and doing useless stuff.<\/p>\n <p>If anybody cares, here are some screenshots of my dead birth:<\/p>\n <p>(That weird rectangle with zeros and ones is a byte. Yeah, you are playing a byte.)<\/p>\n \n <style type='text\/css'>\n #gallery-1 {\n margin: auto;\n }\n #gallery-1 .gallery-item {\n float: left;\n margin-top: 10px;\n text-align: center;\n width: 100%;\n }\n #gallery-1 img {\n border: 2px solid #cfcfcf;\n }\n #gallery-1 .gallery-caption {\n margin-left: 0;\n }\n \/* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes\/media.php *\/\n <\/style>\n <div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-96685 gallery-columns-1 gallery-size-thumbnail'><dl class='gallery-item'>\n <dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n <a href='http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/The-Byte-2011-12-18-21-31-39-52.png'><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/The-Byte-2011-12-18-21-31-39-52-150x150.png\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"The Byte 2011-12-18 21-31-39-52\" \/><\/a>\n <\/dt><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/><dl class='gallery-item'>\n <dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n <a href='http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/The-Byte-2011-12-18-21-31-53-80.png'><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/The-Byte-2011-12-18-21-31-53-80-150x150.png\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"The Byte 2011-12-18 21-31-53-80\" \/><\/a>\n <\/dt><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/><dl class='gallery-item'>\n <dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n <a href='http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/The-Byte-2011-12-18-21-32-10-83.png'><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/The-Byte-2011-12-18-21-32-10-83-150x150.png\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"The Byte 2011-12-18 21-32-10-83\" \/><\/a>\n <\/dt><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/>\n <\/div>\n \n <p>#1 and #2 show <em>The Byte <\/em>in a nightly city, the first and only working level.<\/p>\n <p>#3 shows a devmap. Yellow tiles are ladder tiles, black tiles are solids and the pepper marks the end. (the map is called &#8220;The Outskirts&#8221; because it was supposed to be an extension of the first map, before I gave up)<\/p>\n <p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n <p>Hopefully this post can help someone, otherwise it would be another waste of time.<\/p>\n <p>See you in the next LD48, aVoX.<\/p>","time":"December 18th, 2011 1:49 pm","title":"I\u2019m out."}