ELL DEE TWENTY ONE LET ME HEAR YOU SAY UWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

This was my first LD proper since LD15 (which had a baker’s dozen entries (144)).  I love love love Ludum Dare as an event (it feels like THE WHOLE WORLD is building and learning and having fun together), and I’m pleasantly shocked to see 4x as many submissions just two years since my last one.  I promise to not let two years pass again my next one! I’ve always been building small games, but my spare time for a FULL WEEKEND of something has been so limited that it’s been challenging to get my Compo Wind back.  BUT HERE I AM!  Despite having a new baby in the house (my second kid), I was able to carve enough of a weekend away that I got a completed game done ON TIME WOOOOOOOYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHhhhwwwmmm.

I had an absolute blast building this little thing (here’s a link to rate it, bros!)

So v1 of my game was done at like 6pm EST on Sunday, 4 hours before the deadline, and I was shocked.  I actually got to submit before the site exploded!  Here’s my somewhat standard Post-Mortem-formatted Thingie!

What Went Right

• FLIXELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL is always fantastic to use.  I was there when @adamatomic put out the first release, and I’ve kept up with it since the beginning.  The version I use now is an ever so slightly modified version of 2.4.3 as well as the FlxBitmapFont add-on.  I had just used Flixel for something quick a few months ago when I quit my job at EA, and although I now use Push Button Engine on a daily basis for my Make Money Doing Things part of the day, I had to go back to my old friend.
• MUSIC / GARAGEBAND YEAH!  Part of my responsibilities at my new job include composing music, and it’s been great to keep that part of my life alive (a long, long time ago, I started college as a classical saxophone major).  I use logic for work, but I don’t have that at home so I booted up another tool that I’ve loved since v1.  I have a simple MIDI keyboard hooked up that I’ve used for years, and man nothing relaxes me more than getting to lay down some melodies.  I wanted the music in this game to be kind of sad, and kind of melancholy like the ticking of a clock (there’s a line in the dialogue that says “You’re only getting older.” and I really wanted to have that feeling of climbing some monotonous, mechanical wasteland).
• Tiled: simply the best map editor around.  For making maps in flixel I’ve used DAME in the past, and FLAN before it (I own a FLAN license!), but I really love the file-format for Tiled.  Even if as an editor it’s not as good as DAME for sidescrollers, I have to use it on a daily basis for building isometric maps (again at the Make Money Place) and I’ve grown super-used to it.  If you want to figure out how to load a Tiled map in flixel, there’s a really good example out there.
• I liked the story of the game, and I liked the setting, mood, and dialogue.  However…

• I really wanted to spend a lot of time on art, and I just couldn’t.  I had a lot of pixel work started but unused, and too many maps to apply it all to.  I wanted to have more than just clouds on blue for the backgrounds (to give a sense of a giant world that’s sort of collapsing around you), but it just didn’t get finished.  I’m happy with the way the game looks, but I know I can do better.
• I had to cut too many levels, I feel.  The game has a decent length for a compo entry now, but it’s not quite as good as I’d like.  I hit two problems with them, however: 1) many of these levels were much more difficult, and needed a ton of time for tuning that I didn’t have, and 2) I didn’t have time to build in a save-game system that I would have wanted if the game grew much longer than 10 minutes in length.  I know it’s easy to do, but at some point we have to prioritize our TODO.txt guys!  That said, I’m going to release a Director’s Cut in the next few days that adds all that content back in!
• About 10 hours into coding (so, roughly 18 hours into the compo), I realized that I really wanted to have built a roguelike and used this same sort of mood and “the world (or an unreliable narrator) talks to you” motif, but I was already kind of deep into this one at that point.  At that point I lost a bunch of steam and drive to really make this My Favorite Thing I Ever Made, although it’s still in My Top Ten Things I Ever Made.
• I really didn’t get much sleep; my family kept me up late and got me up early.  This isn’t something I would ever trade for more time to program, mind, but it definitely took away time that a Real Super Nerdguy could have used in 48 hours.
• I was done about 4 hours early, and was so tired and the game was tested pretty thoroughly so I just submitted it and started playing other people’s games.  It turns out, I just barely beat the rush that took down the site (along with the help of that pesky bug), so at least I was able to go to bed without worry.