{"author_name":"bburbank","cat":"LD #21","comments":[{"author_name":"Felipe Budinich","time":"August 23, 2011 8:48 am","epoch":1314107280,"text":"What can I say, this was just beautiful mate, can&#8217;t wait for the director&#8217;s cut version <img src=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-includes\/images\/smilies\/simple-smile.png\" alt=\":-)\" class=\"wp-smiley\" style=\"height: 1em; max-height: 1em;\" \/>","spam":"N"},{"author_name":"Mjiig","time":"August 23, 2011 10:19 am","epoch":1314112740,"text":"Hey, amazing game! I didn&#8217;t get to see either of the screens you posted above though? Were they removed or in secret areas? (any tips on how to get to the secret areas? <img src=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-includes\/images\/smilies\/simple-smile.png\" alt=\":)\" class=\"wp-smiley\" style=\"height: 1em; max-height: 1em;\" \/> )","spam":"N"},{"author_name":"","time":"August 23, 2011 4:12 pm","epoch":1314133920,"text":"Loved it!","spam":"N"},{"author_name":"","time":"September 20, 2011 6:53 am","epoch":1316519580,"text":"&lt;3 &lt;3 &lt;3","spam":"N"},{"author_name":"homemrobo","time":"October 1, 2011 5:57 pm","epoch":1317509820,"text":"Hi bburbank! Just wondering.. I&#8217;m looking at your code, which class\/library do you use for &#8216;Vector2&#8217; movement? Thanks!","spam":"N"}],"epoch":1314104640,"likes":2,"metadata":{"p_key":"63699","p_author":"bburbank","p_authorkey":"509198","p_urlkey":"99484","p_title":"and just like that \u2013 a Post Mortem","p_cat":"LD #21","p_event":"LD21","p_time":"1314104640","p_likes":"2","p_comments":"5","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"509198","us_name":"bburbank","us_username":"bburbank","event_start":"1313712000","event_key":"7","event_name":"LD21"},"text":"<p>ELL DEE TWENTY ONE LET ME HEAR YOU SAY UWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA<\/p>\n <p>This was my first LD proper since LD15 (which had a baker&#8217;s dozen entries (144)). \u00a0I love love love Ludum Dare as an event (it feels like THE WHOLE WORLD is building and learning and having fun together), and I&#8217;m pleasantly shocked to see 4x as many submissions just two years since my last one. \u00a0I promise to not let two years pass again my next one! I&#8217;ve always been building small games, but my spare time for a FULL WEEKEND of something has been so limited that it&#8217;s been challenging to get my Compo Wind back. \u00a0BUT HERE I AM! \u00a0Despite 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.<\/p>\n <p>I had an absolute blast building this little thing (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-21\/?action=rate&amp;uid=1159\">here&#8217;s a link to rate it<\/a>, bros!)<\/p>\n <p><img class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/compo2\/62148\/1159-shot1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"713\" height=\"475\" \/><\/p>\n <p>So v1 of my game was done at like 6pm EST on Sunday, 4 hours before the deadline, and I was shocked. \u00a0I actually got to submit before the site exploded! \u00a0Here&#8217;s my somewhat standard Post-Mortem-formatted Thingie!<\/p>\n <p><strong>What Went Right<\/strong><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>FLIXELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL is always fantastic to use. \u00a0I was there when @adamatomic put out the first release, and I&#8217;ve kept up with it since the beginning. \u00a0The version I use now is an\u00a0<em>ever so slightly<\/em>\u00a0modified version of 2.4.3 as well as the <a title=\"FlxBitmapFont\" href=\"http:\/\/code.google.com\/p\/flxbitmapfont\/\" target=\"_blank\">FlxBitmapFont add-on<\/a>. \u00a0I had just used Flixel for something quick a few months ago when <a title=\"so long old friends\" href=\"http:\/\/kotaku.com\/5801684\/a-sworcery+style-farewell-to-electronic-arts\" target=\"_blank\">I quit my job at EA<\/a>, 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.<\/li>\n <li>MUSIC \/ GARAGEBAND YEAH! \u00a0Part of my responsibilities at my new job include composing music, and it&#8217;s been great to keep that part of my life alive (a long, long time ago, I started college as a classical saxophone major). \u00a0I use logic for work, but I don&#8217;t have that at home so I booted up another tool that I&#8217;ve loved since v1. \u00a0I have a simple MIDI keyboard hooked up that I&#8217;ve used for years, and man nothing relaxes me more than getting to lay down some melodies. \u00a0I wanted the music in this game to be kind of sad, and kind of melancholy like the ticking of a clock (there&#8217;s a line in the dialogue that says &#8220;You&#8217;re only getting older.&#8221; and I really wanted to have that feeling of climbing some monotonous, mechanical wasteland).<\/li>\n <li>Tiled: simply the best map editor around. \u00a0For making maps in flixel I&#8217;ve used DAME in the past, and FLAN before it (I own a FLAN license!), but I really love the file-format for Tiled. \u00a0Even if as an editor it&#8217;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&#8217;ve grown super-used to it. \u00a0If you want to figure out how to load a Tiled map in flixel, there&#8217;s a <a href=\"http:\/\/pixelpracht.wordpress.com\/2010\/03\/31\/flash-tmx-parser\/\" target=\"_blank\">really good example<\/a> out there.<\/li>\n <li>I liked the story of the game, and I liked the setting, mood, and dialogue. \u00a0However&#8230;<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <div><strong>What Could Have Been Better<\/strong><\/div>\n <div>\n <ul>\n <li>I really wanted to spend a lot of time on art, and I just couldn&#8217;t. \u00a0I had a lot of pixel work started but unused, and too many maps to apply it all to. \u00a0I wanted to have more than just clouds on blue for the backgrounds (to give a sense of a giant world that&#8217;s sort of collapsing around you), but it just didn&#8217;t get finished. \u00a0I&#8217;m happy with the way the game looks, but I know I can do better.<\/li>\n <li>I had to cut too many levels, I feel. \u00a0The game has a decent length for a compo entry now, but it&#8217;s not quite as good as I&#8217;d like. \u00a0I 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&#8217;t have, and 2) I didn&#8217;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. \u00a0I know it&#8217;s easy to do, but at some point we have to prioritize our TODO.txt guys! \u00a0That said, I&#8217;m going to release a Director&#8217;s Cut in the next few days that adds all that content back in!<\/li>\n <li>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 &#8220;the world (or an unreliable narrator) talks to you&#8221; motif, but I was already kind of deep into this one at that point. \u00a0At that point I lost a bunch of steam and drive to really make this My Favorite Thing I Ever Made, although it&#8217;s still in My Top Ten Things I Ever Made.<\/li>\n <li>I really didn&#8217;t get much sleep; my family kept me up late and got me up early. \u00a0This isn&#8217;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.<\/li>\n <li>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&#8217;s games. \u00a0It 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.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <\/div>\n <p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n <p><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/compo2\/62148\/1159-shot2.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"713\" height=\"475\" \/><\/p>\n <p>&nbsp;<\/p>","time":"August 23rd, 2011 8:04 am","title":"and just like that \u2013 a Post Mortem"}