{"author_name": "marudziik", "cat": "LD #21", "comments": [], "epoch": 1314092040, "likes": 2, "metadata": {"p_key": "63709", "p_author": "marudziik", "p_authorkey": "5431", "p_urlkey": "99494", "p_title": "EscApe Post Mortem", "p_cat": "LD #21", "p_event": "LD21", "p_time": "1314092040", "p_likes": "2", "p_comments": "0", "p_status": "UPD5", "us_key": "5431", "us_name": "marudziik", "us_username": "marudziik", "event_start": "1313712000", "event_key": "7", "event_name": "LD21"}, "text": "<h3></h3>\n <p><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"http://www.youtube.com/embed/bLype7kWoGM?fs=1&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>\n <p><a title=\"EscApe\" href=\"http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-21/?action=rate&amp;uid=5431\">EscApe</a> was my first entry to Ludum Dare and I did it mainly to learn stuff. I&#8217;ve had a lot of programming experience before, but I&#8217;ve never done any graphical games. Although I use C++, Python, PHP in everyday manner (work stuff), I decided to go with FlashPunk, having no knowledge at all about either the framework or the ActionScript 3 (besides that they exist) &#8211; but being familiar with object-oriented programming, this issue itself didn&#8217;t turn out to be that much of a problem.</p>\n <p>I&#8217;m quite happy with my creation. I&#8217;m unhappy with the code, but I decided on developing speed, not beauty. As this is my first game, and done in only 48 hours, it feels just O.K. in my opinion (that is, I could do better, but it&#8217;s not awful). <img src=\"http://ludumdare.com/compo/wp-includes/images/smilies/simple-smile.png\" alt=\":)\" class=\"wp-smiley\" style=\"height: 1em; max-height: 1em;\" /></p>\n <p>See below for idea explanation, &#8220;what went right &amp; wrong&#8221; and playthrough video.</p>\n <p><span id=\"more-70312\"></span>Entry (rate): <a title=\"http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-21/?action=rate&amp;uid=5431\" href=\"http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-21/?action=rate&amp;uid=5431\" target=\"_blank\">http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-21/?action=rate&amp;uid=5431</a><br />\n Timelapse: <a title=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdJtfPLA9kc\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdJtfPLA9kc\" target=\"_blank\">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdJtfPLA9kc</a><br />\n Full playthrough: <a title=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCgw09ZlRhY\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCgw09ZlRhY\" target=\"_blank\">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCgw09ZlRhY</a></p>\n <p>I recommend playing the game instead of watching the playthrough. It&#8217;s web based anyway! <img src=\"http://ludumdare.com/compo/wp-includes/images/smilies/simple-smile.png\" alt=\":)\" class=\"wp-smiley\" style=\"height: 1em; max-height: 1em;\" /></p>\n <h3>The idea.</h3>\n <p>I didn&#8217;t like the theme that much, and didn&#8217;t have any prepared idea. In the beginning I decided only that this will be monkey &#8211; related game (&#8220;escape&#8221; &#8211; &#8220;esc ape&#8221; &#8211; &#8220;ape&#8221;: see what I did there, mwahaha?), rest came to me when I rememberd that recently I&#8217;ve seen &#8220;Ugh!&#8221; gameplay video, a DOS/Amiga/Commodore64 game from 1992. It bringed back lots of memories, since I friggin&#8217; loved it when I was a kid, so I decided to try and make something similar.</p>\n <h3>What went right.</h3>\n <ul>\n <li>I used all the time I could get. Compo started at 4 a.m. and I stayed up until then just to see the theme, then I got some sleep. I worked the next day all the time, taking some short brakes, and went to sleep around 3 a.m. On Sunday I worked until 3:30 a.m. or so and then submitted.</li>\n <li>Ogmo Editor, level creation. I really didn&#8217;t expect to be able to pull this one off.</li>\n <li>Mechanics/Physics. I like the look and feel of them, and that the game is quite hard. I feel the mechanics are quite similar to &#8220;Ugh!&#8221;, although they could get a little polish.</li>\n <li>Graphics. I have no talent at all, so producing such animations (especially flying machine, death sequences) was really hard and really rewarding (It&#8217;s nice to see that people generally like my flying monkey).</li>\n <li>Good general workplan. I wanted to have all the mechanics on the first day and do the animation &#8211; intensive graphics on Sunday, and this went well. Also, I&#8217;ve done most of the mechanics I wanted to do.</li>\n <li>Timelapse video. Chronolapse FTW! It&#8217;s full 48 hours of my life in 7 minutes.</li>\n <li>I learnt a lot: AS3, FlashPunk (+some drawing). I wouldn&#8217;t do this without the deadline, so this is something I&#8217;m satisfied with.</li>\n </ul>\n <h3>What went wrong.</h3>\n <ul>\n <li>I neglected most of the things to do at the weekend. Without my girlfriend, I would die of hunger.</li>\n <li>I didn&#8217;t check my software and then wasted some time on installing (Audacity), learning (GraphicsGale), or figuring what&#8217;s wrong with it (FlashDevelop 4 beta 1).</li>\n <li>I didn&#8217;t prepare. It&#8217;s nice to know I still can learn a programming language and make a game in 48 hours, even when not prepared, but a little basecode would get me a long way.</li>\n <li>Learning language on the fly was a generally bad idea, but it could be worse. I do a lot of programming, but doing more FlashPunk research BEFORE the compo would help a lot. Also, there isn&#8217;t a lot of FlashPunk documentation. There are some basic tutorials, but I kinda hoped for more &#8211; google helped a lot, but this is something to consider next time.</li>\n <li>I wasted a lot of time on graphics, having not much of a talent. I should be making more levels instead.</li>\n <li>I waited with the submission until an hour before the original deadline and the site problems kinda freaked me out (although I managed to submit on time).</li>\n <li>The code looks horrible. Half-way I decided to speed up with the development, so there are lots of hacks here and there.</li>\n <li>There is no ending. I had no time to do it.</li>\n </ul>\n <h3>Summary.</h3>\n <p>It was great! Finishing a game within 48 hours leaves a scent of accomplishment and I feel I REALLY needed that right now. I got really hyped during the development process, especially when I knew the game will be finished (i.e. playable and with graphics) before the submission deadline. Next time, I will be more prepared (unless I switch to a different, unknown language:P), especially in terms of base code or prototyping. I&#8217;ve had so much fun developing my game, I&#8217;m sure I will be doing this again!</p>\n <p>And hey, maybe I will work on EscApe more, so maybe this isn&#8217;t a post mortem after all. <img src=\"http://ludumdare.com/compo/wp-includes/images/smilies/simple-smile.png\" alt=\":)\" class=\"wp-smiley\" style=\"height: 1em; max-height: 1em;\" /></p>\n \n <p>Tags: <a href=\"http://ludumdare.com/compo/tag/escape/\" rel=\"tag\">escape</a>, <a href=\"http://ludumdare.com/compo/tag/gameplay/\" rel=\"tag\">gameplay</a>, <a href=\"http://ludumdare.com/compo/tag/ld21/\" rel=\"tag\">LD21</a>, <a href=\"http://ludumdare.com/compo/tag/playthrough/\" rel=\"tag\">playthrough</a>, <a href=\"http://ludumdare.com/compo/tag/post-mortem/\" rel=\"tag\">post-mortem</a>, <a href=\"http://ludumdare.com/compo/tag/video/\" rel=\"tag\">video</a></p>", "time": "August 23rd, 2011 4:34 am", "title": "EscApe Post Mortem"}