I guess I could write up how I coded the thing as well. (The thing being my game, also time is shown from 00:00 being the beginning of Ludum Dare. Add 4 hours to get the time in my timezone)
\nBeginnings:
\nA day or two before the Ludum Dare I realized i’m going to my grandmas, which meant no PC. I was, therefore, stuck with an Asus EEE Pad Transformer – a tablet running a Tegra 2 clocked at 1.2GHz/core. It also had two cores.
\nThankfully, someone fixed the build of Ubuntu available for it to support the touchpad, making work on it a few times easier. Granted, the driver was quite experimental, but I used it anyway.
\nAfter fixing the WiFi issue, I was ready to go.
\n06:00: Let’s go!
\nI downloaded the JDK, then XChat and Pidgin. Configured everything so I could easily and effortlessly work. I also set up scrot to take screenshots every minute. On this part, no problems appeared.
\n06:50: Coding!
\nFirst, I wrote the basic canvas code. Next I added scaling for it (I decided lo-res pixelart is easy enough to draw for me.). It scaled from 160×128 (the resolution of the game) to 640×512 (sorry, VGA screen owners, you’re out of luck).
\nNext, I drew the tiles. I decided they’re going to be 16×16, creating a tile resolution of… 10×8. Yes. That made everything easier.
\nThen, I created the code to load tiles.png and render it from an array. Good.
\n07:30
\nAfter a while, I added code to make it scrollable. After a few bugfixes, it worked. By 08:40 into the LD (I had breaks, mind you) I drew and rendered the player properly. Finally, I coded a simple mapgen (whose general concept stayed up into the final).
\n08:45
\nUntil 09:30, i was preparing mencoder/ffmpeg for timelapse rendering. Then I took a break. Up to 10:20 i was busy IRCing and IMing, as well as replying to people on /compo. Then, another break.
\n11:00
\nAt this moment, I started adding physics for the player. At 11:45 I was improving the mapgen code. Then, mostly community activity from 11:50 to 12:30. Finally, another break.
\n12:50
\nI tried setting up the microphone so I could live stream. That failed (stupid buggy drivers). At 13:00 I was designing the enemy “bug” graphic. By 13:40 they kind of worked. Major IM/IRC activity until 14:20, then a break.
\nFrom there, I forgot to timelapse, but IIRC i was improving enemy/player physics code.
\n16:20
\nCode/IRC intertwinned until 17:00. Then I released the first beta (of mostly working singleplayer). I showed it off to people, finding bugs, chatting, procrastinating and fixing a bug until 17:45.
\n(remember, it was 21:45 in my timezone!)
\n27:07
\nI’m up and running again! Time spent chatting with GreaseMonkey and coding until 27:25, after which I went fully into coding mode. At 27:45 i released another beta on IRC, because why not? I spent time discussing it with people until 27:53. Then, EARLY MORNING LUCKY STAR WAKEUP SCHEME
\n28:15
\nUntil 28:35 I was bugfixing. Then, I designed the “story” title board until 28:50, at which point it was in the game. Then I started work on wraparound and called off singleplayer as complete. Mostly chatting until 29:30, after which I rendered the first part of my timelapse (on an ARM tablet, in “high” quality!) and uploaded it to YouTube.
\n30:30
\nHardcore mutliplayer Googling/coding with minor IRC. (I had some knowledge on how to code multiplayer right from a sandbox game, 64pixels, that I made in 2010-2011.) At 31:00 I took another break.
\n33:00
\nBy then I had multiplayer about 50% done. But enemies were a LAGFEST. Too many packets, even for loopback :< Tried fixing until 33:20, then IRC. Fixing/IRCing until 34:15, then break.
\n34:30
\nScrew enemies, I was trying to get block throwing work right. Of course, I couldn’t, because ENEMIES ATE ALL THE BANDWIDTH (and CPU). Then, IRC from 35:00–35:10 and I was forced to go outside for 3 hours.
\n38:10
\nTHE PERFECT IDEA – I made the client do enemy movement prediction! Sure, I had to throw out random movement but IT WORKED! Multiplayer was closer to being completed than ever. Hardcore fixing until 39:10.
\n40:00
\nHardcore fixing/online testing until 42:00 ON MY OWN, FAST COMPUTER. Yay!
\n42:30
\nI realize I made a fatal bug after release. Can’t sleep.
\n48:30
\nI wake up, realize I can’t fix the bug anymore. Major depression until 49:50, including crying and loss of sanity.
\n50:10
\nPoV saves the day, telling me crash bugs are fixable. Attempting to fix a few (with lots of breaks) until…
\n57:30
\nI fixed all but one, released a “fixed version”, then stopped it.
\n\n
", "time": "August 23rd, 2011 12:40 am", "title": "The Melancholy of Right 31, part 2"}