With only a week left of voting time, I figured it’s high time I get around to writing a post mortem for my game, Elidia.  Elidia is a game of survival, where your goal is to avoid the enemies for as long as possible.  The theme came into play by certain weapons which help you to destroy the enemies.

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What went right:

• Choosing an extremely simple concept.  In the past, I have bitten off a bit more than I can chew in just 48 hours–I have always made something playable, but it hasn’t been for very long.  Elidia is as complete as my original concept.  Obviously it can use some refinement and expansion, but I am very happy with what I got done.  All-in-all, the whole thing really took me about 16 hours of work.
• Having a game that doesn’t need a story.  I’m a big fan of story-driven games, but they’re almost certainly too much work for a Ludum Dare.  I opted to have a game which didn’t need a story to be played.  That being said, I’d like to think that there is a bit of a story told through the narrative.  Speaking of…
• Using audio.  In the past, I have only really ever used SFXR or BFXR to make sound effects.  I opted for a text-to-speech program this time around, since I thought it would work out better than generic “pew pew” sounds.  I also figured I could work a bit of humor into the speech, since it doesn’t really fit anywhere else.

What went wrong:

• Not adding enough variation.  There is only one type of enemy, but ideally there will be many more–each with something different about them.  I will also add a lot more variation to the audio so it will be less repetitive.
• Figuring out the best graphical style.  I wanted the game to be a lot like Geometry Wars, but didn’t want it to be a copy.  While the game play is actually very different, the style is like a very simple version of Geometry Wars.  I plan on coming up with a style which is unique to Elidia, while still keeping its influences.
• Not changing the size of the bounding boxes.  This is easily the most hated part of Elidia.  Each enemy is a triangle, but the bounding box is a square which encompasses the entire triangle–so you can still die even if you’re pretty far away.  I knew this was an issue, but never got around to resolving it before the competition was over.

In the end, this is my most successful Ludum Dare yet.  I managed to complete the game I set out to in the alotted time, and it seems to be getting good feedback.  Obviously I don’t know how it’s doing vote-wise, but it’s still a big success to me.  If you haven’t played it or rated it yet, what’re you waiting for?!  Good luck to everyone in the competition!