{"author_name":"Nuz","cat":"LD #20 - It's Dangerous to go Alone! Take This!","comments":[],"epoch":1304498580,"likes":3,"metadata":{"p_key":"65735","p_author":"Nuz","p_authorkey":"3990","p_urlkey":"101531","p_title":"First Ludum Dare: Post-mortem","p_cat":"LD #20 - It's Dangerous to go Alone! Take This!","p_event":"LD20","p_time":"1304498580","p_likes":"3","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"3990","us_name":"Nuz","us_username":"nuz","event_start":"1304035200","event_key":"6","event_name":"LD20"},"text":"<p><span>This was my first, and definitely not last <span>Ludum<\/span> Dare competition. It was great fun, I learned many new things and most importantly I finished and released a project.<\/span><\/p>\n <p><span>The first day started out with taking my time and thinking about the theme and what could I pull off (programming wise). I decided that side scroller shouldn&#8217;t be so difficult. I opened up GIMP and started drawing some nonsense &#8211; rectangles and stuff. After that I started working on the engine, copying code and layout from previous projects (collision detection, Game-<\/span>States and other basic functions). Shortly after I got my first picture on the screen and after that I started working on the level editor. It took rest of the day to finish it, and only in the evening I started creating my first level, which opened up lots of new problems like player movement (gravity, in particular).<\/p>\n <p><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9ug2oL_y2mw?fs=1&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n <p><span>Second day was purely devoted to creating levels and other visual stuff (basically\u00a0everything that there is to see), which was pretty challenging since I didn&#8217;t have any ideas as to what I really wanted. I experimented with audio too (<span>sfxr<\/span> is awesome), but I decided that there are more important things to worry about, so it was left behind. Evening came very fast, I was really exhausted and in the last few hours I really started rushing things, which decreased the overall quality. A few bugs got left behind, so a note to be taken (Get my priorities straight).<\/span><\/p>\n <p><span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=0dnhsAnhgoA\">http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=0dnhsAnhgoA<\/a><br \/>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <p>I handed in my entry at about 1 AM after spending on it approximately 30 hours and writing about 1500 lines of code. Job well done.<\/p>\n <p>Overall, I&#8217;ve learned lots of new things and most importantly I know what to focus on learning next (like GIMP, drawing, game physics, layout).<\/p>\n <p>Things to focus on in the future:<\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>Time management and priorities<\/li>\n <li>Got to learn a framework or develop some kind of engine (to avoid implementing basic stuff on-the-fly)<\/li>\n <li><span>Focus more on game-play rather than engine<\/span><\/li>\n <li>Drawing and using GIMP<\/li>\n <li>Be ready to compile for multiple platforms<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff<\/p>","time":"May 4th, 2011 3:43 am","title":"First Ludum Dare: Post-mortem"}