{"author_name":"Elpizo","cat":"LD #20 - It's Dangerous to go Alone! Take This!","comments":[],"epoch":1304401320,"likes":0,"metadata":{"p_key":"65769","p_author":"Elpizo","p_authorkey":"4178","p_urlkey":"101565","p_title":"SINGLEHANDEDLY \u2013 Post-mortem-ish sorta kinda maybe almost","p_cat":"LD #20 - It's Dangerous to go Alone! Take This!","p_event":"LD20","p_time":"1304401320","p_likes":"0","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"4178","us_name":"Elpizo","us_username":"elpizo","event_start":"1304035200","event_key":"6","event_name":"LD20"},"text":"<p><strong>THE GOOD:<\/strong><\/p>\n <p>A lot of things went very, very right in this competition.<\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>The theme. I loved the theme, tbh. It was wide enough to give flexibility, but still had some coherence. I really enjoyed the theme, a lot more than anything else like &#8220;girl games&#8221; or &#8220;absorb.&#8221;<\/li>\n <li>Graphics. By choosing to stick to the NES palette and limit myself to 4 colors &#8211; including transparency &#8211; for everything, I really was able to keep a consistent graphical style and I pulled it off so well, that I found it more visually appealing than games with literally 256 million colors.<\/li>\n <li>Sound. I was actually able to mix my own sound for the first time, thanks to a program I recently came across (sfxr bro, sup) and this did nothing but further complement the graphical style and general play of the game.<\/li>\n <li>Gameplay, definitely. This went so well I could cry with joy. I&#8217;ve never had a game turn out this solid in a while- and it&#8217;s got everything &#8211; no, MORE than what I had intended initially. It was just going to be one final boss then bam, that&#8217;s it. Instead it&#8217;s got two mini-bosses and a final boss with an epic escape bit (if you play the game on hard like you should). I never thought I could do a fully playable Metroidvania in 48 hours. The first game I ever made (full length, that is. shitty pong clones don&#8217;t count) was a lot like this, years ago, and it took me at least a year to complete. I just topped it in 2 days.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <ul>\n <li>Time. I didn&#8217;t treat it as 2 days of dev time, I treated it as 48 hours of dev time. That really helped me pack in everything I needed to. I didn&#8217;t have to keep ideas small-scale, I firmly said &#8220;I&#8217;m making a badass Metroidvania,&#8221; and had enough time to do it.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p><strong>THE BAD:<\/strong><\/p>\n <p>Sadly, not everything was as planned.<\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>The length. I wanted the minimum play time for my game to be at least half an hour. I can run through and beat it in five minutes or less. Of course, it&#8217;s hard to get that out of 48 hours, but hell. I tried. XD<\/li>\n <li>The music. There was none. And there should&#8217;ve been.<\/li>\n <li>The theme. Well, mostly my fault. I loved the theme, but I suck at story telling in-game, especially when I wind up shoehorning it in. Now it&#8217;s hard to tell what the theme was for the game, and I could&#8217;ve pulled that off a lot better.\u00a0 That&#8217;s my one thing.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>Now, for non-competition purposes, I do plan on releasing a few updates to this game. Mostly fixes and a little new content, so those of you who really enjoyed it can squeeze a little more out of it. The engine was so solid I&#8217;d hate to let it die with the competition.<\/p>\n <p>&nbsp;<\/p>","time":"May 3rd, 2011 12:42 am","title":"SINGLEHANDEDLY \u2013 Post-mortem-ish sorta kinda maybe almost"}