{"author_name":"natpat","cat":"LD #20 - It's Dangerous to go Alone! Take This!","comments":[],"epoch":1304338020,"likes":1,"metadata":{"p_key":"65819","p_author":"natpat","p_authorkey":"3501","p_urlkey":"101615","p_title":"\u201cAlone\u201d \u2013 Post Mortem","p_cat":"LD #20 - It's Dangerous to go Alone! Take This!","p_event":"LD20","p_time":"1304338020","p_likes":"1","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"3501","us_name":"natpat","us_username":"natpat","event_start":"1304035200","event_key":"6","event_name":"LD20"},"text":"

I thought I’d jump on the band wagon and do one. \":)\"<\/p>\n

I was at a friends house for the first night – we stayed up ’til 3AM to see what the theme’d be, then got about 4 hours sleep, so I was kinda tired.<\/p>\n

The first day went pretty well – I had the idea when I first saw the theme, so I dived straight in.<\/p>\n

This was my first major project using AS3 & Flashpunk, I learnt them last week (although I’d done quite a bit of AS2 coding previously).<\/p>\n

It took me longer than I would have liked to get all the platforming elements done, especially since my game stopped working randomly for about an hour then randomly started again – but hey! I then started implementing all the features – such as the “tool”, and the mechanisms, like the switches and buttons and doors.<\/p>\n

On the second day, I added the remaining features – the enemies, spikes, and then got started on making the actual levels. This was harder than I thought – making\u00a0challenging\u00a0platformer levels is quite a challenge!<\/p>\n

I then decided I needed another feature with about 5 hours left – specifically the half block, which was\u00a0surprisingly\u00a0easy to add.<\/p>\n

After 6 levels though, I was way too tired – it was about 1 am, and I couldn’t think of any more levels, so I called it a night.<\/p>\n

WHAT I’VE LEARNT:<\/p>\n

I need to test less. Seriously, half my time was wasted on waiting for the code to compile, testing silly minor features.<\/p>\n

I much prefer AS3 to AS2.<\/p>\n

One thing that I don’t think I could have done without is OGMO editor. I had some trouble parsing the XML at the start, but once I got past that it was amazing. The project file for it is a complete mess, but it works, and works well.<\/p>\n

OOP is amazing.<\/p>\n

Quick “hacks” are ok for things that will never be uncovered again, rather than huge workarounds…. especially if you only have 48 hours :L<\/p>\n

I CAN FINISH GAMES! \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

My pixel art isn’t half as bad as I think.<\/p>","time":"May 2nd, 2011 7:07 am","title":"\u201cAlone\u201d \u2013 Post Mortem"}