{"author_name":"Frib","cat":"LD #20 - It's Dangerous to go Alone! Take This!","comments":[],"epoch":1304334660,"likes":2,"metadata":{"p_key":"65823","p_author":"Frib","p_authorkey":"3939","p_urlkey":"101619","p_title":"Heroic Cat \u2013 Post Mortem","p_cat":"LD #20 - It's Dangerous to go Alone! Take This!","p_event":"LD20","p_time":"1304334660","p_likes":"2","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"3939","us_name":"Frib","us_username":"frib","event_start":"1304035200","event_key":"6","event_name":"LD20"},"text":"

Warning: Here be SPOILERS. Don’t read if you haven’t finished it. It should take you about 10 minutes to play through if you finish each level at a decent pace.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes. Heroic Cat has Spoilers. Can you believe it?
\n <\/strong><\/p>\n

This was my first Ludum Dare I’ve ever participated in, and I had no idea what to expect and how far I would get in 48 hours. I didn’t prepare that much. I had my tools (visual studio, paint.net, bfxr and audiotool), but I had no pre-existing engine code or whatever, nor did I have any external libraries, engines or frameworks (bar XNA of course) to use.<\/p>\n

Progress<\/strong><\/p>\n

When the theme was announced at 4 AM, I immediately started working out my idea. 2D sidescrolling platformer, cat being hero, save princess, common enemies, etc. This didn’t take that long. I had a rough idea about what I wanted to do, and figured I’ll just expand on it when I get to it. I then started working on the engine. Tilebased, basic collision for that, and collision between entities. I also wanted simple AI commands put into the map itself to control the green guy. At 9 AM I had the first 2 levels, including an enemy and basic AI. The core of my engine was done! I then went to sleep.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

The next day I continued working on content and levels. I added the crushing dude, rope, the feather, and continued working on levels. Progress didn’t go very fast, with each level taking an hour or more to develop. I think the last level I did that day was the one with the ‘castle’ entrance with the heart. And I made the ‘final’ level, which is the part with the princess. At that point you weren’t trapped in jail yet, but you couldn’t get out either, and your cat would turn into a skeleton after the narrator stopped narrating.<\/p>\n

On the last day I continued working on some levels. I added the fireball dudes, fixed some issues with map transitions, and then I got a brilliant idea at about 6 hours left. Instead of dying alone, you’d be rescued by a firebreathing guy, and then you’d go back and burn the house down of the hero. An epic plot twist indeed. So I worked on the firebreathing hero, and recreated the second-to-last level. But then I realized backtracking was silly, so I took the underground route. I only ended up making a few new levels, but there’s still room for more in between them.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I had a lot of fun making the ‘final final’ ending, where the guy burns their house down with combustible lemons. Then I added the level before that, with the guards. I also replicated all changes to the first levels before the plot twist. And after adding the credits screen, the game was practically done, and I had about 1.5 hours left. Enough time to give it a few full playtests, package it up, let someone else test, and then to finally submit it!<\/p>\n

Things that are missing<\/strong><\/p>\n

Things that didn’t make it were the ability for the green guy to get a sword or shield, and other random items\/powerups. But that was before I came up with the plot twist. In hindsight I should’ve added a few more woodburning puzzles, but I had trouble thinking up puzzles as is. Also, I’m glad I didn’t do animations. I wanted them at first, but thought ‘meh, it will just take up time’. If I chose to do animations, I’d be swamped and it would probably take me another day to finish. Also, I wanted the ending cutscene to be the firebreathing dude and the cat making baby firebreathing dragon kittens or something for a sequel, but alas, I didn’t do that.<\/p>\n

Things that should’ve been done differently<\/strong><\/p>\n

I wish I had time to fix my tile collision code. Sometimes it freaks out and warps entities away. I suspect it’s rounding issues (I casted lots of stuff to ints because I was lazy) but instead I worked around it by preventing it from ‘naturally’ happening. I sort of know when the bug happens as it is a little predictable. But still, nasty stuff that’s bugging me now. Also, in hindsight, I’d add a music mute button and I’d also make escape work a little different. Full screen toggle would be nice as well. But hey, you can’t have it all. I’ll remember those for next time.<\/p>\n

Final thoughts<\/strong><\/p>\n

But still, I’m very happy with the result. I learned a lot from it as well, especially about what I can do in 48 hours. For my next game I’ll probably create something with less levels, or levels done in a different way. Creating puzzles is not my strongest point, and often I’d have no idea what to do for 30 minutes.<\/p>\n

For the next time, I might try another language, probably one for the web. Developing in XNA is sweet but I noticed that the few people testing it never had XNA 4.0 installed. And like them I know the pain of installing crap like that when all you want to do is extract and play (or only play).<\/p>\n

In any case, I’m in for LD21 \ud83d\ude00<\/p>","time":"May 2nd, 2011 6:11 am","title":"Heroic Cat \u2013 Post Mortem"}