{"author_name":"Grungi Ankhfire","cat":"LD #19 - Discovery - 2010","comments":[{"author_name":"True Valhalla","time":"December 22, 2010 4:03 am","epoch":1293008580,"text":"I spent ages on one bug, and the next day after a few hours sleep fixed it in 5 minutes&#8230;gotta hate that.","spam":"N"}],"epoch":1293006840,"likes":0,"metadata":{"p_key":"67624","p_author":"Grungi Ankhfire","p_authorkey":"3168","p_urlkey":"103427","p_title":"Into the unknown \u2013 some post-compo thoughts","p_cat":"LD #19 - Discovery - 2010","p_event":"LD19","p_time":"1293006840","p_likes":"0","p_comments":"1","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"3168","us_name":"Grungi Ankhfire","us_username":"grungi-ankhfire","event_start":"1292544000","event_key":"5","event_name":"LD19"},"text":"<p>Well, had some time to think over what I did right and wrong for my first participation in LD, or any game making sprint for that matter.<\/p>\n <p><strong>The good :<\/strong><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>I ended up with <strong><em>something playable<\/em><\/strong>. Sure, it lacks a lot of stuff, but considering I had to pretty much give up on more than half of the 48 hours thanks to &#8220;life&#8221;, it&#8217;s still a good thing.<\/li>\n <li>I managed to <em><strong>learn pyGame<\/strong><\/em>. I had sort of glanced over the docs before, but getting down to programming with it really is the best way to truly learn how to use it.<\/li>\n <li>I <strong><em>didn&#8217;t spend a single second fixing &#8216;code&#8217; problems<\/em><\/strong>. That&#8217;s thanks to Python, but anyway the only bugs I had were logical ones, and not some weird case of the code behaving in strange ways. That was refreshing.<\/li>\n <li>I had <strong><em>loads of fun<\/em><\/strong>, which I see as an important point, that means I&#8217;d do it again.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p><strong>The bad :<\/strong><\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>I <em><strong>tackled problems in the wrong order<\/strong><\/em>. I spent a huge amount of time trying to fix my lighting system, and still didn&#8217;t get it right on time for the submission deadline. As I was making a platformer, I should have concentrated on getting a platformer first, and then add the light stuff.<\/li>\n <li>In relation to the previous point, I spent <em><strong>way too much time on a single problem<\/strong><\/em>. And by not changing and working on something else, I kept trying to push in the wrong direction. Case in point : on monday, I fixed my lighting problems in about 20 minutes, because my mind was clear and I could see the solution I&#8217;d missed (hint : I was trying to determine what areas were lit, I ended up computing the shaded parts instead&#8230;).<\/li>\n <li>I didn&#8217;t allocate time for <strong><em>packaging<\/em><\/strong>. I figured that Python and pyGame being cross-platform, it would work out, but I should have spent some time to properly package for MacOSX users and Windows users. I&#8217;m going to fix that as soon as I have some time, though.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>So there you go, all in all I&#8217;m proud of myself, and I&#8217;ll be sure to continue working on the game. I think it has some potential, even if it&#8217;s very crude and barebones at the moment. I&#8217;ll post updates on my blog, so <a title=\"Your shoes and the world to come...\" href=\"http:\/\/your-shoes-and-the-world.blogspot.com\">go there if you&#8217;re interested<\/a>.<\/p>\n <p>Thanks to those who provided feedback, it&#8217;s really helpful! And stay tuned for proper exe and app executables in the next few days (busy packing as I&#8217;m going to Canada on friday, but I&#8217;ll find some time&#8230;).<\/p>","time":"December 22nd, 2010 3:34 am","title":"Into the unknown \u2013 some post-compo thoughts"}