Hi everybody,

I thought I’d share some of my experiences from LD19 creating “Caves of Darkness”, what went wrong, what went right and so on…

What went right:

1. Design – for the first time ever, I thought of a game idea, and implemented all the necessary game mechanics! Here is an early sketch from the morning of the competition:

Those of you who played the game (And if you didn’t – please do it now! ) will note that the game and the sketch are pretty close, something I consider a success.

2. Graphics – I think the graphic style of the game went very well, I worked quite a bit on the lighting effects as they are a major part of the gameplay mechanics, and I think the result is decent!

3. Sound – although the music is not exactly as I wanted it to be (I wanted it to be a bit darker, and mellower) – I think it is not bad after all, and suits the game well.

4. Levels – another first for me – my code base actually supports adding new levels easily, loading them and the game elements from file. This is a HUGE step forward for me, as I really think this makes this thing a GAME and not just a sketch.

What went wrong:

1. Controls – a common problem I have on all of my LD entries – controls are a bit twitchy. Fine tuning the parameters is hard, and because it is based on a simple “physics” engine, it makes it even harder. I think this should be the main thing to rewrite towards next LD competition (or in general, for that matter).

2. Game Elements – this is probably because of lack of time, but I really wanted to have more gameplay elements – moving platforms, collapsing floors and more – maybe for the next LD I will be able to make those happen, now that the code-base is growing.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with the result, and I had lots of fun participating.

So thanks, and if you haven’t played my game already – go, now! and vote!

Thanks,
Daniel

Tags: postmortem