dafont.com<\/a>.\u00a0 A good font makes all the difference.\u00a0 Oh, actually, I didn’t break the rule of only using your own assets, did I?\u00a0 I wouldn’t really expect many people to make their own fonts for Ludum Dare.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n What went wrong:<\/strong><\/p>\n \n - I think the game may be a little too obtuse.\u00a0 If you’ve played Weird Worlds etc. you’ll know what to expect (minus the space battles), but I don’t think the game really makes clear that you’re supposed<\/em> to die frequently and start over.\u00a0 Certainly, even if you win on your first play-through, you’ll miss clues and stories(?) due to the random number generator only picking a handful of the possible options.<\/li>\n
- Is it fun?\u00a0 I suspect it’s possibly a bit too random to really be much fun to play.\u00a0 In Weird Worlds you get into battles and have various strategies to maximise your potential gains, but there aren’t really many strategies in The Lost Hebrides (though the ‘divine’ button is there for a reason…).\u00a0 Also, it’s the kind of game whose replayability would probably benefit from a score, but that would kind of work against the story\/setting.\u00a0 To be honest though, I was more interested in creating an atmosphere this time than making a really well-designed game.<\/li>\n
- The cut-scenes.\u00a0 I’m not happy with the way these turned out.\u00a0 I don’t think they can remotely hold their own against the main map (map = kind of elegant; cut-scenes = clumsy children’s picture book).\u00a0 It’s the black lines as much as anything, plus I don’t think I really used the watercolours to their fullest potential.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n
What could be improved:<\/strong><\/p>\n \n - The writing.\u00a0 There are parts of this I really like “She will return a thousand years old…”<\/em> (though I stole that line), and I do like the main (folklore-ish) story, but a lot of it’s a bit clunky and could do with some editing.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n
Where the inspiration came from:<\/strong><\/p>\n \n - Like I’ve said, rockettothesky<\/a>‘s Medea album was a huge influence while I was making the game, and my aim was to make a game that had a similar atmosphere.\u00a0 Also, the islander who tells you “She will return a thousand years old…”<\/em> is quoting from a couple of songs on the album.<\/li>\n
- Scottish folklore.\u00a0 I have a slight obsession with creating games that reflect where I’m from, and this is probably the closest I’ve come to creating a properly Scottish game.\u00a0 It seems to me that most games don’t really reference their geographical roots, instead choosing to engage solely with the kind of internet digital monoculture that we’re all part of now.\u00a0 This game was an attempt to emulate the kind of storytelling you hear in Scottish fairy tales, stories that reference fairies and enchantment, and places like Land-under-Waves which can only be reached by certain paths.<\/li>\n
- Weird Worlds\/Strange Adventures in Infinite Space, natch.\u00a0 I love these games.\u00a0 Short play times, high replayability, not quite a roguelike…<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n
I’ll finish with a picture of everything I drew\/inked\/painted for the game (barring the clouds, which are hiding under the watercolour pad.\u00a0 There’s a bit of a spoiler if you’ve not won the game yet:<\/p>\n
![\"Drawings\"](\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/Drawings-550x232.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n \n Tags: postmortem<\/a>, timelapse<\/a><\/p>","time":"April 26th, 2010 6:07 am","title":"Timelapse, Post Mortem"}
![\":)\"](\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-includes\/images\/smilies\/simple-smile.png\")
), but I left the Windows version as it is, since that’s how I submitted it, and it’s not a huge bug.<\/p>\n