{"author_name":"dock","cat":"LD #15 - Caverns - 2009","comments":[{"author_name":"brandonman","time":"August 31, 2009 7:52 pm","epoch":1251766320,"text":"It was very fun! I still haven’t figured out some of it though. \ud83d\ude00 Nice work! It’s awesome to see what others are capable of in 2 days!","spam":"N"}],"epoch":1251752280,"likes":0,"metadata":{"p_key":"72513","p_author":"dock","p_authorkey":"472","p_urlkey":"108335","p_title":"\u2018Nice Cave\u2019 Post Mortem","p_cat":"LD #15 - Caverns - 2009","p_event":"LD15","p_time":"1251752280","p_likes":"0","p_comments":"1","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"472","us_name":"dock","us_username":"dock","event_start":"1251417600","event_key":"1","event_name":"LD15"},"text":"

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Ludumdare 15 is over! This was my third time entering, and my first time having a successful entry. It wasn’t without its problems though, so I figured I should do a write up of how it went.<\/p>\n

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The idea behind the 3D environment was to make 3D ’tiles’ that can be put together in a grid arrangement. These were made in 3D Studio Max and exported to be used in Unity. The shapes had their texture co-ordinates setup so that they share one material for all of the objects. PCs can render a LOT of geometry so long that it shares the same material. This concept worked out pretty well, as the final game runs nicely on even the shittiest laptop!<\/p>\n

I also decided to go with low-resolution textures, with 32×32 per metre square. This didn’t quite work out unfortunately because 3D Studio MAX’s UV texture co-ordinates are pretty inaccurate at low numbers, and even unfiltered textures suffer. This method was a thoery that didn’t work out, but that’s okay.<\/p>\n

The graphics in general are very rough. These are all my ‘first pass’ attempt at graphics, and I didn’t have enough time to clean them up. The tiles for the walls were never really finished properly, and some of the areas didn’t get a proper treatment for the floor. In general I think the graphics look okay though, and I was pleased how consistent the visuals are.<\/p>\n

Building the 3D environments also took me a while longer than I had hoped. Things because faster when I started from scratch, but I didn’t expect the environments to take so long. Unity’s editor isn’t too helpful with this either because there are no easy ways to select multiple objects, so I had problems with things like enclosed areas being invisible or hard to click on.<\/p>\n

I lost a bit of time by wasting time on code that wasn’t important. I spent a while trying to get good keyboard only controls working, which I later scrapped because they clashed with the mouse controls, and I didn’t have time to make a toggle (despite the mouse controls being a bit annoying for some). I would have been better off spending that time on a title screen and ending screen, which I regret not implementing.<\/p>\n

I used ‘SFXR’ (CFXR on the mac) for sound effects, and I was massively pleased with the results. I started work on some music but I couldn’t get anything to suit the theme. Sorry the sound effects are a bit loud! I was pleased to get some sounds in there though, it makes the whole game feel much more responsive!<\/p>\n

In terms of game design, I didn’t really have a solid game design figured out. Towards the end I decided to use what I had working well (doors and object-keys) and make the game progress based entirely on those. I think this worked out okay, with the game being a bit of a challenge but not so long to become boring.<\/p>\n

All in all, I think it went okay! I am looking forward to the next ludumdare! \":)\"<\/p>","time":"August 31st, 2009 3:58 pm","title":"\u2018Nice Cave\u2019 Post Mortem"}