{"assets":[],"author_link":"author\/fireblend\/","author_name":"Fireblend","cat":"LD #23","categories":["LD #23"],"comments":[],"epoch":1335565200,"event":"LD23","likes":4,"metadata":{"p_key":"76899","p_author":"Fireblend","p_authorkey":"0","p_urlkey":"284846","p_title":"Disregard All Humans: A Postmortem","p_cat":"LD #23","p_event":"LD23","p_time":"1335565200","p_likes":"4","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":null,"us_name":null,"us_username":null,"event_start":"1334880000","event_key":"10","event_name":"LD23"},"source_url":"2012\/04\/27\/disregard-all-humans-a-postmortem\/","text":"

So, since they\u2019re all the rage now and my \u201cconclusion\u201d post right after the development time ran out was pretty short, I thought I\u2019d do a more fleshed out postmortem, so that I could reflect on the experience so far, and put on (virtual) paper what I think I\u2019ve learned from this edition of LD.<\/p>\n

In case you haven\u2019t played my game, you can find it right here: Disregard All Humans<\/a><\/strong>; I guess it\u2019s a requirement if you want some parts of this post to make sense \":P\"<\/p>\n

Background:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

So, my name is Sergio, and I\u2019m a 23 years old Costa Rican software engineer getting his CS master degree. Even though I do enjoy them greatly, and I\u2019ve developed a couple of demos throughout my career, I\u2019ve never actually embarked on the adventure of creating a game, much less in 48 hours and all by myself! In January I participated in the Global Game Jam, but it was with help from a very skilled team which had let me to play to my strengths and just help out with development. The challenge a LD posed was uncharted territory!<\/p>\n

Not satisfied with not having enough experience with 48-hour development cycles, I decided I would also learn a new programming language and game-making framework throughout the weekend: Lua and Love2D. I consider myself pretty language-agnostic, and since I didn\u2019t really have experience in game making other than with SDL (and I knew I wouldn\u2019t finish in time if I went with that), I decided to take a risk and after browsing around I settled with those two tools as my weapons of choice. I set up a new github repository with a mostly blank Lua file, and waited for the compo to start\u2026<\/p>\n

The theme:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cTiny World\u201d wasn\u2019t exactly the theme I was expecting (to be fair, I wasn\u2019t really expecting anything. I\u2019d glanced at the final round of voting, but didn\u2019t think much of it trying not to settle on anything before the theme was decided); I spent around 2 hours thinking about the theme, throwing ideas around with my girlfriend and brother, and that\u2019s how we came up with the basic idea I would pursue, to which the finished product is actually pretty close.<\/p>\n

I figured many people would think of the \u201coversized character moving around a tiny world represented as a circle\u201d mechanic (and I was right), but I figured the specific \u201cdestroying cities, eating humans\u201d gameplay would be unique enough to differentiate my game from others, and this being my first LD, it seemed simple enough to be finished by the time the compo ended. I was clear in that I wanted an intro an ending screen to go with the game, and an arcade-ish feel for the actual gameplay.<\/p>\n

\"\"

I was pretty happy with this little \"collage\" I made, showing some of the game's different states. Even though it wasn't a conscious choice, the game looks pretty cartoon-ish, doesn't it?<\/p><\/div>\n

What went right:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mostly everything. Using Lua and Love2D allowed for me to do very rapid development; Love2D being insanely intuitive and straightforward, and Lua having a syntax as easy as a syntax can be. I chose Geany as my IDE, being my usual choice for mostly everything I do, and I couldn\u2019t have made a better choice.<\/p>\n

From there, I went at a pretty stable pace; by the end of the first day (7PM-1am) I had a main character who could walk and jump. By the end of the second day (6am-10pm) I had all of the game\u2019s mechanics implemented and working, and that allowed me to focus the rest of my time on a title screen and an ending sequence, which I think gave a nice level of polish to the final product.<\/p>\n

Regarding graphics and music: I\u2019m no artist. Graphics were made with Inkscape which allowed me to do clean vectorized assets that at least looked consistent, while the music and sounds were auto-generated and modified slightly using Autotracker-Bu and sfxr, respectively.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/div>\n

What went wrong:<\/strong>\nI don\u2019t think I regret many of my decisions. I should have asked for more feedback from people so that I could realize that bullets being fired from buildings had a sort of \u201ccheap shot\u201d feel to them, and I should have considered shrinking buildings along with the world to make it feel more like the main character was growing, and not that the world was shrinking.<\/p>\n

Regardless, considering life got in the way of my development time, I don\u2019t think I could have squeezed many more features before it ran out. I think the scope was just right and I planned ahead well enough to get things done by the end of the 48 hour limit.<\/p>\n

Conclusion:<\/strong><\/p>\n

This being my first LD and arguiably my first finished game, I\u2019m extremely proud. It\u2019s gotten a really great reception and received more attention than I could\u2019ve asked for or remotely expected. This has given me a \u201cdeveloper high\u201d and the crave to learn more so I can get better results on my next entries (currently learning HTML5+js); LD is a remarkable testing ground.<\/p>\n

Speaking of which, I\u2019d like to add that an unexpected and yet awesome part of this whole experience has been the time after the 48-hour limit. Rating games and getting your games rated by other, waaay more experienced developers from all around has been amazing, and the good reception my game\u2019s had has proved to be a huge ego boost \":D\"<\/p>\n

All in all, a great experience, and I\u2019m already looking forward to the next LD!<\/p>","time":"April 27th, 2012 10:20 pm","title":"Disregard All Humans: A Postmortem"}