{"assets":[],"author_link":"author\/citelao\/","author_name":"Ben","cat":"LD #23","categories":["LD #23"],"comments":[],"epoch":1336655340,"event":"LD23","likes":5,"metadata":{"p_key":"77869","p_author":"Ben","p_authorkey":"0","p_urlkey":"286878","p_title":"And with that, I bid you, \u201cAdieu\u201d","p_cat":"LD #23","p_event":"LD23","p_time":"1336655340","p_likes":"5","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\/05\/10\/and-with-that-i-bid-you-adieu\/","text":"<p>Well, it\u2019s been a while since Ludum Dare, and looking back I am extremely proud of what I accomplished.<\/p>\n<p>I made a game called <strong>In a Lonely Sea of Stars<\/strong>: you send harvest ships from your (tiny) planet out into the great galaxy to harvest energy from stars. Of course you have to defend your ships from space pirates so you build defense turrets, etc. etc.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"width: 538px\"><a href=\"http:\/\/citelao.github.com\/In-a-Lonely-Sea-of-Stars\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"\" height=\"431\" src=\"http:\/\/f.cl.ly\/items\/13071B1u411Q2s0J151q\/Screen%20Shot%202012-04-22%20at%209.14.39%20PM.png\" width=\"528\"\/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pretty colors...<\/p><\/div>\n<h3>The game<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/citelao.github.com\/In-a-Lonely-Sea-of-Stars\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"alignnone\" height=\"411\" src=\"http:\/\/f.cl.ly\/items\/1I112D2k45030U2l163L\/title-card-548.png\" width=\"548\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I chose my dev tools well. I enjoyed using <strong>cfxr<\/strong>, <strong>Photoshop, <\/strong>and even <strong>Flash Builder <\/strong>(though I\u2019d have loved to use a Mac-native IDE. <strong>Chocolat <\/strong>with working AS3 autocompletion\/compiling\/debug? \/drool)<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re interested in playing it, it\u2019s on GitHub:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/citelao.github.com\/In-a-Lonely-Sea-of-Stars\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"alignnone\" height=\"60\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/play.png\" width=\"160\"\/><\/a>\u00a0| <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/citelao\/In-a-Lonely-Sea-of-Stars\">source<\/a><\/p>\n<p>So how did I do?<\/p>\n<h3>What went right<\/h3>\n<p>This was my first Ludum Dare and my second full game. I programmed a game a couple of years ago that was really, really awful so I won\u2019t even mention it here. Oops.<\/p>\n<p>I did begin work on a concept to learn FlashPunk a while back, but \u201cIn a Lonely Sea of Stars\u201d was my first real creation. And I am so proud of it.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Concept.<\/strong> I got the game concept really early on (like 15 minutes after they announced the theme\u2014 I was eating dinner so I got the theme a little late) and got into prototyping really quickly.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Asset creation. <\/strong>It\u00a0was a cinch. I love pixel art because it\u2019s so beautiful but so simple to create.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Development.\u00a0<\/strong>Development was, dare I say, fun! I didn\u2019t run into many fundamental programming errors (because I used a framework instead of starting from scratch) so development just worked.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>What went wrong<\/h3>\n<p>I may be proud, but I\u2019m also aware of what broke.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Math. <\/strong>\u00a0My worst enemy in game design is not procrastination or overreaching or anything at all complex. Math (which I\u2019m really good at ordinarily) does not work in my head for games. Atan2? AHH! Math.PI * 180? HIDE ME! What clicks every day breaks when I try to apply it in general terms, and math was by far my greatest time suck.\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Trig.\u00a0<\/strong>I really, really, really hate trig for games. Part of my code reads:\n<pre><code>point.x = (FP.width * _zoom * Math.cos(_angle)) \/ (2 * Main.game.zoom);<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>which then gets fed into<\/p>\n<pre><code>x = Main.game.earth.x - 39 + point.x<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>I know what it\u2019s doing <em>in theory<\/em>\u00a0(finding the x position of an object using it\u2019s intrinsic <code>_zoom<\/code> and <code>_angle<\/code> position and then putting it in terms of a different origin\u2026 but really? What\u2019s going on!?), so for next Dare I swear I will have a better understanding \/ predesigned framework for putting things on screen. Jeez.<\/p><\/li>\n<li><strong>Coordinate Systems.\u00a0<\/strong>I also hate FlashPunk\u2019s coordinate system. I ended up with code that had so many arbitrary numbers that I just cannot understand what is happening. <code>originX<\/code> vs <code>centerX<\/code> vs <code>x<\/code> vs <code>width<\/code>. Yah, I totally understand all of that.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Formulas. <\/strong>The reason I\u2019m a developer and not a programmer comes down to this. Formulas just throw me; I cannot write an accessible function that throws out a scroll position to save my life.\u00a0I spent close to 3 hours developing a scrolling system which actually just split a number (36, say) into digits (3 and 6). Then at the end of the day I combined the numbers again. And it\u2019s still buggy. What a waste.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>No end in sight. <\/strong>I wasted so much time on the math that I wasn\u2019t able to complete the ending or write the story I planned. The end goal was to find another life-supporting planet akin to earth (hence \u201clonely sea of stars\u201d). I was not able to implement that.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Time sucks.<\/strong>\u00a0I had a practice AP test to take that weekend (I\u2019m in high school), so I was effectively paralyzed for 3hrs plus the prep time for that exam.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div>\n<h3>Thanks, y\u2019all<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p>The greatest thing about this compo has been the community. You have no idea (or do you) how happy it makes me to see even the most\u00a0perfunctory\u00a0comments on my game like \u201cexcellent work for a first timer\u201d or \u201ccould be really fun.\u201d I know my game is far from perfect, but this praise makes me so, so happy. Thank you so very much everyone.<\/p>\n<h3>So we look to the future<\/h3>\n<p>Now I want to see how this game is when it\u2019s finished, so here\u2019s my plan:<\/p>\n<p>I will release three versions of this game, all accessible on GitHub.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Original. <\/strong>The Ludum Dare version with all it\u2019s bugs and inconsistencies.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Bug fixed.<\/strong>\u00a0No new features, just playable; tutorial won\u2019t break the game, turrets go where they\u2019re supposed to, etc.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Final.<\/strong>\u00a0This version will be the actual vision I had for the game. It will have some features I didn\u2019t get to put in like a story and endgame.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>I will also spend this weekend reviewing games because, by gor, I want other people to be as happy as I am.<\/p>\n<p>So once again, everyone on the net and everyone reviewing games, thank you so, so very much. Thank you for making me the happiest person in the world just by saying \u201cgood job.\u201d I worked really hard but it was so worth it, guys.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks.<\/p>\n<p>Tags: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/tag\/postmortem\/\" rel=\"tag\">postmortem<\/a><\/p> <div style=\"float: right;border: 1px solid #eee;padding: 2px;background: #fff;\"><div class=\"iLikeThis\" id=\"iLikeThis-134500\"><span class=\"counter\"><a class=\"image\" onclick=\"likeThis(134500);\">5<\/a><\/span><\/div><\/div>\n<p class=\"postmetadata alt\">\n<small>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tThis entry was posted\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\ton Thursday, May 10th, 2012 at 1:09 pm\t\t\t\t\t\tand is filed under <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/category\/ld-23\/\" rel=\"category tag\" title=\"View all posts in LD #23\">LD #23<\/a>.\n\t\t\t\t\t\tYou can follow any responses to this entry through the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/2012\/05\/10\/and-with-that-i-bid-you-adieu\/feed\/\">RSS 2.0<\/a> feed.\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tYou can <a href=\"#respond\">leave a response<\/a>, or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/2012\/05\/10\/and-with-that-i-bid-you-adieu\/trackback\/\" rel=\"trackback\">trackback<\/a> from your own site.\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/small>\n<\/p>","time":"May 10th, 2012 1:09 pm","title":"And with that, I bid you, \u201cAdieu\u201d","title_was_empty":false}