I woke up at 8.30 (UK time), checked the theme and made some breakfast. My idea came to me nearly instantly. It was to be a game about the link between power and human relationships, and it was going to be mindblowing. The narrative and gameplay meshed together beautifully in my head, and I immediately started coding. Mistake 1: Don\u2019t attempt to create an HTML5 engine from scratch<\/strong>. By 5pm I had my engine at a reasonable level (I\u2019m still damned proud of that engine), and I quickly built up the mechanics of the game. Except they didn\u2019t work.\u00a0It was a game built upon 3 simple rules; 1. People seek power, 2. People gain power by taking it from others, and 3. The powerful need more power to sustain their egos; but I couldn\u2019t balance my AI.\u00a0Power, it seems, is a freight train. The 1% effect. I learned a valuable lesson about mankind, and lost 12 hours of coding. Mistake 2: Prototype everything, even your prototypes.\u00a0<\/strong>What now? I spent the rest of the night trying to salvage my beautiful engine, attempting to justify using it at any cost. Every 15 minutes I would alternate between a new idea and\u00a0attempting\u00a0to fix the original game, swinging from delight to depression like a pendulum.\u00a0Mistake 3: Cut your losses<\/strong>.\u00a0By 3am I had finally given up. I sank a couple of beers and went to bed.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n All I have to show for 24 hours work.<\/p><\/div>\n Day 2<\/strong><\/p>\n I woke at a more reasonable 11am, and rose feeling defeated. Bitter. Game designer ego does not take well to defeat. I\u00a0couldn\u2019t resist taking one last crack at the contest. This time, it would be different. It would be simple, concise and different. I chose Unity, my trusty silent compadre, and took a very small and underdeveloped part of a concept I had floating around my mind.\u00a0Understanding 1: Work with what you know.<\/strong> It was to be the puzzle side of the fast paced racer which had been long ago silently converted into a fast paced racer with no puzzles (shameless plug \u2013 you can totally play the alpha of that game here<\/a>). I cut everything from the idea that didn\u2019t support the core, and carved out the perspective tricks brought forward by the excellent Fez.\u00a0Understanding 2: If it can be cut, cut it; especially when the theme is minimalism.\u00a0<\/strong>I started with a test level to make sure the concept worked. It worked. Satisfied, I started work on some essential middleware tools I would need to save time down the line. Creating and saving meshes from within Unity, that sort of thing. If you don\u2019t know it Unity Answers is a beautiful place. This wasn\u2019t fast, but it was worth it \u2013 I could create shapes and levels rapidly. I worked up the first 6 levels in an hour. I had 8 left, but I wanted a finished game as soon as possible.\u00a0Understanding 3: Polish is 90% of your game\u2019s appeal.<\/strong>\u00a0I created a simple menu and a few more levels. With 6 hours left, I could spend plenty of time on sound and visuals. The style was born from effective of a single Unity filter, mimicking the beautiful world of Echochrome. I am not a sound designer, but FruityLoops makes it insanely easy to create quality sound in a short space of time (and skill). Despite all this, I submitted just 10 minutes before the deadline. I narrowly avoided the greatest mistake I could have made:\u00a0Understanding 4: Allow an hour for submission.\u00a0<\/strong>Screenshots within the Ludum Dare submission page lose their\u00a0splendour and be aware that people pick games based on how they look, not the quirky name or genuinely original mechanic. Exporting and uploading too, takes time. I\u2019m sure some Dare\u2019ers missed the submission date by seconds, and they will have learnt this lesson the hard way.<\/p>\n Keeping it simple in every way but the puzzles.<\/p><\/div>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n That was my Ludum Dare. It had highs and lows, but there\u2019s nothing quite like the feeling of finishing something you\u2019re truly proud of, even if it isn\u2019t objectively very good. But it\u2019s not my place to argue whether I made a good game, it\u2019s yours. You can play and rate XYZ here<\/a><\/strong> \u2013 I\u2019d love to know what you think.<\/p>\n Tags: minimalism<\/a>, post-mortem<\/a>, postmortem<\/a>, xyz<\/a><\/p> ![\"All](\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/16.jpg\")
<\/a><\/a>