A short Post-Mortem on my third try at a Ludum Dare compo. I made 3 level long adventure-puzzle game called “Escape From The Temple of Eternal Dooom”.

Click to try out my game!

What went right:

• Preparation / Tools  - I knew which tools (engine, media creation / generators) I wanted to use, and kept the weekend appointment-free.
• Theme – While not as instantly-inspiring as some other themes, it was a bonanza compared to the last theme. (‘Minimalism’)
• Sound - I am not a sound engineer, or even that musically inclined, but had good fun creating a simple but effective ‘dun dun duunnn’ background tune in SunVox, and recorded my first ever sound effects (footsteps and a whip sound). I did not have sound in my last LD game and that was a major flaw, so glad I improved there.
• Humor - I like to be funny (or pretend to be), and I had a lot of hooks in my game to reference silly things and have fun with the theme. (a pseudo Indiana Jonesy setting, with a snarky hero)
• Art - Inkscape has been a excellent tool for me in the past (drew fun detailed DnD location maps with it). It allows me to do a ‘simple but effective’ style that I can do a lot in with not much time. And scalable stuff rules!
• Concept - Loved my base mechanics and concept (you plan your hero moves, each move costs time, and you only have 10 seconds to reach the next door, or be reset), I could easily expand into whatever I wanted.
• Planning / Time Management - While not perfect, I stuck to my planning of having the ‘concept’ done on Saturday and polish on Sunday. ‘Polish’ here being ‘adding two levels’. But I did not spend too much time on unnecessary things, stopped trying to perfect ‘ok’ things, and moved on. Could still be improved, but hey, what can’t?

What went wrong:

• Difficulty – Allowing the player to discover and slowly get into the mechanics of the game would have been best. But I started off rough (you really had to ‘get it’ all for the first level), and it kept at that difficulty level while introducing new elements. I fear that not many got to the end. More hints, more playing, gentler curve.
• UI – Not necessarily the graphical part, but I was missing some functionality for the players. A ‘remove all actions’ button was oft-requested. Making it very clear that you can pause the game during move repeats would have been good too. Maybe add keyboard shortcuts.
• Physics Not Pausing – I used Unity’s physics engine to do collapsible floor tiles for room 2 of the game, but due to a short-sighted ‘oh they will get past that if they try a few times’, the physics kept running during pause. That breaks a game rule I set up in Room 1, and makes it more difficult to boot.
• Lighting - Not from my own experience, but people were complaining that it was too dark. I think it was an important part of the game to keep it really dark, and have light be a proper resource, but I fear that technically, the lighting might look different on peoples rigs. (environment, monitor, OS differences)

I really enjoyed making this LD entry, and I think the results are an improvement over my previous efforts. I am still quite enthusiastic about the premise and concept of the game, and am seriously considering turning it into a ‘real’ game project.

Tags: dooom, post-mortem