On friday I didn\u2019t know for sure what themes were on voting (and I didn\u2019t look out to find new theme battles like Potato x NoPotato<\/strong> ) so I was pretty lost! But when the theme come out I had this weird idea of using exploding penguins somehow. And that\u2019s how my game was born!<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n On my previous tries on Ludum Dare my workspace was on my bedroom. And what really happened was:<\/p>\n I had an idea -> started programming it -> found difficult to solve bug -> got frustrated -> pretended to be tired -> slept -> lost time -> solved bug -> had another idea -> repeat forever.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n And obviously that didn\u2019t work because with this cycle a huge amount of time was lost. However some factors are impossible to get out of the equation. We will always find really hard to solve bugs get frustrated. The problem here is that frustration lead me to \u201cI need to sleep, after sleep this bug will be so much easier to fix\u201d<\/strong> and this statement is not true<\/strong>, at all. But what lead me to think that way?<\/p>\n -> My bed. <\/strong><\/p>\n I don\u2019t know if that only happens with me, but I\u2019ve found out that the warming environment of bedrooms makes me be amazingly unproductive. It makes me want to play, sleep, eat , enter on twitter\/facebook, hang out with friends\u2026anyway\u2026 procrastinate in the most different ways. And it\u2019s a unconscious action\u2026.<\/p>\n When I realized that (and it took me a while to get it)\u2026 I decided to move all my workspace to my living room. \u00a0And it worked! I\u2019ve broken the evil cycle! \ud83d\ude00 \u00a0After that, those two days became extremely productive!!!<\/p>\n Change workspace = new ideas and increased productivity. The best lesson I\u2019ve had at this compo.<\/p>\n \n Other thing that I\u2019ve decided to do was to use Actionscript which isn\u2019t a tool that I\u2019m used to work on a daily base. And that was a challenge at first but I really liked how fluid it was programming and using flashpunk was awesome (flashpunk = <3). \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \n (Friday night )->(Saturday afternoon) ->(Sunday night)<\/p>\n \n Workspace change<\/strong>\u00a0 : This change was the turning point for me. It made me get more focused and organized.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Choosing a simple concept:\u00a0<\/strong>I normally choose ridiculously difficult concepts for my games and that normally leads to difficult design decisions that take time. I decided to keep a simple mechanic and develop more the humorous and fun side of the game. That freed my time to focus on other things like graphics, fixing bugs and most important having fun with my own game.<\/p>\n Choosing funny subjects:<\/strong> I\u2019ve decided to work with something that would make me laugh \u00a0(exploding penguins ). This made me have so much more fun developing this game and with this choice I had almost no tension while making this game. I found myself at sunday 7 am laughing hard when I\u2019ve created the parachute exploding penguins, even after two almost sleepless nights. This made my compo way better.<\/p>\n Time management (almost):\u00a0<\/b>Comparing to my other tries, I managed time in a better way. It almost worked completely I did almost everything that I\u2019ve wanted to do. I think that went better because I planned my how I was going to use time and really respected all the work sections. If I\u2019ve decided to make sounds in that time span I really made all possible sounds for that allocated time, no more no less. However I was not able to finish all my tasks.<\/p>\n NO FACEBOOK\/TWITTER OR PROCRASTINATING: <\/strong>That really went right. I\u2019ve shut my cellphone of and kept away from social networks and procrastination tools as hard as I could and that really helped me.<\/p>\n \n Music:\u00a0<\/strong>I should have searched for music development tools before compo. I found myself sunday 10pm searching for tools and how to make an interesting soundtrack for my game and\u2026. That didn\u2019t work. Planning on this area that I personally know nothing about is essential for next compos.<\/p>\n Sleep:\u00a0<\/strong>I got so excited with my progress that I almost forgot to sleep on saturday. I slept from 10 am to 12 am after developing for 10 hours straight . On sunday I forgot again to sleep and went o bed only at 6am and slept only until 9am. In sunday afternoon I was so tired that I literally passed out at 6pm and only I only woke up at 9. This messed up my schedule and progress. I need to give sleep some hours, it\u2019s important! This whole sleep issue destroyed my\u00a0sleep cycle in such a way that I\u2019m still having trouble to sleep. <\/span><\/p>\n Level design<\/strong>\u00a0: This was the really last thing that I\u2019ve done and I should have spent more time on that. And for my type of game testing rounds\/levels really take time. For me I should have mixed engine testing with level testing, I mean I shouldve started earlier developing the round system to test both levels and engine add-ons at the same time.This would have freed my time for other stuff. However, I\u2019m satisfied with the level design result.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n That\u2019s it \ud83d\ude00 They are extremely important for me and for my next games! \n Click on the image to play!<\/a><\/p>\n\u2014 Friday night.<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"734112_763453327002442_1469777796_n\"](\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/734112_763453327002442_1469777796_n.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n\u2014 Saturday and Sunday = Progress<\/h2>\n
<\/a>\u00a0->\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0->\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n
What went right:<\/h2>\n
What went wrong:<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n