{"assets":[],"author_link":"author\/unusualcadence\/","author_name":"unusualcadence","cat":"LD #28","categories":["LD #28"],"comments":[],"epoch":1387526160,"event":"LD28","likes":5,"metadata":{"p_key":"79884","p_author":"unusualcadence","p_authorkey":"0","p_urlkey":"288894","p_title":"Underbyte \u2013 Some words about it!","p_cat":"LD #28","p_event":"LD28","p_time":"1387526160","p_likes":"5","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":null,"us_name":null,"us_username":null,"event_start":"1386892800","event_key":"20","event_name":"LD28"},"source_url":"2013\/12\/20\/underbyte-some-words-about-it\/","text":"<p><iframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"375\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KU7ExNan0dY?feature=oembed\" width=\"500\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Hello!<\/p>\n<p>So I made this game called Underbyte for the jam this year. Once again I was ridiculously ambitious, missed the 48 hour deadline and submitted it to the Jam at silly-o-clock with a stinking headache and amazing sense of accomplishment. I\u2019m really proud of this one as it\u2019s been a bit of an end-of-year Wot I Learned Doing Gamejams test for myself, and I think it\u2019s fun!<\/p>\n<p><strong>The good:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>* Overall I was aiming to do some specific things this jam, and focus on that mystery \u2018x\u2019 factor known as \u2018feeling\u2019. Manic platform shooters seem to be in my blood, they\u2019re great fun to make and I already had a crack at it earlier in the year with \u201cInvertigo\u201d, which wasn\u2019t too great in hindsight. Overall I\u2019d learned a lot of tricks about particle effects, animation, knockback, screen-shake and control tightening that I wanted to apply to something, before diving in to a fuller title in a similar vein.<\/p>\n<p>* The pixels are better! I started this year with a complete lack of knowledge of how to do tiles, and over the jams I\u2019ve been slowly getting my head around things. Not to say the art is anything more than \u201cbarely functional\u201d, but I\u2019m on the path to getting my arty skills up to speed. Maybe the first step of the path, but it\u2019s a start!<\/p>\n<p>* Music + sound. People seem to love the soundtrack, which makes me very happy indeed!<\/p>\n<p>* Serendipity. I stumbled across the smash-two-blocks-together-to-destroy-tiles mechanic by complete accident early on, and thought it worked really well! Further investigations neeeded for sure.<\/p>\n<p>* Stencyl. Ooh I love me some middleware, and I wouldn\u2019t have been able to do any of this (much less so quickly) without Stencyl being a very neat engine! Thanks Team Stencyl!<\/p>\n<p><strong>The bad:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>* Level design. I\u2019m getting better at this for sure after cranking out loads for my last entry, but the flow still isn\u2019t quite right for me.<\/p>\n<p>* The animation. Yeahhhh\u2026 not my strong suit. C-, must try harder!<\/p>\n<p>* Theme intergration. I originally wanted to put in some \u2018?\u2019 blocks that gave you random power ups, but only ever one of each. Then I ran out of time trying to desperately polish the game for release, and just didn\u2019t get to implement the feature properly. I stuck in a key to activate a one-time invincibility. It\u2019s crowbarred in, but it kinda works, I really wish I had left time to implement something much more interesting!<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, thanks for all the kind words that have been left so far! It\u2019s already turned up in a few roundups on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nag.co.za\/2013\/12\/20\/10-ludum-dare-games-you-have-to-play\/\" title=\"NAG Online\">NAG Online<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/indiestatik.com\/2013\/12\/17\/ludum-dare-28\/\">IndieStatik<\/a> which is so awesome. And someone\u2019s done a playthrough already which is linked to in the first post, thank you very much to the person that uploaded it! I have plans to keep on going with this game and turn it in to a more complete adventure, so keep an eye out for it!<\/p>\n<p>Oh yeah, play it here: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-28\/?action=preview&amp;uid=20697\">http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-28\/?action=preview&amp;uid=20697<\/a><\/p>","time":"December 20th, 2013 7:56 am","title":"Underbyte \u2013 Some words about it!","title_was_empty":false}