What went wrong:

• Computer Crash – Had to install a foreign OS before-hand, had to install a new dev toolchain.
• No warm-up – due to my crash I had to scramble to get a dev environment working.
• Over-Scoped for Preparedness Level – Since I wasn’t prepared, the scope was a bit too large. I think I could have done those extra awesome things
• Sound Levels – My speakers are junk so I didn’t realize the sound was so loud.
• Wasn’t fun - Really,  I don’t think my game was fun.

What went right:

• Quick Coding – I coded briskly, though not as brisk as I know I can.
• No interruptions – I didn’t get interrupted or procrastinate at all.
• Quick Idea – I had an idea quickly.
• Consistency – The graphics and game play were at least consistent.

Things I wanted to add really badly:

• Street Names, Addresses & Random Apartment Names – I thought this would be important to adding depth of gameplay, much like it was in Tiny Civilization.
• An informant – There’s a ‘convict’ sprite still embedded in the SWF.
• More enemies – I wanted to make it so you couldn’t go inside buildings when enemies were nearby.
• Cars – I wanted to add cars as obstacles. I even had for a glimpse of a second the idea that bobbies would come out of cars, but I was already 24 hours in at that point.
• Other Obstacles – I imagined a few simple obstacles such as potholes. Never got there though.
• Tweaked bobby AI – Bobbys were dumb and didn’t properly follow the playing character. I wanted them to move about the map in a pac-man like fashion.
• Tweaked balance – I wanted to have more time to tweak the balance of power, how fast bobbies went, how often they appeared, and what kinds of deals you got.

Shorty & The Big Deal 2600

 Click here to play Shorty & The Big Deal 2600

What’s Next? – Retrocard Alpha

Retrocard is one of those things that’s really hard to explain.  It’s a game where every area is designed and programmed by the users themselves, in-game.

It’s far from finished, but there’s a working prototype online.  Click here to see it in action.

There is enough scripting available to keep a programmer busy.  If you know a bit of LUA you will be right at home editing scripts.   You can play musical melodies,  pop-up dialogs, and soon add networking and chat capabilities too.

A user-programmed location in the Retrocard world.

Players themselves create and expand the Retrocard universe by making custom paintings, buttons, and scripts.

There are plenty of missing features still of coarse,  as should be expected in an Alpha release. If you have thoughts and suggestions, I would love to hear them.

Click here to try Retrocard Alpha Release

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 23rd, 2012 at 12:31 pm and is filed under LD #25. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.