{"assets":[],"author_link":"author\/cosine\/","author_name":"Cosine","cat":"LD #25","categories":["LD #25"],"comments":[],"epoch":1356267900,"event":"LD25","likes":4,"metadata":{"p_key":"79984","p_author":"Cosine","p_authorkey":"0","p_urlkey":"288994","p_title":"Treasure Defender Post Mortem","p_cat":"LD #25","p_event":"LD25","p_time":"1356267900","p_likes":"4","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":null,"us_name":null,"us_username":null,"event_start":"1355443200","event_key":"14","event_name":"LD25"},"source_url":"2012\/12\/23\/treasure-defender-post-mortem\/","text":"

Because apparently my game died? I don\u2019t know. Anyways, here\u2019s a synopsis of my game, and how I made it. If you haven\u2019t already, you can go get a Windows (sorry Mac users!) download here.<\/a>\u00a0While not needed, it might help to play the game before reading.<\/p>\n

\"Here's<\/p>\n

A screenshot of the current version of the game.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

My timezone is pretty nicely situated for LudumDare, and my \u2018routine\u2019 of sorts is based around that. The theme is announced at 8PM, giving me time to design a game before I go to bed. Then, the next day, I begin making the game, having gone over many of the details of how the game will work the night before. It\u2019s a really nice system for myself, and it\u2019s worked for me very well in contests previous.<\/p>\n

However, this year, I didn\u2019t do that, because\u00a0I completely forgot LudumDare was happening.<\/em> The next day, around 1PM, somebody on Steam showed me a screenshot of a game he was working on. I happened to notice that he put the image in a folder named \u2018LD25.\u2019 I quickly navigated to the LudumDare website, and lo and behold: There\u2019s a contest going on! So I scrambled together a quick design document<\/a> that basically said \u201cmake that one game with the dungeon and the heroes but with more puzzle\u201d and got to work.<\/p>\n

My first challenge was to make a text parser. You see, GameMaker\u2019s room editor, while pretty nifty, didn\u2019t suit my needs in making coordinate-based paths. So, I set to work on making code to read text.<\/p>\n

At the time, I didn\u2019t really know about XML at all, and since (to my knowledge) GameMaker doesn\u2019t have any built-in XML reading, I\u2019m not sure if it would\u2019ve helped. Instead, I based my file structure off of Valve\u2019s \u201ckeyvalue\u201d format, in which different objects store different facets of data in curly brackets. Here\u2019s what my file structure ended up looking like.<\/p>\n

\"Code!<\/p>\n

It ended up a bit different in the final version, but you can pretty much infer how it works. I also discovered that, while writing my text parser, GameMaker doesn\u2019t like tabs. Not one bit. When I tried to filter out tabs from the file to get the raw data, it didn\u2019t work, since GameMaker\u2019s code editor interprets a tab as a series of spaces. Consequently, I had to limit myself from using tabs while writing my level files. Lots of fun (NOT), for someone who\u2019s used to writing code!<\/p>\n

After getting the text parser up and running, I worked on the basic, boring stuff: Placing and removing towers, making heroes follow paths, etc. Defining which regions the hero would get hurt in ended up being harder than I expected, and I ended up having to do all the base work that you might have to in regular coding. Good practice, I suppose. Consequently, however, the game will give errors if a tower tries to make a hurtful area off the screen. Oops!<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

A screenshot that shows the first time I got multiple heroes in the same level. It was really exciting at the time! Also shown is a checkerboard background that seems simple, but I couldn\u2019t have made the game without.<\/em><\/p>\n

Eventually I got everything to a working stage, to where you could play a single level. It was at this point that I had the idea of a \u201ccampaign\u201d system. Instead of having a predefined series of levels that the game would play in order, it instead would read a single file that had a list of all the levels that the game would then play in order. This not only meant that I could reorder levels without recompiling, but it also meant that custom level integration would be a helluva lot easier.<\/p>\n

Then I made lots of levels. The level making process was actually fairly streamlined. I would use GameMaker\u2019s room editor to map out how the different paths would go and intertwine, and then I would make a text file using the coordinates from that level. I considered making a rudimentary level editor for my own purposes, but I decided that the time spent making a level editor would probably be longer than just typing everything in by hand.<\/p>\n

After that, it was polish time. I always try and keep the graphics in my games very simple. I ended up using the hero placeholder sprite as the final thing, just because it easily conveyed direction, and I can\u2019t draw people (turns out that was a bad idea). I used SFXR to create some simple sound effects, and then used Sonar Home Studio to create a nice jazzy song<\/a> for the main menu. I thought both turned out nicely, and others especially liked the music loop (one even asked why I didn\u2019t keep the loop going during the game).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But enough about making the game, let\u2019s talk about how it turned out.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Good<\/strong><\/p>\n