{"assets":[{"original":"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Unseen-Title-Screen-550x385.png","local":"\/data\/posts\/2013\/09\/7d12f242540707c8d63fcdb6d483fbf2.png"}],"author_link":"author\/neo-blue\/","author_name":"Neo-Blue","cat":"LD #27","categories":["LD #27"],"comments":[],"epoch":1378965360,"event":"LD27","likes":5,"metadata":{"p_key":"80342","p_author":"Neo-Blue","p_authorkey":"0","p_urlkey":"289352","p_title":"Unseen:  Post-Mortem","p_cat":"LD #27","p_event":"LD27","p_time":"1378965360","p_likes":"5","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":null,"us_name":null,"us_username":null,"event_start":"1377216000","event_key":"18","event_name":"LD27"},"source_url":"2013\/09\/12\/unseen-post-mortem\/","text":"<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Unseen-Title-Screen.png\"><img alt=\"Unseen Title Screen\" class=\"size-large wp-image-289650 aligncenter\" height=\"385\" sizes=\"(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" src=\"\/data\/posts\/2013\/09\/7d12f242540707c8d63fcdb6d483fbf2.png\" srcset=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Unseen-Title-Screen-300x210.png 300w, http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Unseen-Title-Screen-550x385.png 550w, http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Unseen-Title-Screen.png 1022w\" width=\"550\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">(<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-27\/?action=preview&amp;uid=24994\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Unseen\">http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-27\/?action=preview&amp;uid=24994<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>Work on our game has been finished for a couple of weeks now, but I wanted to go back and take a little bit of time to review the ups and downs of the project.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2>What Went Right<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Top-Ideas.png\"><img alt=\"Top Ideas\" class=\"size-full wp-image-296012 aligncenter\" height=\"299\" sizes=\"(max-width: 529px) 100vw, 529px\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Top-Ideas.png\" srcset=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Top-Ideas-300x169.png 300w, http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Top-Ideas.png 529w\" width=\"529\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Brainstorming Session\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0I think our brainstorming session on the first night of Ludum Dare really helped us to get off to a great start. Once we knew what the theme was going to be we set one rule: \u201cno ideas can be rejected during brainstorming.\u201d This led to some really fun discussions about ideas we might have initially dismissed. This was key to our success with the project because our ultimate idea \u201ccounting to 10 perfectly using your internal clock\u201d was one that we were about to pass on were it not for the brainstorming rule!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Project Scope Management\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0When we were in the process of narrowing down our concept list we made it a point to factor in the estimated work required to reach the core vision for each idea up for review. This helped us to eliminate a few ideas that the team was really excited about, but didn\u2019t feel we could fully execute in the game jam\u2019s time span. This actually caused us to pass over one of our top game concepts involving a Street Fighter parody where the player needed to avoid an opponent that they had a life lead over for the last 10 seconds of a match. (Maybe we\u2019ll revisit this one later!)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Visual &amp; Sound Design<\/strong>\u00a0 We knew that our basic gameplay concept was really simple and we\u2019d have to work hard to sell the game\u2019s atmosphere with our visual and audio design. I feel that we were ultimately able to succeed at this. In a game where the player character spends most of the game\u2019s duration with their eyes closed, a lot of the experience has to be carried by the audio. Holly did a fantastic job on this with an ultra-creepy sound design accentuated with 3D audio positioning. This, combined with the creepy introduction laid out by our artist Mieko\u2019s artwork created the nice \u201cghost story\u201d atmosphere that helped to sell our really simplistic gameplay mechanic.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2>What Went Wrong<\/h2>\n<div class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" id=\"attachment_296013\" style=\"width: 560px\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Unseen-Broken-Intro.gif\"><img alt=\"Language set to anything other than Japanese or English? NO INSTRUCTIONS FOR YOU!\" class=\"size-large wp-image-296013\" height=\"375\" sizes=\"(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Unseen-Broken-Intro-550x375.gif\" srcset=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Unseen-Broken-Intro-300x204.gif 300w, http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Unseen-Broken-Intro-550x375.gif 550w\" width=\"550\"\/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Language set to anything other than Japanese or English?<br\/>NO INSTRUCTIONS FOR YOU!<\/p><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>No Time for QA!\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0In our final push to wrap the project up before the deadline, we did essentially no QA on the game. As a result, the very first build that we uploaded still had a bunch of debug features turned on and included a pretty nasty bug that prevented the game\u2019s text from showing up properly for anyone whose system language was set to anything other than English or Japanese. Not only that, but anyone that was savvy enough to mess with the WSAD keys in our first build would\u2019ve found that they could simply turn around around run out of the haunted house!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>No Time For Cool Stuff!<\/strong>\u00a0 Running short on time led to us having to cut some of the ideas that we had from the original concept. While we were able to get a core set of six endings in, we had to dump several other planned outcomes for the game. Since the core gameplay is so simple and success likely requires several re-attempts, we were planning to have a large number of different endings to keep the player entertained while they retried the game. Some of these even included fun joke endings for when you hit very specific finish times. Ultimately, all of these variants were dropped from the project and failing to get these in was probably the biggest letdown for the team.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This was the first ever game jam for our entire team and the whole experience was pretty amazing. We\u2019re all really proud of what we were able to create together. There\u2019s nothing quite like taking a crazy pile of ideas and actually bringing something to life. Thanks again to everyone who stopped by to check out our game and congratulations to everyone who participated in Ludum Dare 27!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Ludum-Dare-27-Complete.jpg\"><img alt=\"Ludum-Dare-27-Complete\" class=\"size-large wp-image-296014 aligncenter\" height=\"502\" sizes=\"(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Ludum-Dare-27-Complete-550x502.jpg\" srcset=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Ludum-Dare-27-Complete-300x274.jpg 300w, http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Ludum-Dare-27-Complete-550x502.jpg 550w, http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Ludum-Dare-27-Complete.jpg 1179w\" width=\"550\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Tags: <a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/tag\/ld27\/\" rel=\"tag\">LD27<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/tag\/postmortem\/\" rel=\"tag\">postmortem<\/a><\/p>","time":"September 12th, 2013 5:56 am","title":"Unseen:  Post-Mortem","title_was_empty":false}