{"assets":[{"original":"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/codexus-gameplay.gif","local":"\/data\/posts\/2013\/05\/79d08d21e21a5d977f07fb2818bd400c.gif"}],"author_link":"author\/codexus\/","author_name":"Codexus","cat":"LD #26","categories":["LD #26"],"comments":[],"epoch":1369029720,"event":"LD26","likes":2,"metadata":{"p_key":"80707","p_author":"Codexus","p_authorkey":"0","p_urlkey":"289824","p_title":"Night of the living post mortems","p_cat":"LD #26","p_event":"LD26","p_time":"1369029720","p_likes":"2","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":null,"us_name":null,"us_username":null,"event_start":"1366934400","event_key":"16","event_name":"LD26"},"source_url":"2013\/05\/20\/night-of-the-living-post-mortems\/","text":"

Time for a little post-mortemy thing. I suspect nobody reads them, but in a few years, I\u2019ll go through my old posts and find it and have a good laugh. Let\u2019s use a chronological format for a change!<\/p>\n

\"Hole<\/a>

Hole in one!<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

Before the jam<\/strong><\/p>\n

As usual I didn\u2019t practice for it, I didn\u2019t do any gamedev or graphics or anything related since the previous LD :\/ So I was rusty. At the end of last year, I had some time in between jobs to learn new ZBrush skills but I didn\u2019t know how much I had lost since then. Three ludum dare per year is just not enough practice.<\/p>\n

The theme is revealed!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Of all the themes in the preliminary rounds, there was only one I really hated, yup: minimalism.<\/p>\n

I hate it because all LD games are already minimalistic by necessity. The whole point of participating in a Ludum Dare is to see how much you can do in a limited time. Choosing minimalism as the theme, is basically giving up before you even start. In my opinion, there are already too many minimalistic games in a regular LD. Games where the author instead of trying to work on all aspects of a game decides that colored squares placeholders are good enough. This isn\u2019t about how good your skills are, it\u2019s about at least giving it a try and learning in the process. Don\u2019t aim for minimalism, aim big! It\u2019s better to fail gloriously than to not even try!<\/p>\n

Day 1: Anti-minimalism 3rd person shooter<\/strong><\/p>\n

After recovering from discovering that terrible theme, my first idea was to make an anti-minimalism game, I thought about a few ideas like destroying minimalist paintings and finally I chose to do a 3rd person shooter where you fight alien invaders trying to impose their minimalistic philosophy on Earth. I\u2019ve never made a LD game where you can shoot stuff, my games tend to be peaceful, so this might have been the occasion to change that?<\/p>\n

I spent half the first day working on the shooter mechanics and enemies and for the second half I worked on my main character.<\/p>\n