POSTMORTEM: A GIRL AND HER CAT by little_polygon

POSTMORTEM: A GIRL AND HER CAT

[raw] LD28LD #28 15. Dec 2013 · 19:18 UTC · 2 days after compo start by little_polygon · 8

This was my third ludum dare, but my first solo compo entry, and though I didn’t accomplish everything I wanted I’m still pretty proud.

TOOLS USED

WHAT WENT RIGHT

Using kinematic bodies for character control. Mucking around with forces and stuff is okay for objects in freefall, but for fine-tuned control you need to just script it. I resolved overlaps using the “separate axis” method (push all the way in Y then all the way in X) which gave better results than Unity’s built-in character controller (which has an annoying rounded bottom).
Music Generation + Cleanup. Abundant makes pretty good music to begin with, and I was able to monkey with the phases and instruments in less than an hour. I believe in doing the music first because it sets the tempo for the game.
Animations. I’d never done it before. Looks like I’m okay at that!

WHAT WENT WRONG

My paltry “planning”…

Overambitious. I was planning the scope like a jam entry. It got late super quickly, and I had to pull everything together in the last six hours. Lots of ideas got cut (walking enemies, guns that you could pick up, moving platforms). Since I knew it was going to be a fail, I tried to fail with humor.
Getting sick. I didn’t sleep for over 24 hours and then I crashed hard. When I woke up I realized that I hadn’t been productive for a long time, either. Take a nap every 12 hours.
Not direct enough with theme. My original interpretation was “you only get one inventory slot” i.e. you can only carry one thing at a time… but then I only finished one thing you can carry. Theme should be obvious right away, not depend on a lot of content.
PHYSICS 2D BUGS IN UNITY. E.g. two kinematic rigidbodies don’t cause trigger events. Took forever to debug that. Also, it causes the editor to become sluggish and crash a lot.
Last-minute hacking. I’m sure there’s some bugs in there and I’m sure they were written in the last 15 minutes. So it goes…

AMBIVALENT

Chasing a high-bar for quality. I’m a bit of a perfectionist, and I was very detail-oriented with non-critical features (e.g. control tutorial UIs, scene transitions, walkcycle FX) because I demand a high level of quality from myself. It’s not good for jams, but I can’t imagine subjecting you all to crummy looking stuff with my name on it. I respect your time as players!