{"assets":[{"original":"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/compo2\/342546\/14207-shot0.png","local":"\/data\/posts\/2014\/05\/371c1f6c29194202e39091c1140877a3.png"}],"author_link":"author\/lion\/","author_name":"Florent","cat":"LD #29","categories":["LD #29"],"comments":[],"epoch":1399012860,"event":"LD29","likes":4,"metadata":{"p_key":"82151","p_author":"Florent","p_authorkey":"0","p_urlkey":"292883","p_title":"Snake Driller \u2013 LD29 \u2013 Post Mortem","p_cat":"LD #29","p_event":"LD29","p_time":"1399012860","p_likes":"4","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":null,"us_name":null,"us_username":null,"event_start":"1398384000","event_key":"22","event_name":"LD29"},"source_url":"2014\/05\/02\/snake-driller-ld29-post-mortem\/","text":"<p>I missed two Ludum Dare <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-26\/?action=preview&amp;uid=14207\" title=\"Minimalist Encounter \u2013 Ludum Dare 26\">since the last time<\/a> but thankfully I was able to took time to participate last week-end !<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"\" class=\"alignnone\" height=\"538\" src=\"\/data\/posts\/2014\/05\/371c1f6c29194202e39091c1140877a3.png\" width=\"856\"\/><\/p>\n<p>I understood the theme quite literally with a mining game. <strong>Snake Driller<\/strong> is a Sake-kindoflikebutnotsomuch mining game. You have to drill the deepest before the time\u2019s up, sometimes going sideways to mine interesting blocks or dodge those you can\u2019t drill. You can also buy upgrades for your drill in a store to drill more types of blocks or drill faster.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-29\/?action=preview&amp;uid=14207\">Download and rate it on its entry page.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>WHAT WENT RIGHT<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><span id=\"more-359406\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Idea.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Even if my idea isn\u2019t original or creative at all, I got it pretty quickly, I liked it and in one hour after I started working on the game, I had a solid design document. It turns out it was simple enough for me to implement almost everything I had planned but also interesting enough to play.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Development.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The game is made with :<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/craftstud.io\">CraftStudio<\/a>, which makes things very easy especially since I have quite some experience with it.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/daneel.florentpoujol.fr\">Daneel<\/a>, my framework for CS which makes things even easier and faster.<\/li>\n<li>A <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/florentpoujol\/CraftStudio-Leaderboard\">simple leaderboard library<\/a> I just implemented the week before.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So I didn\u2019t had to invent anything or code complex stuff. The majority of the time spent on the game was actually implementing the game, either menu or gameplay.<\/p>\n<p>The first day, I implemented the map generation and basic drilling gameplay. The second day I did all the menus, and the store.<\/p>\n<p>What strikes me, thought was the crappyness of the code. It was sometimes odd to just copy and paste code rather than find a clever way to having it written in one place. Also I never refactored anything so the structure of the code and data may not be quite efficient (or even just right). I think that\u2019s kind of expected for a jam game, but I hadn\u2019t had this feeling before and that\u2019s something that really surprised me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Completeness.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The game is more than just one level with gameplay (those are fine, too !). It has intro screens, a main menu, other screens\/menus for \u201ctutorial\u201d and leaderboard as well as an in-game menu and end screen.<\/p>\n<p>It may be \u201cwrong\u201d for a jam game since all the time I spend on all that (most of the second day !) could have been used for much needed gameplay tweaks. But having a complete game is as much important and rewarding to me as having \u201conly\u201d slick gameplay, even for a game jam.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>WHAT WENT WRONG<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Time.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>No one spent 48 hours on their games. I certainly didn\u2019t since I only logged 16 hours of work (6h30 on saturday, 8h on sunday, 1h10 on monday night).<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s very few hours, and almost 10 hours less than I worked the last time !<\/p>\n<p>It really shows how much I am not good (and I don\u2019t like) at \u201ccrunching\u201d long hours in a row. The game would definitely have benefited of a few hours of polishing and gameplay tweaking.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, creating a game of that completion in only 16 hours is quite a success. It really shows how much I improved at gamedev and how much the tools I used makes things easy and fast !<\/p>\n<p><strong>Balancing.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Due to the lack of time, the game is not balanced. It\u2019s too easy since once you have the refinery (to gain time by mining oil) and the iron drill (to drill stone blocks), all you have to do is dodge the few obsidian blocks to spent money on more time or more speed (which only makes you encounter more oil (time) or gold).<\/p>\n<p>Every time you buy an engine upgrade (to drill faster), the odds of the obsidian should increase while the odds of the gold and oil should decrease, in order to ensure that the player either run out of time, either can\u2019t evade obsidian any more. It\u2019s really too bad that\u2019s I didn\u2019t had the time to implement this since it\u2019s really easy to do.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Message.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The first feedbacks shows that the drill may be difficult to control because you have to understand that you don\u2019t directly control where the drill will go but which block will be drilled after the one currently being drilled. And this one isn\u2019t where is the drill but next to it. This is shown in-game with the reddish and greenish squares next to the drill\u2019s extremity but it\u2019s not very clear, especially for people who quickly (or don\u2019t) read the game\u2019s description. I planed to have a drilling animation and a clear arrow to point where the drill will be but again, I didn\u2019t spent enough time on gameplay to do this.<\/p>\n<p>Also I forgot to write the controls on the in-game \u201cHow to play\u201d screen, which didn\u2019t helped people top find the store. You just have to press the Escape key to bring up the in-game menu with the store but it appears it\u2019s not natural to everyone.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>CONCLUSION<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Overall, the game felt to me like a definite success ! I think it\u2019s definitely better than the last one and I am confident the next one will be even better ! Improving at gamedev is what game jam are for after all.<\/p>\n<p>If you are interested about the sources <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/florentpoujol\/Snake-Driller-LD29\">you can check them out over at GitHub<\/a>. Or if you have CraftStudio installed, you can just <a href=\"http:\/\/open.craftstud.io\/176.31.207.61:4406\/9e98bcad-450d-4db8-8a3b-defa62fe5b46\">join the project by clicking this link<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Tags: <a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/tag\/ld48-ld29\/\" rel=\"tag\">#LD48 #LD29<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/tag\/craftstudio\/\" rel=\"tag\">craftstudio<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/tag\/ld29\/\" rel=\"tag\">ld29<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/tag\/ld48\/\" rel=\"tag\">ld48<\/a><\/p>","time":"May 2nd, 2014 6:41 am","title":"Snake Driller \u2013 LD29 \u2013 Post Mortem","title_was_empty":false}