{"assets":[],"author_link":"author\/danbolt\/","author_name":"danbolt","cat":"LD - Misc","categories":["LD - Misc","LD #34"],"comments":[],"epoch":1450074240,"event":"LD34","likes":6,"metadata":{"p_key":"84731","p_author":"danbolt","p_authorkey":"0","p_urlkey":"295487","p_title":"Synergy Shakedown: Postmortem Minis","p_cat":"LD - Misc","p_event":"LD34","p_time":"1450074240","p_likes":"6","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":null,"us_name":null,"us_username":null,"event_start":"1449792000","event_key":"31","event_name":"LD34"},"source_url":"2015\/12\/14\/synergy-shakedown-postmortem-minis\/","text":"

\"Synergy<\/a><\/p>\n

I just submitted Synergy Shakedown<\/a>\u00a0to the compo a few hours ago. I\u2019m not good at writing postmortems, but I thought I\u2019d share some little things that seemed relevant before I forget them.<\/p>\n

Colours<\/h3>\n

\"NES<\/a><\/p>\n

As a self-imposed restriction, I used the NES palette for the game\u2019s art. I was able to load it into GIMP<\/a> for easy colour picking.<\/p>\n

This turned out to be a lot harder than I expected. A lot of the oranges were pretty similar, and the only yellow is really pale.<\/p>\n

\"Synergy<\/a><\/p>\n

One thing that frustrated me was how it\u2019s hard to to distinguish the player\u2019s hair from the blue background. If I had time to go back and change the colours of all the sprites, I\u2019d probably theme it to be more distinguishable.<\/p>\n

JavaScript Quirks<\/h3>\n

I wanted the game to have the game\u2019s pixels\u00a0sharp like an old NES game. This can be hard to do with modern graphics frameworks like Unity or Phaser. To get around this, I made the player character have no sprite, and put a \u201cmodel\u201d sprite on top of him. Every frame, the model\u2019s position matched the player\u2019s, but with the decimals truncated. One time the Nintendo Web Framework documentation warned me to never use Math.floor(), and instead use the double tildy instead.<\/p>\n

var floatingX = 3.2;\r\nvar hardX = ~~(floatingX); \/\/ hardX should be an integer of 3<\/pre>\n
It\u2019s kind of become a magical floor operator in my head now.<\/p>\n
Tuning for Gameplay<\/h3>\n
I think one of my flaws is balancing my games. A lot of the games I\u2019ve made in the past are too easy or too frustratingly hard. Sometimes I\u2019ve neglected this!<\/p>\n
By keeping the scope small, I was forced\u00a0to make sure the game was a little more balanced. Not by much, but it\u2019ll help me form better habits in the future. That\u2019s part of why\u00a0Ludum Dare\u2019s endearing for me. \":)\"<\/p>\n
Cutscene Polish<\/h3>\n
\"Synergy<\/a><\/p>\n
The cutscenes were a bit of a last-minute addition, but they added a lot of character to the game.<\/p>\n
An hour before the deadline, I changed the dialogue and made the last dialogue scene flicker with an earlier one. It made it better, but it made me feel like George Lucas, updating his movies after he made them to make them \u201cbetter\u201d haha.<\/p>\n
Getting a Child\u00a0to\u00a0Playtest<\/h3>\n
I\u2019m travelling Japan right now, and I did the game jam with a few other developers at an old weaver\u2019s workshop in Kyoto. At one point, one of the developer\u2019s friends came in and brought their six-year old. I plugged in a SNES gamepad and got him to play it, and he got enamoured with it. It helped me find some pressure points in the design, as well as get a morale boost knowing a child enjoyed it.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t speak any English, and I didn\u2019t speak much Japanese, but the moment was really special to me.<\/p>\n\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Overall, I had a lot of fun doing the compo. Hopefully I can do it again soon! Best of luck to those finishing up on the jam!<\/p>\n
Tags: ld34<\/a>, postmortem<\/a>, synergy shakedown<\/a><\/p>","time":"December 14th, 2015 6:24 am","title":"Synergy Shakedown: Postmortem Minis","title_was_empty":false}