So this is a bit late in the game but I figured I should write one of these. I wanted to make about the same thing with some more RPG elements. I was able to talk it out and realized that the fast paced gameplay we wanted would only get bogged down by having to make decisions and enemies having a real amount of health. We considered the Bloons approach where certain enemies just take damage and change into lower level enemies but we ended up running out of time for that. So overall I am satisfied with the final product although I don’t think the game really has the level of ‘fun’ we had intended. This is also our second Ludum Dare and I think we improved how we handled it.


What went right:

• We managed to finish at a comfortable time. We spent most of the weekend on it and then had plenty of time left over Monday to polish what we could.
• I learned a little bit more about Unity. Like Prefabs are just GameObjects and can be ‘Loaded’ as such dynamically. This was a fact that eluded me for a longer time than I care to admit.
• Karl and I as a team were able to further flesh out how we like to get things done in general. We have kind of been going willy nilly lately and it was a satisfying change.

Graphics: I am satisfied with the art style that we figured out. Karl did a great job as usual although we did end up re-using assets from a previous project for the Spider’s.

Music: Also on Karl. I think it worked out nicely. He always manages to surprise me.

Back end: I think I could have cleaned it up a little bit but overall I think I maintained a coherent structure.


What went wrong:


Theme: I was very unsatisfied with how we used the theme. Mid Saturday I had read about people discussing how 10 is any number you want it to be if you change the base and I realized that I had limited myself a bit too much when trying to think of a game. I still personally found the theme very restricting even considering that fact though. This obviously affected our game and design in a negative way. Next time I will more actively give the theme a better chance.

Level/Round Design: Overall, personally I am not very happy with how the waves ended up working out. 10 seconds was just too fast but it was our main tie into the theme. Again I wish I had thought about the theme further. I don’t actually play games like mine very often so I had a lot of trouble thinking about a good way to prevent wave overlap while still keeping the game at a satisfying difficulty and pace. I think my ineptitude at creating the rounds led to a fun experience anyway but I was not very confident that it would upon release.


Overall:


Late Saturday I was realized that I just wasn’t happy with the direction the game was taking but it was already too late. I just didn’t think the final product was actually going to be fun. We kept on trucking and Turnip Archer came out. By Monday when we submitted it I realized the game was just fun in a different way than I had expected. It could still be better and the rounds could have been cleaned up but it’s a game and people seem to have overall positive feelings about it. And I was able to publish it to Kongregate which is a personal first that I am very proud of.

If you want to try it out you can find it here.

So this was my first main Ludum Dare and I had a lot of fun. But I have now seen two posts accusing people of cheating the system. One guy was being accused of cheating because they commented ‘Good Job’ on every game they rated. ( http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2013/09/01/l-for-loser/ ) In the second one, people who don’t leave comments are being accused of being cheaters. ( http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2013/09/18/dirty-cheats/ ) I understand there are probably more than a few real cheaters out there. They will always exist. But I do not appreciate that people who don’t leave comments (and somebody that always left a comment) suddenly being lumped in, as if not leaving feedback or leaving too much feedback just meant you were rating randomly.

I rated 191 games. I might have left about 10 comments on various games, almost none of which was more than a Good Job. I played every single one of those games and left an honest rating as I am sure a whole lot of people did. Just because I didn’t have much or anything new to say has no relation to my rating habits. Maybe some games I should have played a little longer. Maybe next Dare I will try and leave more feedback since it is obviously strongly encouraged. But leaving a comment with your rating was not required and insinuating those of us with little to say are cheaters is unfair to say the least.

I am not against requiring feedback next time around as suggested in the second post but I can only guess that game pages will just be filled with a whole lot of “Good Job”‘s and “I don’t know what to say but I need to fill 100 characters. And Good Job”.

I don’t know how to actually catch cheaters but I feel like actively looking for them is only detrimental to my enjoyment of the entire process and being indirectly accused of cheating myself is even more so. I don’t know how the people running the show look for them but I assume they are doing their job. In the meantime, I am going to happily continue on with my life assuming everybody here wants the same thing I do, to make a game in 48/72 hours, and that any cheaters that are out there will get what they deserve.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 20th, 2013 at 8:29 am and is filed under LD #27. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

I will be doing my first solo jam as my partner is busy this weekend. Hopefully I can handle making a full game as well as art and sound that won’t make anybodies eyes and ears bleed. It is going to be an interesting test in making a small enough yet quality game that I can finish in 48 hours.