Just submitted my game!  It’s been a good weekend, but I’m tired…

Please check it out if you get a chance: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-26/?action=preview&uid=20494

Here are my submission details:
A minimalistic puzzle platformer.
Get the ball to the Goal.
Try to get the LOWEST time and FEWEST switches.
Instructions are in-game.

Tools I used:
Unity
Gimp
Paint.net
LMMS
Audacity
Chronolapse
Bfxr

This was my first Ludum Dare.  Made a game, had some fun, learned a few things, and ate WAY too many tater tots.  The perfect weekend.

Cheers and Happy Ludum!
Cahman

Here’s the game page:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-26/?action=preview&uid=20494

The Good:

• My first Ludum Dare, and I finished a game!
• Version control saved my bacon a couple of times.
• Got a working prototype, and feedback from friends, very quickly.
• Made a timelapse of the design process.  Showed me where I spent too much (or too little) development time.
• The theme: it really enforced the idea of making a simple, solid game.
• Bfxr is the bee’s knees!

The Bad:

• “Developer Perspective” — I thought the game was too easy.  So far the reviewers think its too hard.
• I didn’t really have a plan for the music coming into the compo.  So I had to pick a program and learn it on the fly.

The Ugly:

• The code is rather… inelegant.  I put the source files up, but I hope people will take them with a grain of salt.
• I wanted the colors to be vivid, but I think I erred on the too bright, possibly garish, side.

Still, I had a lot of fun, and I learned quite a bit.  It’s amazing how motivating a deadline can be!

Happy Ludum,
Cahman

Tags: postmortem, timelapse

Besides being the premiere minimalistic puzzle platformer featuring a spherical protagonist and submitted by a user whose name begins with “c” and ends in “ahman,” my game MIN(Ball) has a per level high score system.

Looking at my server access logs, I realized the game makes a database access at the end of every level.  A little filtering later, BOOM!  A plot of showing how far players get in the game.  In case anyone likes data, or funny looking plots, I thought I’d share the results:

1May2013

I’ll try to update this picture daily.

2May 20183

* Astute observers might notice more people beat level 9 than level 8.  How could that be?  Well, someone beat level 9, then decided to play it again.

3May2013

7May2013

Daily updates might have been a little over optimistic.  Especially since the play numbers have started to level off.

Data, of course, begs for interpretation.  Most people wash out on Level 4.  Is that level too hard?  Does the difficulty ramp up too quickly?  Is Level 4, about 5 minutes into the game, the typical LD review time?  Or am I looking for trends in more or less random noise?  I’m very curious to hear others’ input.

Cheers!
Cahman

Tags: analysis, data, graphs, ramblings