Boboil goes Exploring: Post Mortem
Posted by AtkinsSJ
December 17th, 2009 8:35 am
LD16 was a lot of fun, despite continually running into killer bugs that took ages to fix.
What went well:
- I managed to pull it all together in the last couple of hours and actually end-up with a game. I very nearly didn’t.
- People seem to like it, too! Didn’t expect that one.
- After releasing, I managed to locate and destroy one last memory leak. Otherwise it would have been unplayable.
What went badly:
- The aforementioned bugs.I probably spent at least a third of the time I was working on the game trying to fix memory leaks, infinite loops, and the like. These were often related to…
- I didn’t prepare. DESPITE knowing very well that I needed to get a basic framework, in the end I was just too lazy, and started the compo even without most of the libraries I needed.
- I didn’t spend enough time at the start thinking about what my game would be. Instead, I charged ahead with a turn- and tile-based engine, assuming I’d think of something later. Fortunately I did, and the idea was reasonably fun.
What I would improve:
- There are still a couple of glitches – one is that sometimes monsters manage to get on the same tile as you and you can’t attack them – not sure why.
- The view is too small. This is mostly so I could avoid trying to do any ray-casting and what-have-you. Though since I let you see monsters for an extra tile away, you can still see through walls. Whoops.
- You automatically climb down ladders, which isn’t ideal. In fact, I think I accidentally left it so that you’ll go down a ladder if you attack a monster which is standing on it. I ran out of time, and it was easier to code like this. Sorry!
- I had ideas for more things you could ‘explore’ and earn XP from – such as each time you come across a new animal or plant. But I never got time for it.
- The difficulty increase is really naff. Or at least, what’s meant to increase the difficulty – each time you go down a level, the monsters get +1 to attack, defence, and hp. But each time you level up, which can occur 2 or 3 times per level, you get +2 max hp, are fully healed, and your attack and defence increase by 1. So it’s very, very easy to quickly outpace the monsters. I didn’t take the time to balance it, as it was about 1:30 am by then, so yeah.
Final notes:
- I do have some ideas for expanding it, and I hope I actually get around to doing so this time. I think I will do, as I’ve wanted to make a roguelike for a long while, and after I lost all the code to my other one (Nooooooo!) this is a good opportunity to get back into it.
- Hanging out in #ludumdare made the whole thing a lot more fun, even when it seemed I would end the competition with only a mediocre level-generator.
Tags: post-mortem, postmortem