Reddit
Boxed In: postmortem
title screen of our game; Boxed in. also notice the cat in bottom right, it means there's a a kitten hidden in it 
This is our first year together as a group, and we are very impressed with our results. We did have a few more ideas for it, but i guess that’s what happens with 72 hours of time to make it.
link to Boxed In’s Ludum dare page.
Tools used:
- Language == AS3
- IDE == Flashdevelop
- Libraries == Flashpunk
- Graphics == Paint.NET
- Sounds == SFXR
- Music == ptCollage
We incorporated most of what we wanted to incorporate. We managed to make it as complete as we possibly can and even had time for credits, a kitty Easter egg and particles.
DAY 1: 72 hours remain:
We at first were going to go all Super Mario Galaxy style with a tiny planet at the center. However, after a while we realized that Jellonator could not get the physics working the way it was supposed to, so it was scratched. 3 hours of time was wasted. So we started brainstorming ideas once again. Acecard kept repeating ‘a guy who can shrink and then grow back,’ yet Jellonator insisted that he could not code the area detection for growing. eventually we came to a point where we had the idea of small people in a cardboard box controlled by a larger person. shortly after that, Ace had to sleep and left Jello to code from 1 AM 7 AM. the end result after that was ogmo was set up and running, platformer physics worked, and some crapsprites made in place for when Ace made them, with a small hole in the box that acted as a goal.
the game after the first day featuring crapsprites.
Day 2: 48 hours remain.
This is the day when most work was accomplished. MKSTAR came online and made a quick functional loop, boxes were made to be pushable, spikes added to kill the player, Ace made non-crap sprites to implement into the game, tilting is added. The main thing about this game was turrets and rocket launchers. at thing time, missiles were homing missiles. Also, half of the levels were made on this day.
Day 3: 24 hours remain
On this day the rest of the levels were made. Jello encountered glitches with the missiles, so he removed their homing function after an hour and changed their function to destroying breakable blocks. Sprites were tweaked, Blocks were created and the credits were added to mark the end. the goal was also changed to a hole that leads to other parts of the box just because of logicalness. by the time it was done, there was 2 minutes until submission period. after we submitted it, we encountered a few glitch. blocks were affected by tilting. so we went ahead and fixed it during ludum dares submission period and submitted it. we took a long nap afterwards.
What went right:
quite a few things went as they should have, The fingers at first were hilarious (Jello resized them 400%), but looked legit when resized 200%. the whole tilting gameplay is the thing that makes it entertaining. We also enjoyed implementing the easter egg, at first we didn’t know how to implement it, but in the end we did.
What went wrong:
At the beginning we waster ~4 hours brainstorming and scratching the original idea. we planned 20 levels but ended up with 18. Our turrets and missile launchers glitched when you passed the relative angle of 0 (when the player is to the right of the weapon). Jellonator thinks the fingers still look a bit creepy, but eh. they’re fine. There’s also a glitch with tilting, the game only renders whats visible at 0 degrees, so it chops off at the top and bottom when rotated. We also realized level 12 and 13 were the same thing.
Conclusion:
Overall, we are proud of our game and will continue it in the future. we had quite a bit of fun making this and we hope you have as much fun playing it too.
MK (Composer)’s comments: Well, this was a fun experience, and my first Ludum Dare. I loved the whole time limit thing, and it brings a smile to my face seeing so many people like the game. See that level near the end with a crapton of spikes and Kaizo jumps? That was me. :3
As to the future of Boxed In, we have a seperate-from-LD version that’s currently in the process of a new gameplay fashion. Also, Jello’s working on something interactive, and he’s considering adding more obstacles. Meanwhile, I made levels (there’s another standalone version on our site with those levels), and composed some music that could fit with the obstacles. Also, we’re adding settings in a different interpretation. I love cryptic leaking.
Meanwhile, Ace is hi-res-ing all the graphics (which is pretty stupid, IMO), and Jello’s working on the aforementioned leaks. I’m just composing. ~MK
Tags: postmortem