Postentry

So I finish!!!! Yeah, a little late, but I’m done.

I know it couldn’t compete in the jam, but following that ultramotivational posters, I know this must get done.

Cause I cant work the next 24 hours on the jam (monday agenda), I decide to pause my project and restart it the next weekend. So you can play AWARENESS here.

Postmortem

The obvious subject I must talk is my entry delay. Since I didn’t design anything in the first 24 hours, this rans everything away; also I knew early that, surely, I couldn’t enter on the compo either the jam (cause I already had my Monday arranged). The only think I miss about not been applied were having a wide voting and people comments.

The theme was a little bit hard to take from frontside, and my newcomer nervousness hindered me to adopt any design idea. I must admit that this isn’t one of my best game ideas (I doubt the whole thing while coding) but if I want to finish this game, I must convince myself and trust the instinct.

I was distracted a lot, I went to the movies (to see predators), redrawing images 4 times, and spent hours on wikipedia ‘researching’… that adds presure when you don’t have your design ready.

The design results in simple ideas: a short game (less than 5 minutes to play), use simple mechanics appealing on player’s physical dexterity, and allow him to ‘play’ with fake physics. Aestheticaly I wanted that to make the player feels in control of the situation, even if he must react to the attacks; and provide an attractive challenge curve with little rewards. The theme and graphics were inspired by the course of the golden flower images.

Coding and drawing wasn’t a problem (even if they look messy). Besides an awful angle calculation issue, I feel confortable with flixel (it isn’t the 7th wonder, but helps you to work fast). I felt confortable with the tools. The pipeline was very straight when things were clear: idea + calculation + draw (x4) + code + recalculation + code + (doubt) + grapich retouch + audio + code glace; and lot of playtesting.

What do I learn and should do/avoid on next LD’s (and other projects):

- Finish what you start. Even if deadline is over, or the idea isn’t good enough for you damn perfectionist.

- I must practice rapid/random gamedesign.

- Avoid distractions, use them as a weapon to clear your mind and let him think alone.

Questions for you

Did you quit the compo, or didn’t finish on time? Why? Do you agree with my first conclusion? Sounds fair for you?

And did you play my game? What do you think about it?

Don’t lose concentration!

It’s almost done!

In case anybody wonders, what some of the newcomers have been making, I bring my testimony:

Day 1 (night): The theme shocks me down! I couldn’t put something original on paper. So sad ‘cos I was too motivated.

Day 2 (moning): Spend the day doing some research, but nothing comes; so I went to the movies and buy groceries.

Day 2 (night): I got a cuple of ideas, so I discuss them with random people. End the day making graphics and loading in the code. Oh! before that I doubth of the legality of my graphic sources, so I redraw the sprites by my own.

Day 3 (morning)(now): Im not totaly convinced by the design, but I prefer get it done, than throw it away!

I’ll post actual advances, so stay tuned! Meanwhile, there is the mockup:

the great monk mockup

Don’t give up!

Like some of you, I’m a newcomer too.

Hope to finish something on time, because my concentration muscle isn’t in a good shape this days. Thats why I’m almost ready… I have outstanding work to get done to . I’ll find a way to finish it/throw it away and get a good time.

This is what I may use (very standard stuff I guess):

• Pencil and paper!
• FlashDevelop and Flixel OR Java Processing (deprecated)
• sfxr and audacity (and KorgDS-10 maybe)
• paint.net with a set of superpowerfull plugins

If theme and designs claims it, my secret weapon will be ZDoom with DoomBuilder2 and XWE (not so secret now). To accomplish compo rules, I must use the FreeDoom base iwad (BSD license).

Have fun!!