Merry Christmas to all!

Just in time for the holiday I was able to change my game A Long Walk Home to be all Holiday Themed. I actually really really like the way the snow falls on the level. I thought about making all the blocks ice blocks, but that would be a little too much of a change from the original code base.

Christmas Time!

Enjoy you holiday!

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=8475

After reading one of the posts on the Ludum Dare main page about creating a video of your game. I decided that it would be a great opportunity to demonstrate the game being played by myself. I hope other game developers do this with their games. It’ll give me the chance to view and understand games from the developers perspectives and perhaps get to rate games that I couldn’t otherwise play if they are windows only ( as I am on OS X)

I hope you enjoy.

17,530 Screen shots and 48 hours compressed into this 6 minute long video. Its also got a rocking soundtrack. I can’t wait till thenext Ludum Dare!

My Game: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=8475

This was my first Ludum Dare and I have to say it was a lot of fun. Looking back I can think of a dozen ways I could have done better, but I don’t think I would have ever seen those until I tried. Lets look back on the weekend about what went right, what went wrong, the game that came out of it, and what I feel I should do next time.

My Game:  http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=8475

The Game

After the theme was revealed. I was taken a little bit. I had read over the list of possible themes and had really no thought in my mind that it would be alone. So I had to think. Above all, I wanted to really work off of the theme in a real way. I thought that would help to make the game unique and feel part of this specific Ludum Dare and not just a generic game built in a haste for a contest. I decided on caves, on flashlights, and on dim lighting. After looking at the submissions it looks like about 100 other people had those same ideas. These were things that made you feel alone. I decided that I wanted the game to be about exploration, about rewarding curiosity and trying to achieve and end goal of just making it home. A solitary experience, but one that would (hopefully) be fun.

The Good

I finished the game! Just barely, but I did finish it. So what went right?

• Setting the mood. Even with a limited tileset (and talent) I was able to pull of  consistent atmosphere through the art.
• Navigation. Leveraging the Flixel Framework the platforming of the game works well enough to be considered fun.
• @Notch’s livestream. It may seem weird, but keeping his livestream open while I worked on my own game was a constant encouragement to keep working. Plus he cranked some pretty good tunes.

The Bad

This is it? The game was finished, but can I really call it a game? So, what went wrong?

• To many features. I had to cut so many features at the end, that the game feels incomplete.
• Not familiar with tools. I had never used Pixen or Dame before this event and I spent hours struggling against them to just get my tilemap working. If I was to do it over again, I’d do much better for this fact alone.
• Forgetting about the importance of Sound. Perhaps @Notch’s livestream is to blame, but I didn’t even think about adding music/sound until there was only 90 minutes left in the contest. I tried desperately, but had to cut them to finish the game in time. Then I sat and played my submitted game in silence and wept (silently) over what I had (not) done.
• Not knowing my frameworks documentation. Confession: I haven’t made a game in 3 years. Its been that long since Ive used Flixel or programmed in AS3. It was a world of hurt trying to relearn all of that in the course of 48 hours. It came back to me, but I spent way to much time reading forum posts and searching google for options and ideals. I feel the challenge in game design should be programming the conception in your head, not strugglingly against code libraries and syntax errors.
• Sick girlfriends do not, for a good game weekend, make. My poor wonderful girlfriend came down with a horrible sinus infection on Friday. Which caused my remaining time and attention to be torn between Ludum Dare and preparing Chicken Soup and the usual rounds of Man Nursery.
• Hitting the ground running. I knew this was basically a code sprint and I laughed at those attempting their premature code optimization. Sadly, my approach was just as wrong. I through coding standards to the win as I raced valiantly towards my goal. I had a working prototype up in only an hour! To bad all that code was scrapped and the residual bits came back to haunt me in the final hours of the game.

Tips for next time

• Plan then code. My work was never efficient until I took the time to get away from the computer and write out a game plan. It takes the indecision out of the process and helps keep you focused when coding.
• Make the game work first. I spent a long time working on individual features and making sure they worked. (some didn’t even make it into the game), but I neglected to make sure the game as a whole was working. Not until the final hours did I realize I didn’t have a cohesive mechanic for playing and, importantly, beating the game.
• Stick to coding conventions and organization. As tempting as it is to just let it all go away. Some of those conventions and organization techniques take no extra time to perform and will actually help.
• Know Thy Tools. I’ve already made a personal commitment to make a full game in the span of a week, the week before the next Ludum Dare, just to make sure the code, libraries, and tools are fresh in my mind.

Bonus: Where my Time went!

I use this great tool called RescueTime for keeping metrics of my average productivity per week. As an indie developer this is great. Well, I forgot that it would be keeping track of me this weekend and I for one am happy to see its results. Here they are.

Friday

• Development : 1h 50m
• Art: 10m
• Documentation / Reference: 1h 2m

Saturday

• Development : 5h 23m
• Art : 1h 40m
• Documentation / Reference : 2h 3m
• Level  Design : 43m

Sunday

• Development : 3h 44m
• Art : 1h 31m
• Level Design : 52m