If I had hair I’d be ripping it out right now. I was so happy when I finished my game, felt like a huge weight was off my shoulders. Those hours upon hour of coding finally produced something fruitful. I breathed a sigh of relief…

And then it happened. People found bugs in my game. I was disheartend, that euphoric high I had after completing my game came crashing down… I franticly searched my code to see why these bugs existed. Then I saw my mistakes… the simple rookie mistakes I had made… man I wanted to kick myself in the ass, how could I have made those stupid rookie mistakes!

So I have some advice for you all, two words. BETA TEST, BETA TEST, BETA TEST!

Test everything! I cannot stress this enough…

Seems I need to update the “What I’ll do better next time” with this tidbit of information.

- I will test everything in my game to make sure everything works the way I intended it to

-KunoNoOni

Its been 17, almost 18 hours since I have submitted my game for judging. I must say Its been a whirlwind weekend, staring at the same room for 48 hours, listening to the same songs over and over again. All while try to create a game based on a theme that I downvoted twice! And to make matters worse I ran out of BACON! But I did it, I complete my game within the 48 time limit. I will try to recall the past 48 hours in as much detail as I can rememeber.

Friday – April 20th, 2012 – 5:30pm

I arrive home from work, feeling really good about doing the Ludum Dare tonight.

Friday – April 20th, 2012 – between 6 – 6:30pm

After changing out of my work clothes into something comfortable and milling around the house, I sit infront of my PC at play Legends of Grimrock, while waiting for my TV shows to
start.

Friday – April 20th, 2012 – 8pm

I stop playing and go watch some tv, while watching the IRC chat on my phone. Yes I have an app for that…

Friday – April 20th, 2012 – 9pm

The theme is announced! Tiny World! Tiny World? What the heck and I going to create with that theme?

Friday – April 20th, 2012 – 9pm – 11pm

Finish watching my last TV show and start thinking about a game to create with this Theme. After some thought, I come up with what I believe to be a good game concept. Let me give you the premise.

I decided to do a vertical shooter, with enemies that shoot back at you, huge bosses, power-ups and rockin’ music. Hey we can all dream right But we’ll get into that in a few minutes

Friday – April 20th, 2012 – 11pm – 1/1:30am

With my idea fleshed out on the whiteboard I begin with the art. Once it is compeleted I head to bed to begin coding early Saturday Morning

Saturday – Sunday night around 8ish pm

This is mostly a blur of coding, failures, rethinking, more coding, successes, more coding, tweaking, optimizing, some sleeping and finally a complete game!

So that was my weekend, how was yours

Now we come to the part of the Post Mortem where I tell you what went right, what went wrong, what I learned and what I’ll do better next time. So without further ado, play that funky music white boy!

What went right:

1. thought up what I believe to be a great idea for a game based on the theme. At first I didn’t like the theme, but this was a snap judgement. Once I really sat down and thought about it, I thought of all sorts of great ideas. I do have to say I found thinking up a theme for this LD was a lot easier than the last one (LD22).

2. Since I had a really good idea of the direction I wanted to go, the Art flowed much easier. Usually I have a hard time with the art as I’m not artistically inclined.

3. With only a few setback (to be explained below) coding was pretty much a breeze. Hey when in doubt, make a boolean

What went wrong:

1. Remember when I said this “I decided to do a vertical shooter, with enemies that shoot back at you, huge bosses, power-ups and rockin’ music.” Umm… yeah this didn’t happen. I had issues with collisions while the map was scrolling. Issues getting the enemies to shoot, issues getting the bosses to shoot, no power up and sub par (at least for me) music.

2. Hmm, I guess those are all the problems I had. Oh yeah, one more thing… I ran out of Bacon.

What I learned:

1. I’ve used Flixel for a little over a year now, but I have to say I’ve never created anything so indepth as the game I created this weekend. I learned a ton about this framework and about FlxGroups in general that I never knew before.

2. I learned I need a refresher in math. Might have to hit up Khan Academy in the future.

3. I learned a lot about game design, about how adding small effects can really bring your game up a notch or two graphically.

What I’ll do better next time:

1. I’m thinking about creating a bunch of functions for things I may want to do in future games.

2. I need to gain some more knowledge in game design

3. I’d like to get better at pixel art, like pick up some tips or tricks to make my art stand out.

Well that’s it. Another stress-filled, fun-tastic, 48hr coding jamboree completed. Can’t wait for LD24! Before I close this Post Mortem, I want to give a big round of applause to all the people who coded a game this weekend for the Compo and to those people who coded/are still coding a game for the Jam! These games didn’t exist 48 hours ago and for no more than bragging right, we all decided it would be fun to create a game based on a theme chosen by the community this weekend! Simply WOW!

-KunoNoOni

ALRIGHT!! My game is complete!

I give you….

You can play it here

I can’t wait to start playing some of the awesome games which have been created in the past 48 hours, also looking forward to the JAM games too.

Alright, time for some real food (mmmm Bacon) and human interaction. Peace!

-KunoNoOni

Less than 2 hours left and all I have to do is get some rockin’ beats and this game will be finished!

Woot! Man will I be happy when this is over! My stress level is like Maximum Bacon!!

Well back to the beats…

-KunoNoOni

Oh man have I completed a lot since the last update! The game is basically finished, I’m just adding the finishing touches to it now. I’ve added the following since the last update

* All areas are connected and you can complete the game
* Title screen has been implemented
* Difficulty has been Implemented (I do think its a little glitchy at times though
* Player lives and proper death added

Still need to implement the following

* Sound
* Music
* Win/Lost Screens
* Instruction Screen

With less than 6 hours to go, I’m pretty sure I’ll get these done.

-KunoNoOni

PS. No BACON was harmed in the making of this post.

Wait for it! Wait For it! BACON MODE! Wait..wha..no! CLONE MODE! Yes that’s right I was able to eek out a few more lines of code and I am now in “Clone Mode”. Its all downhill from here!! I may even be able to get sound and hopefully music into my game!

I know there has been a lack of screenshots in my progress updates, I’m saving them for the final Progress Update. I love building suspense! lol…

See you next update…

-KunoNoOni

I’m so close to “Clone Mode” I can taste it. Just two items to iron out, but I’m getting tired and don’t think I’ll be able to complete them until the morning. Depending on how long it takes to get those two items ironed out will dictate if I need to condense the game. I’ll update again after I’ve had some sleep.

And look I made a post without mentioning Bacon… wait, ah Dammit!

-KunoNoOni

Oh wow! The first 24 hours have passed. As I look back on those 24 hours, I must say I have learned a lot. The game is coming along nicely, although it has been a bumpy ride and I have deviated from my original idea slightly. I’m in the home stretch towards “Clone Mode” and I have a very good feeling. So onwards I go! Into the Next 24 hours!

For those curious, bacon is a distant memory and a forgotten friend… it shall be missed…

-KunoNoOni

I have given up ever getting bacon again… in other news!

I have Enemies! I can even kill them Not happy with there dead sequence, or lack there of one… Just a few more items to flesh out and then we go into Clone Mode! Once in “Clone Mode” I will be on my way to completing this fantastic and fun-filled action game!

Stay tuned loyal LDers!!

-KunoNoOni

Some progress has been made. I have a level, a movable player, background floaty stuff and my player can also shoot. I have all the makings of a video game save one thing… ENEMIES! Well fear not LDers I am in the process of creating said enemies!! HA!

See you at the next update.

-KunoNoOni

PS. I still have no bacon

AAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!! Yeah thats how my day has been going… its been nothing but one problem after another, didn’t have these problems with the warm-up game. Been at it since 8am (EST). And to top it all off… I’M OUT OF BACON!! How can I be expected to work under these conditions!! Still in the early stages of the game, though I do have my player moving on screen and a level is complete. So my time hasn’t been entirely fruitless… just rotten… (hehe)

See you next update…

-KunoNoOni

It took me about 2 hours of brainstorming to come up with an idea. I drew up a concept on the white board and started making some art for my game. The game is called Tiny Defender. Your a science pod who’s been shrunk to microscopic size and injected into the foot of human. Your job is to destroy viruses in the body, there will be several stages in each area (foot, leg, chest, arm, head). The last stage of each area will have a miniboss. Once you’ve destroyed all the minibosses you’ll gain access to the head, where the final showdown will take place! Stay tuned for more updates!

-KunoNoOni

You can play it here. I’m pretty happy with the results, though I do wish I could have gotten the music to sound better than it did. As a result I’ve pulled the music from the game. Creating this game was yet another learning experience for me and I really enjoyed making it. Usually I sit in front of my computer with a blank stare because I cannot think of a game to create. I honestly had no problem coming up with a theme for my warmup game. It just popped in there! lol

Anyways, I hope you enjoy my little creation and we’ll see what I create for the actual LD.

Good luck to all who enter!

-KunoNoOni

Alright! Its LD time again!! And wow 10th anniversary, way to go LD!

I’ll be using Flixel or possibly AXEL (A new framework based on Flixel by Arkeus. You can check it out HERE and get the source on Github)

Flash Builder, Sfxr, photoshop, my handy dandy notebook and my whitey white board.

Good luck to all who enter!

-KunoNoOni