Firstly, timelapse:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5UoTeDj7jA
Well, that’s my second LD done. As with last time, I’m very pleased with what I got done in the time I had.
This post mortem is very long. Sorry.
Clik here to view.
The finished drug - uh, I mean product.
PART 0 – The Idea (03:00 – 16:00)
After seeing what the theme was, I was initially disappointed. Escape wasn’t one of my favourite themes on the list. But, as it was 3am in the morning for me, I went back to sleep.
I had a longish car journey the first day too, so that set my back a few hours, and by the time I could finally get started, it was 4 in the afternoon, 13 hours gone. D:
Luckily, that car journey had given me time to think of an idea I liked – the idea of drugs, and them being your ‘escape’ from reality.
What went well – Got an idea fleshed out
What didn’t – Lost 12 hours of time.
Part 1 – The Base code (16:00 – 21:30)
I started by creating a simple platformer base. One of the things I had in mind to do was to create a system where you could walk through things, but jump on top of them too, if that makes sense. Somehow, this took me about 4 hours, and it didn’t even make it into the finished game.
I then started work on the hand – this turned out quite well, but again, I wasted a lot of time debating about the best way to do it – in the end I ditched the walking animation completely and ended up coding the punch animation. However, having the hand as a separate entity worked in my favour later.
What went well – Got a well fleshed out base code written.
What didn’t – Messed about doing features I didn’t need and took ages.
Clik here to view.
The Doctor Spritesheet.
Part 2 – Enemies (21:45 – 00:40)
I then started work on the enemies – I used quite a lot of the code from the player, which saved a lot of time. I took a break from 22:00 – 22:30, then started working again.
I bumped into a few problems with the hands – before the enemies were introduced, the hands were referencing the player directly. However, the enemies needed hands too, so I thought instead of having 2 hand classes, have one, and make it reference a new class, HasHands, which the Player and Enemy will extend from. I love OOP.
I finished up the enemy code, then headed off to bed.
What went well – Created robust enemy code.
What didn’t – Spent a lot of time on polish that could have waited.
Part 3 – Sleep (00:40 – 8:30)
ZZZZZZZZZZZ (etc.)
What went well – ZZZZZZZZZ
What didn’t – ZZZZZZZ
Part 4 – DRUGS! (8:30 – 10:20)
Woke up refreshed after a good sleep and willing to start working again. I started work on the main point of the game – the drugs. I made the enemies drop them, and when they did, I made them fly out. Again, this polish could have waited, but in the end I think it was worth doing.
I also created the explosion effect you see when you punch a doctor whilst on drugs – again, this is polish that could have waited, but it was something I always wanted to have, and I think it adds quite a lot. I ran into some problems getting the colours correct, and in the end, I ended up creating three different explosions all of different colours at the same time to give the impression of different colours. However, thanks to Flashpunk’s Emitter class, this was a doddle.
What went well – Got another piece of the main game done.
What didn’t – Got stuck on the explosion code for a while.
Clik here to view.
This place is beautiul.
Part 5 – Walk #1 (10:20 – 11:45)
I’m on holiday on the Isle of Skye at the moment, so we went out for a walk for a bit.
What went well – I got some fresh air and a break.
What didn’t – Lost time.
Part 6 – Finishing gaps (11:45 – 14:00)
I finished up most of the core game code here – made enemies able to hit you, made you able to pick up drugs, etc. I probably should have done this slightly earlier, but hey, at least I got it done. I got stuck on a bug, but it all worked out.
What went well – Got things neatly finished up.
What didn’t – Wasted time squashing bugs I made by trying to save time.
Part 7 – Walk #2 (14:00 – 17:00)
Went on another walk.
What went well – I got some fresh air and a break and some ideas.
What didn’t – Lost lots of time.
Part 8 – Fail hour (17:00 – 18:00)
This was probably my worst hour in this whole process. With 10 hours to go, I decided it would be a good idea to completely revamp the base game code and do something I’d never done before - pseudo 3D/2.5D or whatever – basically, I decided to try and add another dimension to the game, so it resembled the flash beat em ups you see.
To make a long story short, I failed. Miserably. I wasted an hour. Luckily I had made a backup, as I had an inkling this would happen.
What went well – Nothing.
What didn’t – Everything.
Clik here to view.
How I made the trippy background.
Part 9 – MORE DRUGS! (18:00 – 20:15)
Feeling a bit let down by my fail, I decided to create the background I had wanted – white tiles normally, and flashing coloured tiles when high.
To start with, I tried having the Tiles tint a random colour, then use alpha to fade them out. This ended up lagging the game hugely. I mean a 60fps to 30fps drop. This obviously was not the way to go.
After dinner to think about it, I tried reducing the explosion size, thinking that could have something to do with the lag, but no.
I then tried having the 18 predefined tile colours you see up there, and selecting one of them randomly, but no, that didn’t work either. I then realised that it was the alpha that was the problem (which I should have realised, duh), and so created 10 tile sized white squares, each with a reducing alpha, and layered them over the top of the tiles. Horrah! It worked!
I then finally started work on the effects of the drugs, which was really fun (in my timelapse you can see my playing the game for quite a while :’) )
What went well – Regained my urge to work on the game, and created a nice looking background.
What didn’t – How long it took me.
Part 10 – The aim of the game (20:15 – 22:30)
Running around punching doctors and getting high is all very well and all, but the game needed a real aim. So I added in the Craving Bar. The real pain here was making it balanced – having drugs restore the right amount, etc., but I think I got the difficulty ok.
(I also had a pokemon battle against my brother here.)
What went well – Had an awesome Pokemon battle.
What didn’t – Took ages to get the balance right.
Part 11 – EVEN MORE DRUGS! (22:30 – 00:30)
Having three different drugs wasn’t really enough, so I started adding more. I ran into some problems with Flashpunk’s code – the screen’s xScale affected the whole screen, but with some quick poking round I was able to fix it.
I also played the game a lot here. Which is a good sign, as it means it’s fun… or maybe I was just sleep deprived.
What went well – Added a lot more fun to the game.
What didn’t – Wasted time playing it.
Path 12 – Death & Polish (00:30 – 3:00)
I realised I hadn’t actually made you die, so I hastily coded that in.
I created a title screen, and added in some instructions that appear at the beginning.
With about half an hour to go, I felt like just surviving wasn’t enough. I quickly added in a high score system in for collecting drugs, and with about 15 minutes to go, I had finally finished. I gave it to IRC for some testing, fixed a few bugs, submitted it and collapsed into bed.
What went well – I finished!
What didn’t – I had to rush to do it.
All in all, I think it went very well. And I just realised this turned into a 1300 word essay. Ah well. Have a cookie for getting through it: http://www.techbusy.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/web_browser_cookie.gif