Saturday, October 20, 2012

October 2012 challenge, Day 20

Well, I failed.

I got the core mechanics and everything done in just a couple days but I only had a few hours a week to work on music, sounds, graphics, and extra content. That just didn't happen. So, as tough as it is for me, I've admitted that I should cut my losses and stop worrying about it.

Retrospective time!

I should start learning the language, tool chain, graphics, music, and sound before committing to a project. I hadn't used haxe before (but I'm somewhat familiar with Actionscript) so the language, libraries, and compilation process and quirks took some time to get. Despite 6 or so years of piano lessons, I don't know anything about making good computer music either. Pixel graphics wouldn't fit the theme and good looking graphics are beyond what I can do. I had some good luck with procedurally generated plant graphics, but couldn't quite integrate it with my game code due to how the rendering code worked.

I should stop planning on spending all of my time working on a project with so many unknowns . I have less time than I expected and it's not sustainable. After a week of nothing but work, sleep, and this project, my place was a mess and it was hard to stay focused. If I picked a smaller project - like a platformer or turn based strategy - then I think I would have had a better chance of finishing. I can do old-school graphics and sound effects so that's what I should stick to.

I should continue writing well factored code and trying short term projects like this. Breaking it down into pieces that I could prioritize and implement in a couple hours helped me get started and make early progress. The simple and clean code meant that I could change my mind, try something different, and generally make progress much faster than some of the messier code bases I've crapped out.

If I follow these simple plans, then I'll be much better equipped for the next ludum dare.

4 comments:

  1. It is not bad to "fail" this way, at least you tried. It would bigger fail to release halve done code.

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    Replies
    1. Indeed, Jolly. I'm not one to give up but it's better cancel a project a few weeks into it than spend all my time just to have my name attached to a crappy game.

      By the way, FFHtR looks interesting. Good luck with it!

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  2. Hah, true that. I admire anyone who goes for a ludum dare, though; regardless if
    the project is successful or not.

    My skillset is too art/designer-oriented (can never really wrap my head around more advanced scripts) to even try to attempt it, so I envy the people with the versatility to take it on.

    I'm sure you'll do well in the next dare.

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  3. Good! Don't follow my example with FFHtR, release something awesome!

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