Square Quest: Post Mortem

Last weekend I took part in my first ever Ludum Dare, the awesome competition where you have to conjure a game out of nothing in only 48 hours. The first thing I have to say about the experience is: goddamnit, that was fun.

Dividing the whole game development process over 2 days, as opposed to a little more than a month while I was making Cave of Nihil, forced me to think fast, code efficiently and cut features without any mercy. I managed to make something that, while far from perfect, is perfectly playable and a decent protoype.

One thing that really surprised me in LD was the community: a few times during the competition, I asked on the LD blog about a few features I was unsure about, or about where to find some resource. Every single time I had useful answers in a few minutes. That was definitely awesome.

The graphical style I chose for SquareQuest has really grown on me. It’s insanely simple and leaves a lot to the imagination, while freeing me from doing complex art. I intend to force my art soon, but I managed to work around my weakness when needed, so that’s a plus.

The game’s code…started well. I was writing decent, clean code for the first 24 hours. From that point onwards, however, sleep deprivation and desperation drove my code to the ground. The final result, while not that bad, has a few classes that have an insane number of responsibilities and is far,far,faaar from being efficient. SquareQuest takes up an insane amount of memory and processing power for such a tiny game. When I return to it soon, I’ll definitely have to work on that.

Every in-game map is generated out of a bitmap image, using a method I learned looking at Notch’s Prelude of the Chambered, also a LD entry. I did that purely to save time while creating the maps, but that makes it so easily expandable that anyone can edit the maps, that’s actually a really cool side effect.

After a whole month of walking in circles, I also finally managed to learn some Libgdx, thanks to Ludum Dare!

I definitely intend to take part on future Ludum Dares, it was a great experience to test my programming and game design skills. Next time I might push myself a little more artistically, I really want to improve every single skill I can.

I’ve been spending some time rating LD entries. I want to rate at least 300 before judging ends and I intend to post about my favorites after every 100 reviewed =D It’s amazing what people can make in 48 (or 72) hours…

Play Square Quest!