10 seconds to rise – A postmortem

A brief on our motivations

The Canvapps team participated in the Ludum Dare Jam for the first time ever with a main objective in mind, to test their soon to be released web app framework. It was also the perfect occasion to receive some feedback about the general feeling of the site.

Being the first time we confronted such a competition meant we had plenty of freedom to decide the procedures to follow, but our lack of experience made it very difficult for us to finish the game on time.

Timing

First day:

We are living in Barcelona so for us the competition started on Friday at 3:00 AM, so we stayed on the Internet until the topic was unveiled; and after that we went to sleep. We have the theory that while sleeping the brain stays working. So, why not to try it? :D

Next morning, the whole team discussed for around two hours the kind of game that we were going to create. We agreed to create an strategy-oriented game, on which you could discover land, edify buildings and burn them. In consequence, the first task was to create the scenario which is deeply inspired on the game Carcassonne.

At the end of the day, the map was almost finished except for a few details on images and coding. We accorded to individually think at home about our vision of the game so that the second day we could just agree on game dynamics and rules.

Second day:

During the initial meeting we set the basic rules that could be implemented during the day. Soon it became obvious that we got a bit out of scope, so after a break later in the morning we began a second meeting with the objective of limiting the game dynamics to a minimum usable subset we could deliver. A huge amount of work on graphics was also made, and results started to show up.

Thanks to this, a version with a basic set of rules could be finished for the end of the day. On one hand it still wasn’t playable at all due to its basic nature, but on the other hand the tutorial was almost finished.

Third day:

Last day was crazy.

Game was almost complete but it took a great effort to make everything work with no major errors. We succeeded partially, as there were no back-end errors, but there were many on the front-end and playability issues. The reason for this was mainly because of tiredness and a lack of testing, which we could not fit in the limited time-frame of the competition. Finally we deployed at 3 sharp in the morning.

What went wrong

Scope creep has no compassion:

Due to our beginner condition we initially set a scope totally out of reach and we kept increasing it. We have learned during the process of creating our web app that scope is a very difficult thing to control. As a startup we set our own deadlines, and we are not afraid of changing them if it’s totally necessary But that is a double side knife, as it provides both flexibility and never ending projects. As an experiment, it is amazingly useful to test all existing internal processes by setting up a project and a deadline as that is the best way to check if you are being realistic.

Usability turns a program into a game:

When designing a game, intuitiveness is a must. On most game projects it is better to spend time thinking on a graphical solution rather than on a written one, but of course the problem is that it takes time and expertise to find great solutions. We are going to keep this in mind next time we aim to create a game, so we can provide the user with understanding and a dynamic learning.

Explain behavior but do not bore with it:

There must be a balance between game complexity and game explanations. If it is too much complicated, it will be too difficult to explain how to play it. Long and unspecific explanations are easy to write, and difficult to pay attention at. If a game is too complicated, then the designer must take enough time to create short, straightforward and understandable instructions. We obviously did not xD

What went right

The team is key, use it to open possibilities:

We managed to conform a great team at Canvapps for the Ludum Dare, as we could recruit a graphical artist for the competition. From here we want to strongly thank Riky again for doing such a great job and contributing greatly to the end result with his creativity.

Joaquim (back-end) and Luis (front-end) already know they are two big ones on the field; congratulations mates, you made it awesome :)

While not perfect, development was a rocket:

As said, the main intention was to test our framework on a real situation to see how fast could take to develop a relatively complex idea within a limited time-frame. Results mostly show up behind the scenes, as the web app remains on an alpha phase, and because communication efforts must be made to inform the general public about the project itself. Anyway, during the process we discovered how fast can it be to develop and also the next steps to go through to release the app to the general public.

First time at Ludum Dare. Great experience!

This is our first time competing at the jam session and we have discovered a nice scenario on which we can constantly improve and extend Canvapps. This is also a great place to interact with a main group of interest that could become one of the pillars of our community. We really hope you liked this first attempt and that you find it interesting enough to stay tunned. The best way to stay in touch is to leave your e-mail at the register area at Canvapps (http://www.canvapps.com/register).

You could be one of the first to receive an invitation to join!

Conclusions

We are very happy with the end result and with the feedback we have received so far. Even with the complications of participating for the first time with an almost untested framework and a multi-player and persistent approach, we believe the goals we set at the start of the competition were quite achieved.

However, we think that the game dynamics we could fit in the 72 hours of Jam competition are a bit off, so we would like to announce a director’s cut version of the game which will be available around mid September :D

Additionally, please let us know at [email protected] if you have any comments on the features of our site or any improvements you would like to see in the director’s cut version. Thanks for playing!!!