Firefly
This game is from the old Ludum Dare platform. You can try viewing the original page on Web Archive
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A game about a kid and his dad.
Controls:
Arrow keys to move
Space to jump
Z to swing your net
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Background & Mini-Postmortem (Minor Spoilers)
(I wrote a longer postmortem here: http://thekidder.com/2013/09/ludum-dare-27-postmortem/)
I didn't quite make the game I wanted to, but I'm still quite proud of my first solo LD. I'm especially happy with how some of the visuals turned out, given that this was my first time doing pixel art.
I had a difficult time coming up with an idea for this theme. I desperately wanted to avoid the blunt 10-second timer trope, so a lot of my brainstorming was trying to think around that. I instead interpreted the theme a bit more subtly (OK, I mostly ignored it). A phrase and a visual image popped into my head: a kid and his dad sitting on a hill, and the dad says, "A star dies every 10 seconds". The mental imagery was very compelling, so I turned it into a game.
I spent most of the first day drawing pixel art and trying to recreate the image that inspired me. At this point I still didn't really know what my game was about - I just had a phrase to build off of and a very concrete image in my mind about what the game should look like. I built that look without knowing what the game should be about, and then tried to find some game mechanics that would fit it. This reflects in my final product - I think the art turned out really well, and the mood is close to what I intended, but the gameplay is obviously a bit minimal and underthought. I simply didn't have the time or inspiration to create more compelling gameplay after spending so much time on the art. I would have loved to get some background music and more/better sounds into the game as well - I think it would have helped a ton with the mood - but composition is totally alien to me and the best I can do with sound effects was playing with bxfr. Maybe something to learn for next time.
Controls:
Arrow keys to move
Space to jump
Z to swing your net
-----
Background & Mini-Postmortem (Minor Spoilers)
(I wrote a longer postmortem here: http://thekidder.com/2013/09/ludum-dare-27-postmortem/)
I didn't quite make the game I wanted to, but I'm still quite proud of my first solo LD. I'm especially happy with how some of the visuals turned out, given that this was my first time doing pixel art.
I had a difficult time coming up with an idea for this theme. I desperately wanted to avoid the blunt 10-second timer trope, so a lot of my brainstorming was trying to think around that. I instead interpreted the theme a bit more subtly (OK, I mostly ignored it). A phrase and a visual image popped into my head: a kid and his dad sitting on a hill, and the dad says, "A star dies every 10 seconds". The mental imagery was very compelling, so I turned it into a game.
I spent most of the first day drawing pixel art and trying to recreate the image that inspired me. At this point I still didn't really know what my game was about - I just had a phrase to build off of and a very concrete image in my mind about what the game should look like. I built that look without knowing what the game should be about, and then tried to find some game mechanics that would fit it. This reflects in my final product - I think the art turned out really well, and the mood is close to what I intended, but the gameplay is obviously a bit minimal and underthought. I simply didn't have the time or inspiration to create more compelling gameplay after spending so much time on the art. I would have loved to get some background music and more/better sounds into the game as well - I think it would have helped a ton with the mood - but composition is totally alien to me and the best I can do with sound effects was playing with bxfr. Maybe something to learn for next time.