You only get one world – post mortem

Now that I’ve rested up again and my sanity has returned, I feel ready to write a postmortem for the game I made for LD28! You can play my game here:

You only get one… WORLD!

I am a South African, so the competition started at 04h00 in the morning on Saturday, making it difficult for me to be there from the start! :) It was my first Ludum Dare and it was loads of fun! Thanks to everyone who’s rated my game so far! I will be sure to rate any commenters on my game!

What went right:

• I have a lot of experience with most of the tools I used (openfl, aseprite, audiotool), which made for quick progress across the board.
• My brainstorming session early on the Saturday morning went really well and I found an idea that I was pretty excited about in about 2 hours. After that I could hit the ground running!
• I drew up a rough schedule the night before the competition and I stuck by it more or less! It helped me keep my eye on the big picture!
• I used the pomodoro technique and it helped me to stay focused a lot! It also helps you keep track of the time and keep your eye on the ball! I can vouch for its efficacy!
• I didn’t know beforehand how good my pixelart would be under pressure, but creating the art for the game went pretty smoothly and I am really happy with the final result!
• Audiotool was used to compose the music pretty quickly and I can highly recommend it!

What went wrong:

• I wasn’t able to get to bed early enough on the Friday evening and ended up sleeping until 07h00 instead of getting up at 04h00!
• I didn’t prepare for theme very well beforehand. Next time, I will brainstorm the day before on each of the possible themes so that I have a few ideas once the theme is announced.
• The strategic view took me a lot longer than I planned! Pixel art world maps are not easy!
• I didn’t have time do a lot of the stuff I was planning from the start, like a crowd of noisy observers to the debate, better balancing and a victory screen… There was just too much to do!

That’s about it. Overall it was a really positive experience, I think I had quite a bit of luck on my side! I hope you will play/rate my game and leave a comment so that I can return the favor!