Post Mortem for my LD 28 Entry, “You only get one Cookie”

Hey all, wow, another LD come and gone. It really is great seeing the amazing variety of games created in such a short period of time with only a single phrase as inspiration.

I went through a bunch of ideas brainstorming before I started working. I was at a restaurant when the theme was announced but thanks to my trusty smart phone I was able to see the theme and start thinking about my game before I got home.

I wanted to try something that I thought was non obvious, so I threw out the “Assassin with one bullet” and “Buffet with a single plate” ideas that where my first two. I saw some kids and it made me think about a mom scolding her child that they could only have one cookie. That went along with the #NOKILL sub theme that was going around, so I started fleshing it out and this is what I ended up with.

Things that went Right:

• I used Unity this time. I had done some small things with it before and I use C# in my day job, so I wanted to try it out for LD. It was in general really good, and the new 2d tools are fantastic.
• I used the 2d Toolkit addon from the unity store in order to handle my tile maps, it was really easy to generate additional levels using it, which was something I had trouble with during my last entry.
• I found a pathfinding addon for Unity. It has a free version that is really nice. Definitely something I will use again.
• SFXR is always handy for generating quick sound effects, Paint.NET was great also, as was Pixel Art Editor for android, which I used on my tablet away from the house to generate a bunch of the graphics.

What could have gone better:

• Having more time. Seriously, I need Ludum Dare to fall on a weekend where I dont have parties, or a concert, or something else.
• Getting the pathfinding addon to work with 2d toolkit. Wow, that ate up a ton of time. Couldnt find anything on the net that was helpful. I ended up solving it with inspiration and remembering a video I saw on you tube about 2d toolkit tilemaps.
• My math abilities suck. I had the hardest time getting some of the basic features working like the parents scanning for you. It was way to hard for me and its something I need to work on.
• Art, as always I’m a programmer and not an artist. Although I am improving and I have to say the difference between this game and my last LD game is like night and day.

So anyway,give my game a try! So far its gotten pretty decent reviews in the fun category. It’s at its heart a stealth game and no killing which is nice. There are a few “bugs” that create some really hilarious situations.