Hallie – Post-Mortem

Howdy! I’m Rubens Salvador, i’m 19 and live in Brazil (if I make an english mistake in this text, I’m really sorry xD). Well, this is my second entry in Ludum Dare and first entry alone (my first entry ever was Underwall, a platformer made by me and some classmates on LD29). As I kinda lack experience in game making, i tried to think in something simple for this edition of LD.
As a very fan of Portal series and maze-ish games, i had an insight and thought “Why not combine the two in a simple and humble idea?”. And then, “Hallie-lujah”! Hallie was born 😛

wow such draft

Mechanics: The game mechanics are not THAT innovative, since i clearly expressed my inspiration on Portal series. But i managed to port it into a bidimensional map and make the portals fixed in two axis. The character mechanics kinda resembles the Snake game, having to collect points (stars) and avoid obstacles.

Aesthetics: The graphics are basically made of modern pixel art, in other words, without that color and size limitations of old era of videogames. The environment of game consists in a oldschool representation of outer space. For the design of the main character, a shooting star, i inspired in Ristar, a character from an eponymous game made by Sega, released in 1995. I made a rereading and transformed it into a comet-ish design. The game soundtrack was inspired in Ristar soundtrack as well, consisting of a 8-bit chiptune arrangement made by some youtubers: SuperShadow and Bizen, while the sound effects were found in Pond5 site. So, the game soundtrack was the only thing not made by me.

Story: The game doesn’t have a defined story. I prefered to let the player do his/her own interpretation and roleplay. Though i could say the main base is a shooting star dreaming to be a super star (no pun really intended, haha). By the way, Hallie name was named after Halley comet.

Technology: My game was build in Construct 2 engine and have a traditional gameplay, excluding the portal mechanics, besides a star placing algorhythm I implemented, in order you don’t get stuck in a game. However, when the game has too much asteroids in screen, it becomes pretty impossible to go further due to unstable star point, and then the player finds himself in a dead end. And well, the graphics were made in our good an’ old Paint. ROFL.

My Ludum Dare Experience Addendum

The Good: As a game developing student, i can say this project, like whatsover ones i produced and observed, were very important to gain experience in game developing area, especially under limited time conditions as seen in Ludum Dare. It felt good to try to apply mechanics i always dreamt about using in a game.

The Bad: As a matter of fact, since i still lack some experience in this area, the game didn’t went like I first planned, resulting in some weird bugs in gameplay (like the star points being surrounded by asteroids for example). Probably, i should have done more planning in my free time. But all of this is an aspect which i hope to improve experience after another. And that’s is my utmost goal on being a notable programmer, to make the most attractive and polished game possible.

Final Thoughts: Well, that’s all I could say for now. Thanks for everything, I hope you really enjoyed my work, and also I really appreciate from the bottom of my heart all the feedback and opinions i received in Hallie project. I promise to take them to the grave and remember them while i work as a programmer.
I see you in a next Ludum Dare entry, most likely with a brand new challenge and experience. ^_^ Oh, and little Hallie wishes you a bright-as-a-star day! 😀