Grand Piano Zombie MMO post mortem

So, everyone is writing some post mortems, and we’re in!

Grand Piano Zombie MMO

This is our first Ludum and we are glad that we managed to make it to the end, it was quite hard and really a lot of programming work, because our game is an MMO, the server part is written on Erlang and the client on JS. And here it is:

>Link<

About the jam.

First day was very technical – first we brainstormed a game idea. We wanted to create a MMO from the very beginning, so we added a very unconventional weapon, some zombies and humor:) After that we realized, that we have a lot of technical work to do, so we set up the server and stuff, programmers began their work and i was desperately trying to figure aut how to make some game art without having any drawing skills :)

The second day was about progression – we finaly made some GUI, managed to connect to our server, started with music and sounds, found some free distributed sprites and drew some derivations.

The last day was very stressed – we programmed and drew and made sounds, tested and balanced our game. Actually we cut some features and even finished a little earlier.

The impressions:

Actually, if you have the skill and knowledge, it is possible to code even a very simple MMO, in 3 days, without too many overtime. We even manage to sleep 8 hours a day and do some small private stuff.

Cutting unnecessary features helps a lot. Carefull planning and a good overview of the game is essential.

The sounds and music is very important.

If you have some general knowledge, you can draw some pixel-programmer’s art, without investing too much time in it.

Being together with people doing the same job and sharing your ideas motivates you a lot. We were glad to partcicipate in SiberianGameJam)

To improve:

First of all – next time it would be great to choose and set up all the technical stuff in advance – it saves a lot of time.

Second – achieve a better overview of the game in the beginning phase – write a “to do” list, think through the features and gameplay.

Third – make sure that nothing bothers you outside the jam.

And the last, but not the least – find a real artist :)

So now begins the voting and we are really impressed by other peoples works and this makes us think that next time we can do a lot better:)

We want to thank the guys from SiberianGameJam for organizing a shelter for the duration of Ludum – it was a really nice place to work with nice people, sharing the same ideas.