Postmortem

"OSWar" was my second game development competition entry. After my previous uncompleted entry in the third Ludum Dare's 48-Hour, I wanted to make a more completed game this time. So after the announcement of the "infection" theme I wanted to do a more limited scope game to be able to finish it.

But I made a big mistake here. I limitted too much the game's scope and I finished with a non creative boring game rather than a completed interesting one.

What went right

• Better knowledge of SDL. This time I was more used to SDL than in the previous competition. That gave me more time to focus on the game.
• Better design. Although this game is not as innovative as the one in my previous competition I had a better game's architecture design. The use of Object Oriented Programming gave me the change to add artificial intelligence and multiplayer support easily enough to be able to make then during competition.
• More familiarity with tools. Last year was my first time using GIMP so I was a little puzzled of how to do certain things. This year I knew how to use it and so the graphics were better (although I lack of graphic skills).

What went wrong

• Lack of creativity. This is one of my biggest problems in this kind of competitions. I just spend hours trying to figure out what to do only to come with a simple and boring idea.
• Bad time management. This is an area where I have to put more practice on. I just waste my time in silly things and then I end up with little time to finish and polishing. I did better this time though.
• New tools. Although as I said previously I was more used to GIMP this year, I only focused on graphics. I tried too late to learn how to use sound effects editors like GLAME and music composition programs like SoundTracker. So the game ended with no music and a only one crappy sound effect.
• Bad English. This is not strictly a game problem but something I need to improve as fast as possible to not doing misspelled screenshots again and to write good "readme" files.

Future & Conclusion

I thought about doing the game again almost from scratch but with a better implementation, different artificial intelligence levels (the A.I. player's level seems to be one of the most criticized aspect of my game, apart from unoriginality) and a lobby-like page where you can find more players (if someone want to play it...).

This will serve me as a good pastime on boring weekends and a way to improve skills like sound effects edition, music composition, multiplayer gaming and graphics, but obviously not creativeness. I hope I'll do better in next competition.