Metroidvania / Racing - Cyclevania - Post-Mortem

Link to Finished Entry

So, this is my first ever Ludum Dare. I had only jammed once before this! I wanted to wrap up my thoughts and how we pulled it off.

My role, for the most part, was programmer. I coded the majority of the mechanics and features in the game. I took on some design and level design as well, but I can't take credit for the majority of it. I also set up source control, helped plan, and other various things. When it is a short time limit, everyone does everything. lol

I guess the best way for me to break this up is by day and milestones.

Friday ~ Planning and Starting

Leading up to friday, we all voted and thought about what themes we would like to be picked. We had to throw all of those ideas out the window. The theme we didn't want got picked. We had no ideas at all for a game. We spent from 9PM to probably 10:30PM asking each other what we could do and what would be fun. Some of my favorite scrapped ideas (Some serious, some not):

• First Person Shooter x First Person Shooter
• FPS x Physics x Golf - Basically a game about using guns to shoot and bouncy ball into a hole
• Etc.

After that, someone said it and the genres were set - Metroidvania x Racing(ExciteBike) .

I started coding almost immediately. I got a character controller, pickups, and a few various classes done and working. I coded until probably 2:30 AM - 3 AM. The core mechanics of the game were here, more or less.

Saturday ~ Building, Breaking, and More

Saturday was co-work day! I drove down to one of our team member's house and we worked most of the day. The game gained a real structure then. We cemented the level design, characters, music, etc. This is when the game really got the metroidvania half. I covered their whiteboard in doodles and bad level layouts until we finally designed something that stuck and felt fun to play.

_ Then we lost it. _

A source control error like I have never seen before happened and we lost the entire main level. After an hour of refactoring, fixing, and rebuilding , We ended up with something better. We got our level back and it turned out better the second time! I can honestly say that saturday is when the game took shape and our group was its strongest. Without that co-working experience, they game wouldn't have turned out as good.

Sunday ~ Polish, PlayTesting, and Publishing

On Sunday I spent most of the day playing and populating the level. I wanted to make sure there were fun puzzles based on the mechanics we had in place. I spent most of the day doing this. After that phase was over, I just polished.

Screen Shake, Particle Effects, Screen Fading, control tightening, etc. I spent a lot of time on this. I got to the point that I felt like the game played well and correctly represented the source material I was working with. I sent the game to a few people and let them play, and I got mostly positive feedback. I analyzed the negative, and made some adjustments to the game. Then we ended up with the final project. c:

Conclusion

I don't think there is anything I would change or do differently. It went smooth with a few minor hiccups. Of course there are things I'd like to have added, but the game we got was worth making the sacrifices. Quality over Quantity ;P

In the end, this went super smoothly and was one of the coolest experiences in my young gamedev career. I learned a lot and I think I can make the next one even better! Also, keep regular backups locally in case of git being mean. ;P

Give us a rating? :3