Post Mortem

Cthulhu32 on 2007/04/22 21:06 of Death Tower

Well pyweek #4 is over... and christ did I rank awfully. Wow people really didn't like my game :! I even got a reply that was simply "I really didn't like this game." Well for all the supporters, thanks, for all the haters, poo on you.

Original Plan: Well I originally figured that I could come up with a Gauntlet/RPG style game, where you level up, pick up items from monsters, gain levels, all that good stuff. So essentially you start at the first level of the tower, then as you advance you gain levels, and you can go back down levels. This way you could like fight bosses, gain cool objects, all that good stuff.

What I accomplished: Well, after tackling the tile engine, the world scrolling, object-oriented monsters and items, collisions between tiles, keys, weapons, etc. I realized that the 7 days were up. Working on everything by myself was extremely time-consuming, the art, the music (made it myself with DrPetter's Musagi :) :) ), the code, everything.. So what I wound up with by Friday at midnight was pretty much a gauntlet clone. I had a ghetto level-editor going, a long list of to-dos, and a game that was near impossible to beat. Saturday I woke up late, had about 6 hours to catch up so I came up with a few bug fixes, a few other things, and came up with a final 20 minutes before the contest was over.

What went well : Well I honestly learned about 50 times more than my Urban Ninja game, and I really added some object oriented goodness into this thing. I made a level editor, I coded up some pixel collision tile detection, I made things work!

What went wrong : I definitely wanted a lot more with this game. I was trying to get A LOT done in a short time span with a lot of stuff in between. I had classes from 8-5 every day, I had a fiancee I was visiting on Friday till Sunday, it was a nutty week. So with just gameplay going for me, I came up with something, not quite what i wanted though.

What I want for next time : Well I'm definitely going to try to join a team, without the art and music I think I could have gotten a lot more done. I heard some people suggest Phil's PGU engine, a very good engine. With his new additions for 2-d platformers its going to be amazing. I really wanted to learn all this on my own though, tile engines, world scrolling, level editors, etc. I just think if I can find a good artist, someone who can come up with sounds and music, I'll definitely be able to work on NOTHING but code! Woo!

Anyways, thank you again Richard for putting on such an awesome contest, I am excited for the next one, if anyone wants to join me on a team feel free to leave comments or find me on irc :D

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Comments

saluk on 2007/04/23 15:02:

I think you ought to have been rated higher. My biggest problem with your game actually was not in anything technical or artistic just in level design. There seemed to be a whole lot of walking and not enough fighting. But the engine worked well. There's always next time :)

Cthulhu32 on 2007/04/23 22:10:

Yeah, I had those mad-scientist plans of having huge levels with traps, more enemies, secret doors, all that good stuff, but making all the levels by myself was just insanity. However I did manage to get the dynamic level thing to work, so you can have levels of any size, long, skinny, boxy, fat, w00t!

Yes next time I think I am going to try to get at least one artist (maybe more), a sound guy if possible, and some helpful level makers. Anyways, good game, good game, fun pyweek for all.