Into the unknown – Post-mortem

by Grungi

Well, had some time to think over what I did right and wrong for my first participation in LD, or any game making sprint for that matter.
The good :

  • I ended up with something playable. Sure, it lacks a lot of stuff, but considering I had to pretty much give up on more than half of the 48 hours thanks to “life”, it’s still a good thing.
  • I managed to learn pyGame. I had sort of glanced over the docs before, but getting down to programming with it really is the best way to truly learn how to use it.
  • I didn’t spend a single second fixing ‘code’ problems. That’s thanks to Python, but anyway the only bugs I had were logical ones, and not some weird case of the code behaving in strange ways. That was refreshing.
  • I had loads of fun, which I see as an important point, that means I’d do it again.

The bad :

  • I tackled problems in the wrong order. I spent a huge amount of time trying to fix my lighting system, and still didn’t get it right on time for the submission deadline. As I was making a platformer, I should have concentrated on getting a platformer first, and then add the light stuff.
  • In relation to the previous point, I spent way too much time on a single problem. And by not changing and working on something else, I kept trying to push in the wrong direction. Case in point : on monday, I fixed my lighting problems in about 20 minutes, because my mind was clear and I could see the solution I’d missed (hint : I was trying to determine what areas were lit, I ended up computing the shaded parts instead…).
  • I didn’t allocate time for packaging. I figured that Python and pyGame being cross-platform, it would work out, but I should have spent some time to properly package for MacOSX users and Windows users. I’m going to fix that as soon as I have some time, though.

So there you go, all in all I’m proud of myself, and I’ll be sure to continue working on the game. I think it has some potential, even if it’s very crude and barebones at the moment.

Thanks to those who provided feedback, it’s really helpful! And stay tuned for proper exe and app executables in the next few days (busy packing as I’m going to Canada on friday, but I’ll find some time…).