Hello everyone!
Here is my post-mortem of the game I made for LD30 which is a space colony builder type thing which is named Pocket. If you want to play it, here is the link : http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=25153 .
Engine
For this Ludum Dare, I was considering switching to LibGDX but I didn’t have enough time to learn the engine so I had to keep using Unity. Sadly, the 2D tools in Unity are still quite buggy which created some unexpected bugs within my game.
Programming
For some reason, I thought that it would be a good idea to switch from using C# to using UnityScript. The problem is that I never tried UnityScript so I had to look at the documentation constantly to learn how to do stuff. From now on, Il’ll always test out and learn my tools before starting Ludum Dare because this slowed me down a lot.
Ideas
For last Ludum Dare, I came up with a list of ideas for each time. This time around, I didn’t do that which made me waste the whole of Friday night and Saturday morning from 6 to 8 trying to find ideas in connection with the theme. I finally stopped my decision on a space colony building game on Saturday morning but I should definitely come up with a list of ideas for each theme next time.
Time management
I actually managed my time quite well this time around so there won’t be a lot of stuff in this paragraph. But here’s an advice for new Ludum Dare participants : at the start of every day, make a list of things to do and give yourself a maximum time to do it so that you don’t run out of time.
Tools
There’s one thing I learnt from this Ludum Dare : always test your tools before the start of the competition. When I was about halfway through development, Untiy 4.6 crashed on me and it reset the scene so I had to put everything back in place. Photoshop also had a huge bug which made it crash before saving so I had to restart some graphics a few times. Also, don’t use betas for Ludum Dare. Seriously.
Graphics
I was actually quite proud with my graphics for Pocket. Using a few of the built-in Photoshop tools, I was able to create planets which looked quite nice.
The controls
If I continue this game post-compo, I really want to make it so that multiple controls can be used at the same time so that I can, for example, change my speed while also accelerating. Sadly, this wasn’t possible in the Ludum Dare version so I definitely want to change that.
I would love to continue working on this game. If I do, Il’ll probably switch over to LibGDX or another engine because Unity2D is really buggy. If I make this into a fully-fledged game, Il’ll also want to add a few more mechanics. I just want to wait until the end of the voting period to see everyone’s advice.