I thought I would write a bit about how this game, as I didn’t really write much since the first day. I found the theme really difficult, as to me, it meant no sidescrollers, platformers, 3d games, or erm, anything much. I was kinda thinking of cheating with a platformer where you could see every room and they shrunk when you completed them, or maybe having the same room where spikes would appear in different places, like the movie the cube.
It was fairly late in the day by the time I had decided on an Idea, about 3pm. I thought it would be funny if you were a bug on a windscreen trying to survive while being driven round by a mad driver. I thought the spider could eat the other bugs on there.
The art seemed to go really well, and I plugged away in Illustrator for only about 2 hours to get it done. The cityscape horizon came from a tutorial I was reading, which I think is cool. I was a bit nervous that people wouldn’t want to play a spider, so I made it really cute. Animation would have been cool, but I know from experience that it takes a lot more effort. Most of my resources can be handled by just shaking them around or messing with the scale. I love altering the rotation of objects, and was really happy to be able to do that in my ide. I think the art style is really cartoony, but also consistent. I don’t really do palettes, so it has that kind of kid-painting “SKY IS BLUE, TREE IS GREEN” feel..
I was very lucky to use the http://mightyeditor.mightyfingers.com/ phaser.js ide, which was because I saw this tutorial where a guy made a game in about half an hour. I had a few teething issues with getting game physics to work, but by the end of the first day, I had a car and all my resources on it, and they were edible.
Day 2 started with me trying to get some music together. I downloaded a mod tracker, followed a tutorial on mod tracking for it, messed around for a while, then wrote a peppy number. Unfortunately, I had started it as an unusual mod format (ultra tracker?), rather than .mod, so I couldn’t use phaser to play it consistently. In the end, I converted it to wav, then converted that to mp3 and ogg. It got very frustrating to listen to over the three days.. 
Mid-day 2 build:
http://stevydoos.com/car1/
I was having major issues getting random objects in groups, which was annoying, since I wanted to randomly select an item from the list and put it on my screen. I guess this one issue took about 4 hours of experimentation to get around. I also had some CORS issues with audio (browser couldn’t find the files), and had to export the game to get it to work. Most of the evening was spent moving the trees realistically alongside the car, and I didn’t really bother
However, I did have most of my code working by the end of 48 hours.. This made it “a game”, but barely. The hit detection code I had copied from the tutorial was designed to work when you pushed against something and only in certain directions. So if you’re not moving, you cant eat insects and they push you.. I also accidentally deleted my spider so I had to last minute put all the parameters in again. I decided to submit my entry to the 48 hour competition anyway.
48 hour build:
http://stevydoos.com/car2/
Screenshot-wise, the game was ready.. But I hated playing it and something needed to be done.

The spider is YOU!
The next day, I had to go to work, but when I came back, I looked at the feedback on it, and it said all the things I hadn’t had time to do. I decided to go through one by one.. The hit detection was easy to sort. I separated the background into different objects with a semi-transparent screen layer and a wheel and a lady behind that, and made the steering wheel rotate based on the speed of the car. I made the difficulty (max random velocity change) increase over time, and I added a high score. This made the game purpose more about personal goals, rather than anything rigid. I recorded the sound effects using this tool called RecForge on my tablet and voice effects. Although I still had a few issues with sound on the ide, I added them later. Some people might not like the sound style, but apparently my sister nearly wet herself when it said “oh noes”.
I resubmitted later that night for the Jam. The feedback has been very good, but I’m a little nervous that people have been playing the wrong version, as most people think it was far too easy. That said, I don’t think they should have been able to survive more than 300 seconds if they had played the right version.
What went right:
- Mission successful! Got my level 1 cloud ide merit badge. Released a game in 48 hours.
- It runs everywhere.. IE, Firefox, Chrome, my phone, my tablet. I developed for keys, but it might have been better as point and click.
- I want to make another game. Major success here!
What went wrong:
- Last minute phaser learning was touchy. It’s always a risk learning new tech for a game jam, but it’s also excellent motivation.
- Thinking of something for the theme. I’ve seen a lot of clever ideas because of it though.
Blatant plug to play/rate my game. I think I have enough votes to be honest, but if you want a go, play the JAM version, as I’m not in the 48 hour compo.
http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-31/?action=preview&uid=19350
The favourite game I rated so far is probably Kaiser. I loved a lot of games, but my gaming skills are a bit weak.. I played dock and cover for about an hour?