FLove (LD34)

[gajop]

Flove is out! Check it out at http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-3 ... &uid=52862


I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and I think the result is good. We had some new people so I'm happy with the results without a prep.
I think what we did better was:
#1 gfx/art: The game looks really nice, probably better than the previous entries. The nature/love look&feel is also pretty well done I think.
#2 bug-free: I think the game has no real game-breaking issues (physics/movement ala Gravitas or FPS-monster that was Area 17).
#3 story+tutorial+voice: I'm glad we added that, it adds a nice bit of touch. There's a clear (and reachable :p) game goal.

What I think was still lacking:
#1 mechanics: It feels like mana (used by RMB, gained from wisps), power (determines LMB reload, gained by tree count/level), and RMB mana cost are all poorly synergized. The only real decision the player makes is choosing where to send love/flower fields or if he has time to upgrade trees.
#2 innovation: This is basically a slightly different, improved version of Hunted. Nothing's particularly new here.

[Silentwings]

Just played it (after being at work for the last day of development and not seeing the finished version), I think it turned out really nicely, I played right through without any trouble and the voiceover is a huge plus.

[gajop]

Shadowfury333 has added a showcase video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FnmQUgR5RQ

[raaar]

Saw the Shadowfury video.

Game looks nice and flowery.

I vaguely remember people talking about how mini-games could draw players to the spring ecossystem. Do these LD games have any sort of follow-up development after the contest ends?

[smoth]

For the most part Gajop does some bug fixes. I don't know how he feels about actual further development.

[gajop]

Anyone who wants to continue development is encouraged to do so. Interestingly enough, Ludum Dare actually organizes a "publish your previous Ludum Dare game" event in October, so we might join it next time. I would like to revisit Gravitas one day and fix physics/collisions.
That said, I don't think any considerable amount of effort should be put into games that don't achieve the "wow" effect (top 10) during the jam.

[smoth]

I don't know if it would be possible to get in the top 10.

[Silentwings]

I think the voting system is a bit random, and sometimes not clear on which game version it's based, and we should trust our own opinions more.

But generally agree, we should fix bad bugs and I at least won't be adding new features to past LD games.

[hokomoko]

October challenge is usually with the aim of releasing commercially btw.

[gajop]

I don't know if it would be possible to get in the top 10.

With Flove? No way, the game doesn't stand out at all. It's not really innovative and even with the current game design it could've used more polish and balance.
Getting in the top 100 in a single category would be more realistic, and just to be clear it'd still be absolutely amazing.

That said, I think we've put in the same time/quality/content effort as the top games do, we just could've directed it better. To use myself as an example, I've spent time making the spire's mordor eye bigger/redder as there's more power, and also have the spire grow branches depending on its power level. This has in no way contributed to the actual game, I'm pretty sure most devs didn't notice it, let alone players. Some time I also wasted on things that could've simply be prepared better in the first place (having better handling of effect/trigger "units").

To me the most important thing is to learn from past mistakes, prepare better and improve next time. Eventually we'll make a really outstanding game and then we can develop it more after LD. For the existing ones, it's free and open source so I encourage people to take what they like (with the disclaimer that there are a lot of hacks :p)

October challenge is usually with the aim of releasing commercially btw.

The point is to get the game finish and ready for release I think. "Money" or commercial distribution isn't key I feel.

[hokomoko]

The point is to get the game finish and ready for release I think. "Money" or commercial distribution isn't key I feel.

http://ludumdare.com/compo/challenge/

Finish a game — Take it to market — Earn $1

You may have some selective reading issues
The "earn 1$" is a traditional integral part of the October challenge

[gajop]

Someone else played our game: http://www.twitch.tv/lukezaz/v/32755031 (first part of the stream)

[Forboding Angel]

I agree with him on the upgrades. It was fun watching him, he seemed like he had a good time

[Silentwings]

I watched a friend try it out, they enjoyed it but lagspikes started appearing towards the end. Voice acting is a huge plus.

They were caused by the mushroom AI (which I wrote, not expecting hundreds of mushrooms at once). It should be greatly improved now.

The unit shaders are the next worst hog, according to the gadget profiler, but I don't plan to touch them.

[gajop]

They were caused by the mushroom AI (which I wrote, not expecting hundreds of mushrooms at once). It should be greatly improved now.

^ Noticed the same thing (you could almost see the freeze happening once every Nth frame). I wrote part of it (dealing with the small shrooms) so I'll gladly share the blame :D

The unit shaders are the next worst hog, according to the gadget profiler, but I don't plan to touch them.

I'd like to revisit it (and other past games) if I have the time. No promises though as I'm prioritizing on Scened/other stuff for the future!

[Silentwings]

Oh, I think I wrote the code that was actually at fault

[gajop]

Results are in:
Coolness 62%
#106 Fun(Jam) 3.75
#109 Overall(Jam) 3.84
#118 Mood(Jam) 3.83
#137 Theme(Jam) 4.13
*#139 Audio(Jam) 3.76
#153 Graphics(Jam) 4.13
#428 Innovation(Jam) 3.26
#662 Humor(Jam) 2.38

Compared to our previous entry (Area 17):
Coolness 70% -> Coolness 62%
#110 Fun(Jam) 3.71 -> #106 Fun(Jam) 3.75
#186 Overall(Jam) 3.66 -> #109 Overall(Jam) 3.84
#351 Graphics(Jam) 3.74 -> #153 Graphics(Jam) 4.13
#364 Audio(Jam) 3.17 -> #139 Audio(Jam) 3.76
#373 Innovation(Jam) 3.21 -> #428 Innovation(Jam) 3.26
#589 Mood(Jam) 3.03 -> #118 Mood(Jam) 3.83
#665 Theme(Jam) 3.26 -> #137 Theme(Jam) 4.13
#684 Humor(Jam) 2.52 -> #662 Humor(Jam) 2.38

Better in nearly every aspect (yey we're improving), or rather "not worse". Still no double digit rating

Then come hokomoko and Nemo and score #19 in Humor and Audio and #43 in Innovation. Gratz! You guys put us all to shame. :)


*Audio: I don't understand why we received an Audio rating if I opted out of it later on. It clearly showed we were being rated in only 7 categories but it seems to have calculated it based on initial ratings, which is kinda lame.

[Anarchid]

Then come hokomoko and Nemo and score #19 in Humor and Audio and #43 in Innovation. Gratz! You guys put us all to shame. :)

And the primary lesson i've learned here is "Don't miss the design phase if you want carrier-train drone networks".

[smoth]

Can't compare past and present. 2 different themes. We had a pretty meh theme to work with and I really don't care about the opinions of random people. In my opinion we had a solid project with a decent amount of polish. That is all I cared about. I watched the video, and I was like "pffft" when the guy commented about a lack of innovation. I don't really care, I am a polish person, I'd rather see us come out with something that doesn't look and most importantly feel like it was a hodgepodge.

In that aspect we did well.

on polish, I feel some things could have been a bit different, things progressed really quickly, probably could have slowed the game a bit and all. Stuff we more or less know. I would have prefered a few more visuals, like sparks on the bombs and that is my fault for having all the issues with github and a meeting that morning.

one of the biggest points of issue I felt and I am not sure we can do much about it is spending a bit more time day 1 writing a design up and building a task list so people are all on the same page. but is that even possible on a 3 day timeline. Another thing was that I was unable to hang with you guys due to time zone issues.

I still think we did overall well. we did really well on fun and overall. Not sure what we could do to make it more "fun"

[Silentwings]

Yes, agreed - I think we did very well this time around.

The biggest irritation from my point of view was lack of widget selector. I'll try and be around for the practice weekend next time and get one set up in the template.