Leave me Alone!! was my game for Ludum Dare 22 introduced in this post, now I want to make a small post mortem as I did for my previous Ludum Dare games.

First of all, I was about to not enter this LD because I couldn’t spend all the weekend to develop a game but in the end I did because I didn’t want to break the habit.

As I explained in the previous post (it has images and videos), Leave me Alone is casual game where you use the mouse (on PC at least) to move an orange particle which has to be isolated from incoming blue and green particles with different behaviors.

LD rating stage finished the previous Saturday and these are the results for my game:

	#114	Fun		3.04
	#168	Community	2.93
	#380	Overall		2.62
	#409	Innovation	2.28
	#458	Theme		2.35
	#519	Humor		1.42  (how??)
	#585	Coolness	17%
	#592	Mood		1.61
	#594	Audio		1.00
	#650	Graphics	1.68

What went wrong

  • Didn’t like the theme Alone too much and my first ideas in mind were too complex.
  • My dedication time was limited and I couldn’t work a complex idea instead the one I made, or even spend more time to add more value to the selected idea.
  • Didn’t dedicate too much time to gain visibility (more info later).
  • My graphics were too simple, there is no background, no effects, no nothing. There are no sounds either.
  • I made a timelapse but I was out all the time and it sucks so I never uploaded it to youtube.
  • Didn’t worked on the Android version controls and current one is almost unplayable, that means no Android players.

What went well

  • Even though I had little time to spend on the game, I refine one of the possible game ideas to make it smaller and be able to finish it on time.
  • Game is fun despite being small and simple (could be better of course).
  • The game had some visibility even though I spend almost no time in promoting it (more info later).
  • Even though some people “called me crazy” 😛 for using a physics engine for a game like this one, I believe it was a correct choice since I know Box2d enough to simplify my life. For example, all movements in the game are made using forces on each body (the particles) and the result is a good simulation of a real movement. Also, all collision logic is solved for me so I have to code less.

How to get visibility to your game

When you make games in LD you have to make other LD participants to rate your game since is the only way to get rated. There are different ways to improve the visibility of your game:

  • Have already a lot of visibility, for example, if you are a known celebrity like Notch (soooo many comments) or Kevglass, between others, your game will be played (at least I will play them).
  • Make a great game (the main idea of the LD), then people will start to make comments about it, tell to friends, make blog posts, etc.
  • Promote the game during the development by making blog posts on LD blog, record timelapse and stream your development, between other possibilities, this allows you to get a lot of players when the game is released.
  • Promote it by making it easy to play, maybe an online mutiplatform version (applet or flash), if you make your game only for win7 with XNA 8.0 you will probably lose some potential players. Make a good gameplay video too so people could watch your game without having to play it, maybe you could even convince them to install XNA 8.0 to play your game 😉
  • If you have time after development, play other LD games, rate them and make comments about them because this is one of the best ways to get other participants to play your game and, in the best case scenario, to rate it and even make comments.

In conclusion, it always feels nice to participate in LD, and I am happy with the game I did Although I had not so much time to spend. Next time maybe I could do better.

Hope you like the post 😀