LD #23 Tiny Ranger Results

We finally have the scores for our entry 'Tiny Ranger' in the last Ludum Dare #23!

The result is far better than we expected and even more knowing it was our first participation.

We finished with 2 categories inside the top25 and managed to score #16 in Mood and #17 in Graphics. We are really happy with this results!

Our team really enjoyed this experience and we are anxious to do our best in the next Ludum Dare in August!

 Here you can find some of the best comments from our reviewers:

Simple, but effective gameplay and graphics. Reminds me of Limbo a bit. This would make a fun phone / tablet game, methinks.

 Nice artwork and atmosphere for the game, just needs a bit more enemy complexity/ difficulty if the game were to be expanded beyond the first level. Great work!

 I love the graphics and sound, and the gameplay's off to a good start -- I ran into one Sucker, though, that kept blinking in and out of existence depending on where I was standing. Made it a bit tough to shoot.

 A shame you didn't have time to bring more features or content into the game. The artwork is amazing. It also plays very well.

 I was looking for this game!
I saw it on the front page while i was working on mine but did not get a chance to try it untill now.
Really like the limbo-like art,and the gameplay is good too.
Overall good job.

 Keep developing it, it could turn into a pretty cool game.

 Very nice art-style, reminds me of Limbo. Great sound too. Good work!

 It left me wanting more, which is good. You could definitely expand on this and end up with a really rad game!

 Nice style, really ties everything together. A little short on features.

 Great graphics :3 the gameplay is a bit dull, but the game itself looks really good ^^

 I like so much the Aesthetics of the game. 

 The graphics are well done, love to see your next entry in August.

LD #23 Tiny Ranger Postmortem

After our first Ludum Dare (#23 Theme: Tiny World), we are really satisfied with the feeling. It was a great experience and we enjoyed (in some weird ways) developing under a great time pressure.

Tiny Ranger Screenshot

You can download/rate our game here:
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=preview&uid=2883

We had a lot of errors and problems related with our lack of experience in the beginning of the compo, next time we will face them totally aware.
Also, a new team mate joined us. He had no previous game development experience, so we spent quite a lot of time explaining the basics. Good thing is he adapted really fast and gave us some interesting points of view through the dev process.

Eitherway LD has brought us some interesting game ideas that we hope to develop further in a less stressful way, hehe.

What went wrong:

- The whole thing was awfully planned, as none of the team members could spend the whole weekend working in the game, due to previous unavoidable plans. We hope it will be perfectly scheduled next time we enter the LD.
- We should have prototyped everything better. The idea was not polished when we started coding, so we had to develop it while being implemented.
- We were too optimistic about what we could achieve, a lot of features and ideas had to be discarded in the end.
- our development tools were not totally ready and we spent 3 hours trying to install them in an old computer wich kept continuously crashing.
- Had some problems with the algorithms/bugs, must review some math before start coding.
- The aesthetics were not totally consensuated by the team, so some artwork was rejected at the end.
- We should have focused a bit more in the gameplay, it lacks fun and variety.
- Lack of social connections. (twitter, forums, comments…)
- Too much stress and anxiety. We have to learn to take it easy in these situations.
- The lack of planning lead to a slow production process in artwork, which could have used some improvements.

What went right:

- The final result is quite good for all the things that went wrong.
- We finished all the main features in time.
- Recorded a time-lapse!
- SFX implementation was really fast.
- Learned a lot from mistakes.
- Our lead artist finally managed to get involved with the code. That didn’t make a real contribution to the final result, but we think it can be a start point for future contributions to coding.
- We are thinking to give Tiny Ranger a chance to become a commercial product.
- We are very happy about the outcome of the dare. We did not expect that we could achieve such a good looking result when working under pressure.
- Our designers have found it really fun to work without creative limits, with the exception of the main theme “Tiny planet”, which is more an inspiration source than a limitation to the productive process.

Hello World

Hello World!