Childhood toys - post mortem

click to play

Childhood toys is just an experiment, not a full game. Made in 48 hours for Ludum Dare 23, an international gaming challenge to complete a game in 48hours and fit a theme, this time "Tiny world".
After playing some great platformer (like Company of myself) and dedicated too much time on Java programming, I've decided to look back in my personal gaming programming path and try again with Flash and in particular, Flashpunk.

I've wrote before about flashpunk and made some games with it (Escape in 60 seconds, S.H.T.G.T.H, RandomLD19, Airheat and Zombie Employee) so I'm able to do a little game with it. This time I've decided to build a platformer, because there is a nice "expansion" of flashpunk: Advanced Platform Engine.APE is awesome because with some work already done let you concentrate on main part of your game: game itself.

a nice example of level design with paint

With "Tiny world" in mind and APE as tool, what kind of game do for LD23? I've decided to tell a brief story of a boy and his little world.
I've realized soon without a sketch of my level/levels I cannot do anything so I've decided to open up paint (yes, microsoft paint)  and have 9 zones: in each a toy to collect and some obstacles to jump around.

Yes, goldrake is in my game too

 Because I'm also in love with metroid and castelvania and a linear level design could be boring, I've decided to have a double jump power up, a teleporter and switchs to turn on teleporters, spikes and jump again.
Add some text and you have Childhood toys. For text I didn't spent too much time: just wrote it and see on screen. As I said before, story is written in my mind before starting working on game too: collecting some toys, main character find some memories of his past.


What went right
- APE, right tool to do the job,
- Gimp, perfect tool to have a little animation in no time, some texture for my blocks and so on,
- Ogmo editor,  for level design is perfect: works well, nice integration with Flashpunk
- twitter: follow game updates on #LD48 is fun and help to keep motivated

Switch is on

What went wrong
- from first comments, game could be frustrating after first teleporter, because you have to do a double jump in mid-air to reach a platform
- graphics is not so coold: I've planned to add a light effect, because all game is a kind of nightmare for a boy, but have no time for this
- flashdevelop: I didn't setup it correctly so debug wasn't working. So waste of time.. argh!


Conclusion
A nice ludum dare for me, mainly because I've completed a little game and tell a story about a boy.

Play it now