Postmortem: Success or a failure?

Hi!

I'm Emilly, an aspiring game developer using the power of free software(Linux + Godot) to create videogames that can be enjoyed by people of any kind.

Today i want to talk about how i made my game, what went right, what went wrong and what i will do going forward and what's next on the horizon.

How the Game was made:

I had no clue what i was making at the start.

I added a die, i thought about rolling it, then, i added a character, i thought "well, wouldn't it be interesting if you could use a die as a movement mechanic?".

After adding that i was thinking about other ways of using a die, so i added holes that you could put dices in, after awhile i thought it would be interesting if each time you go through it it will lose one, and when it reaches zero it will destroy itself.

After that i was a bit stuck, but after scrolling GMTK discord for 15 seconds i saw someone mention "elemental dice" and i instantly took the idea and added fire/ice dices.

I thought about how you can use them, so i added wood and water, later i added ice and sliding.

At this point almost everything was in place and the last thing i added is infinity die, why? Because i wanted to make a huge level where you can freeze/unfreeze water, but for that to work i needed a die with higher than 6 sides, so i added an infinite die.

This development process was spontaneous and playful. Infinite die could be used for infinite movement, which i never planned, but it totally fixed the issue with big levels having too many dices just for movement

What went right:

1. My limitation of "one day for game mechanics, two days for polish" that i used for previous game jam worked really well with this one too, except now i had one one day for polish, but that wasn't much of an issue, thankfully. I still added some small mechanics on day two but they weren't major.

2. Not creating general purpose solutions or thinking how to solve the problem in the most ideal way. Sometimes it's completely fine to just wing it and create a bit of a mess that you know won't scale well because you don't intend to scale it in the first place.

3. Learning from my first puzzle game and making levels way easier and implementing mechanics one by one, players still complained about fire level, which is where i broke the rule by explaining three mechanics at once (ice/water, melting and sliding). And to be honest, i knew it might become a problem, but i shrugged it off. Conclusion: if you feel like something will be an issue, it will.

4. Not cutting anything out, not redesigning the game midway and staying flexible.

What went wrong:

1. I was pulling 2-3 hours of work without breaks and when i had a break it was either because i needed to eat or was done for the day. I worked around 13-14 hours a day, and i couldn't sleep more than 6 hours. This was a disaster and at the end of it i was feeling exhausted and just submitted a game 4 hours before the deadline and said "no more", which leads me to point 2

2. There was a dumb bug that i could of seen earlier if i had someone playtest the game before releasing it, thankfully, itch.io site went down and i managed to fix the issue before submissions were closed, although i couldn't upload linux/mac/windows builds with the fix, oh well.

3. I spend too little time of actually coming up with ideas for the game. I made the same mistake in my first jam, the ramifications of this is that my game barely fits into the theme, which, in my opinion, will make people rate my game lower, which is fair.

4. Being too lazy with art. People gave me feedback that Water/Ice looks similar, i needed a texture, ANY texture would of been better, but because i was too exhausted i couldn't think about anything else but just finishing the game.

Going forward:

1. Not overworking, sleeping well and taking 30 minute breaks.

2. Giving friends access to in-dev version of the game so they could playtest it if they can at any point in development.

3. Setting up Gitlab CI for quick web builds for the second point.

4. Spending more time on game design.

5. Playing more video games, studying what went right and wrong. Yeah, seems crazy, but the last game other than osu! and gamejam games i played was Neon White, which was awesome, but it was weeks ago, and before than probably months ago.

6. Being more social and putting my progress with my games out there.

Next project:

Right now I'm working on with a friend to "remaster" his game he made years ago, i also have some ideas for Trans Gal Jam but still unsure if i will participate or not.

I will be sharing my progress on my twitter.

F.A.Q:

Q: Will there be a post-jam release?

A: Not sure yet, i like the idea behind the game and i know how to expand it, and with helpful feedback i got i definitely have things i can improve on, but not sure if I'm gonna commit to it just yet.

Q: Do you like puzzles?

A: Maybe shocking if you know i made 3 puzzle games, but no, I'm not a big fan. I do enjoy watching other people play them, so maybe?

Closing words:

Was it a success? Yes, I'm glad i participated in GMTK and i had tons of fun making a game and playing other jammers games.

I appreciate you sticking around and reading this postmortem, if you are interested in my games you can follow me on itch, if you want a sneak-peak on what I'm making you can follow me on twitter