My second Ludum Dare game. I feel I did much better this time around and the theme was one that had a bit of wiggle room I felt. Not really sure how Post Mortems go so I guess I'll just start from the top.

Pre-Jam Brain Storming

I gave myself the goal of coming up with 3 ideas for each theme once the final vote was on, more to do with being incredibly bored at work than actually being something useful. This was actually incredibly useful though! As soon as the theme was announced I had three items to pick from and the one I picked was the one I got most excited about before hand, so I already had a bit of structure to work around. I decided to do political power as a theme, where you control an empire but have to do 'something' to keep them under control. That something turned out to be lightning fast minigames. Most of my programming resume are little javascript toys that I write during the down times at work, so I figured that it suited my strengths pretty well.

1st Night

The first hour or so I brainstormed 10 or so of the minigames I would try to implement. As the final game only has 5 minigames this was a bit ambitious but because I could complete one then move to the next I figured it gave me a really flexible core for managing my time. The rest of the first night I worked on the frame-work game (which is the part where you are actually running out of power) and the first minigame which turned out to be the 'take a bribe' minigame. No art was done at this point so the main screen looked something like this:

1st Day

The first part of the next day was wasted as I slept in much too long. It was a long week at work, what can I say =P. I coded up 2 more minigames which I finished around 4pm. It was at this point that I realized I should probably start adding some art assets and sounds. I hadn't really though about how I was going to do sound so I ended up working on the art first. Art takes FOREVER for me so that took up most of the rest of the day. I started making bleep and bloop noises in bfxr but I didn't really like how any of it sounded. I decided to put in some placeholder sounds by just making mouth noises in audacity I could create later. I also had a few friends try out the game at this point to see what they thought of the concept. Their feedback helped me fine tune the speed of the framework at this point and convinced me to leave in my placeholder sounds which they thought were funny.

Last Day

I finished up the art for the 3 minigames I had finished and rushed out the last two which simply used the same mechanics and functions from the first 3. I had about 3 hours left when I decided no more games I have to make music, start menu, end menu, and tighten up the balance of the game. Again art assets took the longest to create which is why the start and end menus have identical backgrounds. Finished up everything with 15 minutes to go, so managed to push it through submission hell just before the server fires of '08

What I did right

• Scope: My scope was small but expandable. This was much easier to implement and have wiggle room than if I had started with a larger scope and had to make concessions later. It also helped in the speed of playtesting and getting the balance right.
• Time Management: With such a flexible scope I was able to see early on where I would end up getting snagged (the art) so I was able to compensate much more quickly.
• Playtesters: Testing the game myself was fine, but some of the biggest changes I made were from suggestions of my friends who tried it out as I went a long. They convinced me to leave in the placeholder sounds which seems to be what people like most about my game and greatly helped with the balancing. If for whatever reason your friends are jerks and won't play your game I highly recommend finding some sort of place where people can play and give you feedback on your game not just once it is done, but while you are actively working on it.
• Balance: While I'm not 100% happy with how the balancing worked out in my game (I think it is a tad slow in the beginning) I am confident that the game has a good arc the first time you play. The game has very little in terms of tutorial (only my voice shouting what you are supposed to do) but the beginning is slow enough that you can make mistakes and be fine. By the time it ramps up you will have seen all the minigames a couple times and know what they require while they do get more difficult so you will find small changes to trip you up.

What I did not so right

• Art: I am no artist and a lot of the assets in the game are very rushed. Even being rushed as they were they were still the largest time sink. Mainly I just need more practice with creating art in a short amount of time. In the coming months I will try to practice this. Specifically consistency in style is lacking here. I'm proud of the 'launch the missle' minigame art which I put too much time into making look good, but it's pixel graphics style doesn't mesh well with the other hastily cobbled together color blobs.
• Clarity: The biggest complaint I've had is with the 'Get outta here' minigame where people are unsure what to do. The game is short enough and the options limited enough that most people should figure out the solution, but that is a lame excuse. Some simple arrows or even making the borders of the screen glow the first time it is encountered would have smoothed things along at a low enough time cost. Seeing where these sorts of faults in a game are is difficult, but the player should know the options available to them at all time, and especially during a particularly frenetic game such as mine.
• Usability: Making a javascript game, it should have been simple enough to implement a full screen mode, or a scaling size for the game to make it viewable on smaller screens or even mobile. This is more of a lack of knowledge on my part I think, and I will be looking into quick ways to implement these features in the future.
• Time Management (Sleep): I slept too much and wasted a lot of time doing it. Wasted a good 4 or 5 hours I could have used to make better art or another minigame.
• Naming: The Political Juggle is a really lame name and doesn't really convey any information. I should probably take longer than 3 minutes to come up with a name in the future =P.

Overall I'm pretty proud of what I made though no game is perfect, especially not a game jam game. I stumbled into a lot of the things I did right but will definitely keep them in mind as things I should keep doing in the future. Where I faltered comes down to things that need to be practiced and I think will come with more experience. I hope you enjoy my game if you decide to play it, as I know I've enjoyed many of the games that the community has made. See you next time!

If you'd like to give my game a shot, you can find it here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/the-political-juggle