As with any sort of timed programming challenge, I made a few decisions that I went on to regret. That's sorta the purpose of these though, to try new things and learn what works in an artificial time crunch. One of the mistakes I made, was making the art too detailed for my skillset. My previous LD submission (LD40), had an extremely low pixel count art style. Character legs/arms were 1 pixel wide, and that decision was made on purpose to make art take less time. My final version of the game however, seemed to lack polish due to the shortcut in art. This time around I decided on larger character sprites, starting at 64x64 and ending up with some larger 128x128 characters.

LD40 vs LD41 player sprite sheet

While the art does look nicer, I spent probably half of my allotted time just working on the art. This led to a few things (like the enemy spawners) being rushed, causing them to standout as being less detailed. Not only that, but it was time I lost for gameplay enhancements! Ultimately I think with more practice drawing, I can get to a place where I can pump out high quality sprites in shorter time. Until then I will probably move my resolution back down for the next jam so I can put more focus on making the gameplay awesome.

If you haven't tried my game yet, give it a whirl! I'd love to hear your feedback!