Overview

I may have said the same thing for LD42, but I think this is my most successful Compo so far. I decided to limit the scope of my art, animations, and audio and put more time into gameplay, and I think it improved the overall experience.

The Good

• The Concept: Purely from a turns-the-theme-into-an-interesting-mechanic perspective, this was perhaps my best game idea to date. I hadn't made a puzzle game for a Ludum Dare Compo yet, and I thought sacrificing some of your controls as you solve the puzzle could make for some interesting levels.

• The Onboarding: This time around, I actually had a pretty nice tutorial! It lasts a few pretty quick levels, but doesn't let you through to the interesting part until you know the basic controls.

• The Squashing: I had very few persistent bugs this time around. My code was probably structured a little better than in the past, so I generally knew where to look and what to look out for (when, for instance, the main character flies off the screen at high speeds).

• The Character: Keith is super rad.

The Meh

• The Scope: I had just enough time to make the main features, design eight levels, and make sufficiently reasonable graphics and interface elements. I think I may have overscoped by a couple hours, as I would have liked to improve some of the visuals, add more animations to the main character, and add a title screen.

• The Sleep: Jesus Christ, my poor body.

• The Visuals: Once again, I ran out of time a little near the end, and had to compromise some of the animation scope to get a not-buggy game onto Itch in 48 hours.

• The Bug: There was one fairly significant bug that slipped by me! Thanks @elysiagriffin for finding it on stream.

Moving Forward

Since my priorities this time around were more focused on gameplay, I'm hoping to break the top 100 in "Fun" and "Overall." If not, I'd like to at least see some improvement from my previous games in these two categories.

Thanks for reading! You can play Master Key here.