Summer at the bottom.

What I could have done better when making my game Currency.io:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/currency-io

The Jam starts

I started by trying to find ideas that would match the theme. As one does. I decided I did not want to make a game like I was expecting most of the others to be. So I was pretty happy when the idea of making a "currency conversion simulator" came to my mind. So I started creating a quick UI concept: After I finished the concept I went into Unity trying to create the UI. After some time of trying to make it responsive and not getting it to work, I decided to take this opportunity to try and learn to use Javascript better. So I went to create the UI in HTML and CSS.

That was the first day of the jam.

The problem was, that I had not finished the whole UI. There was one thing missing. The graph. I started looking around on the Internet for free templates I could use to make the graphs I wanted. I found Chart.js and tried to put the graphs into my design. And that was how I wasted the day I only had half of, due to a family meetup. That was the second day. Having to go to school on the third day and coming home at six o'clock weren't the best conditions to finish the game I intended it to be. So I worked late into the night replacing the charts with lists, making all the calculations for new conversion rates, adding the ability to set how much money to transfer, changing the weeks from a time-based event to a player controlled one and some more little things.

That was the end of the last day.

What I was not able to implement:

• The news feed, that would let the player know about what was going to happen in the next weeks. ( I even wanted to implement characters. Some that told the truth and some that lied a lot.)
• Adding advisors, that would give you some very important predictions from time to time.
• Adding some more logical structure to the way the conversion rates were going to change.

Summary:

• I spent too much time fiddling around with the UI to get it "perfect"
• Wasted a lot of time, by not letting ideas go quick enough, that would have taken way too much time to implement into the project, as I had no previous knowledge of them.
• should have made the game function before worrying about the look. (the problem is I like nice looking design a lot)

Thx for reading this!