LD33 Post Mortem – Themes, Feedback And My First Jam
I almost didn’t take part.
I had stayed up until 2am to see the Theme announcement and then I went to bed. No early morning notes or ideas, no, no thinking about format just sleep.
The truth is the Theme left me pretty cold, it still does. I am new to LD I only heard of it 3 months ago due to following @Ploogle on twitter and having casually started up Game Design as a Hobby I spent a weekend reading some blogs, playing some games and even offering a name to someone on twitter when they asked for ideas (if you played Flail Rider at LD32 and thought great game, terrible name that one was on me). I had never been involved in any Game Jams I kind of figured they were not for me. I have 2 kids, a job and a mountain of housework, my days of staying up till 3am playing video games is well behind let alone building them in 48hrs.
A little over 2 weeks ago I thought about LD and checked out the website and I saw the countdown timer and I thought about taking part,then I quickly dismissed it as a foolish notion that I would not be able to find the time for. I then started to help with the theme slaughter, almost a game within itself good, bad, slaughter like a tiny bit of power in my hands. I was a roman emperor deciding which themes would be fed to the lions, and boy did I throw a lot to the lions. I mean there were some really bad Themes in there. There were also some really cool sounding themes, I personally enjoy the open 1 word themes that could go in any direction. Then came the voting, where I was starting to convince myself I would take part. I had a system for how I voted, down voting the ones I thought dictated mechanics, upvoting the ones that offered creative possibilities, ignoring the ones that just didn’t inspire me. and then it was Friday, it was 2am. I had waited out the storm and the Theme and I even had an idea half formed if it was World in the Skies (a theme that did remarkably well in the voting).
Then I read the 4 words at the top of the page
YOU ARE THE MONSTER
“Well fuck!”
If there had been one theme I had been rooting against it was that one.
I just thought it was dull and uninteresting and would end up with a lot of very similar games (it was no Unconventional Weapon!) and it did the opposite of inspire me. It sent me to bed.
The next morning I woke up, still thinking I probably wouldn’t make a game, if I was going to spend a weekend almost ignoring my family to Jam did I want to do it making a game that didn’t inspire me? While my kids watched Cbeebies I turned on my Laptop and slowly changed my mind. I would keep it simple, not try to do too much and just have a go to see if I could. my focus not on the art but the functionality. I knew how to make card games so decided I would go in that direction, I could already see from the blog that my prediction of a lot of reverse dungeon games was coming true so purposely took it out the dungeon, There was also a lot of blood splattered pictures and dark interpretations of the Theme so I wanted to go in a different direction (anyone else having a Cuddling mechanic in their game?). So I hashed out what I could and I made a game and submitted it for the Compo.
Then people started playing it.
At time of writing 27 people have played my game which may not be a lot but its 27 more people than have played any game I have made upto this point and the feedback has been……fair for the most part.
A number of people have liked my idea but felt that the game was a little phoned in, needed more polish, needed audio, needed a better guide. They aren’t wrong and I started to feel like I short changed myself and the 27 people that played it a little by not trying. It turns out Audio isn’t as hard to muster up as I thought it was and just because I instinctively know how my game plays it doesn’t mean others will.
So I took all the feedback on board and made the time today to polish it up, now this doesn’t replace my Compo entry, that can stand on its own 2 feet and take the punches it deserves and if you want to give it a try and rate it on its own merits you can find it here.
But this is the polished version, and it is not meant to be rated on or improve that rating of the compo entry but its for the 27 people that played my game that I could of done better with. I borrowed a little open source Art, I made some sound effects and music like I should of done 2 days ago and I wrote a guide on how to play the game. So hopefully some of the guys who played my game will see this and try the polished version which I wouldn’t have made had it not been for their mostly positive feedback. Here’s the Dropbox link
For those who won’t play either but might want to see the comparison
Before
After
Tags: ld33 postmortem