walking home from our house, Christmas Eve...

Grammy Bouncer Post Mortem

So, another LD comes to a close. I haven't done a post mortem in a hot second, nor do I have the energy to do as detailed a PM as I have in the past (my dumb ass really wrote 5 pages of text for an LD post mortem once, huh?), but it's worth getting back into that mindset.

What Went Well

I'd say the fact I had an idea before the final voting round, for a theme that didn't make it through, but that I liked more than my ideas for the themes that DID make it through... was a pretty solid beginning. I wanted to make Old People Juggling Party, and 'Harvest' just told me that making delicious GramCo Sugar was the reason for juggling the old people. I managed to stay on track and finish my game on time, I even submitted before submission hour. I made a great song, and I love all the SFX I did as well. It's the first time I've managed to get a story into an LD submission instead of shoved into the description; and my game even had a tutorial level! By far, my most successful project managing and scoping for LD. And I mean like, 28th in Humor?!?! That's huge!! I'm so glad all y'all found my little game so funny!!

This was also my first time putting effort into cover art that didn't involve just a screenshot of my gam e or artfully arranging assets. I don't know if that helped or hurt the game's visibility, but I'm proud of it anyway.

What Went Wrong

Honestly, I wasn't feeling the jam much due to chronic fatigue as usual. Couldn't sleep well leading up to the jam, during the jam, whatever. No energy to put the love and polish into Grammy Bouncer that it needed, except for the soundtrack and SFX, but even then the song I made wasn't exactly the vibe I wanted & it was too long compared to my actual gameplay loop. There was so much more polish I could have done; I had the time, but no motivation/energy to put into it. It's the worst score I've ever gotten on graphics & it shows. Maybe that would have worked out better in Compo, but as per usual I ended up submitting to Jam. (Having to go on a quick road trip with my dad during the weekend certainly didn't help my fatigue or time management either, I basically started on the base of the game, took a nap for a couple hours, then had to go on the trip lol, super exhausting)

I'm glad I got a story into the game, but the story could have been better - I didn't at all apply anything I learned in my writing classes to it, I just needed some text to smooth the transition between levels & the ending.

Also, my game's title is way too long. I still stand by my decision to give it a Long-Ass Anime Title, but it made marketing hard since that title's not readable at cover image size (thus leading to having to make a 2nd cover art), and I think visibility suffered since the short form of the title ("Grammy Bouncer") is less intriguing but was all I could visibly fit into the game's 2nd cover art. Also, it was a pain in the ass to paste my game title/url to streamers, lol.

Other

As far as I'm aware, only 1 person recognized that the bonus level's intro text was a reference to the song Re: Your Brains :( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tmzjaN2DWc specifically, "Bob from the office down the hall" and "I know you don't have the head for all that bigger picture stuff".

What's Next for Me?

Last time I did a (5 page ass motherfucker) post mortem, I did all sorts of statistical analysis on my scores, and figured out a plan for what I needed to improve separately outside of game-making as a whole. Well... I never got much chance during the remaining semesters of university to follow through with that study plan, although I do think I improved my worst skill which was Audio, with a big thanks to Beepbox for existing. Now that I'm out of university, I think I just need to make more games, build up my confidence, etc.

And if I can make a game for 'Harvest' or any of the other awful themes it could have been this time around, then it's time I stop using objectively bad themes as an excuse to not participate in random itch.io game jams. So, guess I'll start trying to make more games this year! I've already got my eye on the weekend Trijams & Juice Jam, which I think is only once a year so I'm gonna focus my attention on practicing polishy game feel things this week before I start going down the Trijam rabbit hole.

Hopefully, I'll actually be a marginally competent developer by LD53. Right now, there's still an embarrassing disconnect in my literal age, my mental age, & my game developer brain's mental age, lol. I do feel like my game developer brain age has graduated from 5 year old to like, 13 year old or something, but I don't think I've yet reached the stage of game development maturity that matches my actual age, lol. I have two degrees centered on game development & neither one taught me jack shit apparently, so I'm definitely not where I want to be yet lol. Hopefully I can get my physical health in order too, so I can stop with all the chromic fatigue and lack of motivation. Super cramping my own style, me.

Anyway, until next time...

keep on bouncin'