Hello everyone! This was my first LD, so I figured I would also put up a postmortem post as well.

However, I would also like to put in the obligatory piece about how it’s been so nice to play so many great games!
It has been so nice to play so many great games!

…I’m not good at this, sorry… =\
(But seriously, it’s been a huge amount of fun doing this.)

If you haven’t played my game, you can play it here: http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-31/?action=preview&uid=24741

Tools used:
Engine: Unity
Art: GIMP
Music: Audacity

What went well:

-I got all the mechanics down. Everything worked, and there isn’t anything you could exactly call a bug, per se. There a physics glitches, but those are part of the game itself, so not much to fix right there.

-I kept around only a few mechanics, so that there wasn’t too much to do. In fact, I didn’t do much at all in the last little section of the LD, to my eternal shame. =\

-I had everything I needed. Graphics, they worked. Mechanics, they were good. I even got in a bit of music, which I had no experience with prior to this.

What didn’t go well:

-The instructions. This was the thing that was the biggest downfall of my game. I hadn’t actually done in-game instructions before, and the idea that people didn’t get how to play my game was a foreign one to me. I first tried text instructions, but then the people playtesting just didn’t understand how the game worked. At that point, I didn’t have enough time to come up with visual instructions, so I had to just refine what I had. And that was a disaster. Right now, I use terms that only a small group of people would get, (fortunately, this group of people is game developers), meaning that it’s nearly inaccessible to a wider audience.

-The game is short. Really short. The only reason it takes very long to play is because the instructions are awful.

-There is a lack of explanation of what each specific non-physics object in a level does. The player would just have to test to find out what happened.

-There were a few complaints with regards to the camera zoom being jarring, but in development I felt that it would help the game fit the theme. It’s still something wrong that I should have come up with a solution to, but I do stand by my choice.

-The name. It was the best I could come up with, but it’s awful.
…Is it?

The future of Play Area:

I want to make this into a full game. I really do. I plan on doing that, and, hopefully, I will. I am probably going to change the name to “Think Inside the Box”, though if anyone has any better ideas I’ll go with one of those.
The instructions will be purely visual. They will show how to do something with the key presses next to them. Then, the level will let the player do it themselves. This will not only teach the player better, but will allow me to avoid trying to name each type of object.
I will come up with a better color scheme that isn’t as jarring, and put symbols on each type of object. This will both help identify them and make the game accessible to color blind players.
As for music, I’m not quite sure. I think what I have now works, but I should make a few changes to it. Experiment some. Hopefully get a better tool for making higher-quality sounds, but that’s for later, if needed.

This whole thing has been a blast for me. I am going to try my hardest to get into LD32 as well, though that overlaps with school some, so there’s a chance I won’t make it.

Again, if you haven’t played my game, play it here: http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-31/?action=preview&uid=24741

Only four more hours!

Tags: ld31, LD31 Postmortem, Play Area, postmortem