First of all, Merry Christmas to everyone! I hope you’re having a great vacation!

Now, back to business… As promised, here’s the Post Mortem for the small prototype I did for this Ludum Dare. It’s called Operation Barrage and you can download and rate it at this link. It’s an RTS/Action game for 2 people playing on the same tablet device. The prototype features an Android version and also a Windows/Web version. Here is me playing against my alter ego, taking turns.

If you like this project stay tuned for more news. I have been working and continue to work on a post jam version and you will be seeing more updates soon.

The good

• The concept: I find this concept really entertaining. This is actually a game I would like to play on my tablet, but have not been able to find it. So, not only I had a blast developing it, but I also enjoy playing it. Now this might seem obvious, but having fun playing it after 8 hours of working on it really helps with motivation.
• Achievable, scalable design: After overshooting the goals in my last LD jam, this time I wanted to start simple. A concept that is fun to play even without tons of content, but that can be easily expanded upon. I think this time around I have achieved that goal.
• Although balancing is secondary in a prototype, I actually got a chance to tweak unit costs, abilities and parameters both during the jam and immediately afterwards. It’s a great way to evolve the concept into something that people want to play based on the feedback loop right from the start.

The bad

• Unclear tutorial: I consider this my Achilles’ heel, mostly due to the lack of time and feedback during a jam. A one screen visual tutorial wasn’t feasible here since there is a bit of content to explain. But still, a small explanation scenario for the controls and each unit would have been better than the rushed tutorial I did which was basically just a masked huge wall of text.
• Bad UI: Now that Unity 4.6 is here, there are no more excuses for crappy UIs, and I hope to get a good enough grasp on it to improve this area for next time. The UX was not designed ahead of time, and it shows. Elements are placed around randomly and it’s hard to find the information you need fast.
• Unclear game design: I based this game on the principles of Starcraft: tactics, strategy and economy, though on a much smaller scale and different design path for obvious reasons. Unfortunately I never quite understood if I wanted it to be a slow game of strategic thinking, or a faster, micro and action focused RTS like Starcraft. This is something I still don’t quite know, but hope it will flesh itself out as development continues.
• Little polish in visual design: I’m no artist, but I can definetly do better than circles and stars. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to polish the visual aspect like graphics and particle effects.

The ugly

• Bad controls: being a touch focused game I spent most of the time testing that. Unfortunately, due to my lack of experience in this area, the controls never quite felt good on an actual device. With 2 people furiously tapping on a low end Android tablet that doesn’t register touches well at times, doing the action you want becomes an exercise in frustration. Mouse controls were slapped on fast and weren’t very intuitive or fast.
• No AI: Even though the game was very visible, and got lots of votes, not many people offered feedback. I imagine this to be due to the fact that playing it is a chore compared to other entries. You need to install and APK on your Android tablet, find a friend, understand the rules and explain them to him or her as well. An AI and a decent desktop version would have alleviated this problem greatly, but unfortunately was unfeasible, due to the lack of time and my lack of experience in AI programming (is it even possible to do sensible AI for an RTS in a jam?). I hoped to work around this issue by adding a new play mode: hotseat. Taking turns was my idea of someone playing against himself or against another player on a desktop, but since it was done very fast, it wasn’t calibrated well, and the turns were WAAY too fast.

So, like I said, I had lots of fun with this LD entry, and even though it has lots of flaws, I think I know how to address them and bring out the potential of the concept. That means I will still be working on it until I’m happy with the results. If you want to follow the development or get access to the latest test builds on Google Play (which include a test mode with 3d graphics, and lots of fixes and improvements) message me or follow me on Twitter.

Happy holidays people!