Hi! I’m Steve, and this was my first participation in Ludum Dare.  I have created the game :

  I have decided to create a post mortem, to collect my thoughts and figure out what went wrong and right with the development of my game.

What went right?

• Working with the theme: I notice now that every idea I had before this game jam involved working a theme into the mechanics, instead of using it as a context. It luckily did not take very long before I came up with the concept of the player only getting one key that they have to switch for a different action. Soon after that the idea came to integrate the cube, that gives the player the possibility to make a part easier, but at the cost of losing the cube for the rest of the game.
• Finishing the mechanics: A lot of things did not get done that I still wanted to do. But by getting some basic things in I was still able just in time to get a finished game. If I would have spend time on things like audio or animation I probably would not be able to create an ending.
• Using Unity: I absolutely love Unity. It is accessible while not being restrictive and allowed me to easily put up a web version. I also already had some experience with Unity. I did make the mistake of not checking out the 2D tools well-enough beforehand though.

What went wrong?

• The small things: I should have probably made native versions, the reason I did not do that was because I did not want to people to remap controls, as the game would not support that. That is a bad reason. I should have included credits. I should have not accidentally start the name of my game with “You only have one” instead of “You only get one”. I should have kept the tutorial message until the correct action is done and I should have decided before I started how to do background music. All kinds of things that I am bothered with, but should be easily taken care of in a next game jam.
• No playtesting: I really had to rush things to get my game finished. As a result of this, when I initially uploaded the game, the ending could not even be triggered without me noticing it! It took a day before my friend pointed that out, but I don’t think anyone has noticed since I haven’t had a other comment about it. As a result of feedback I probably would also have lowered the difficulty a whole lot, since I got used to the mechanics and played through it very easily. I need to keep in mind that the average player in this case is going to take very little time to learn the game.
• The controls: If you read the comments one things really sticks out, and that is that most people seem to be bothered by the controls. Now, this was kind of expected. My goal was to have fairly simple puzzles made harder by the controls. I am doubting the game was much too hard, as there are constantly checkpoints and not a whole lot of danger, nor where the puzzles too difficult. I should have made dexterity based solutions way easier.  I wish I could see the playthroughs, but I am assuming that most people stopped because they got too frustrated with the controls. Part of the problem is that you have to switch too often if you fail something as simple as a jump. If the controls would have been more precise and would require less switches, I am sure people would be less frustrated. Instead of mapping movement to A and D, I should have mapped it to a mouse button where the character walks toward. This way the player would need much less switches and the controls would be more precise. I underestimated the difficulty of the controls as I had a lot more practice and was easily able to get through the game fast.
• Plan for artists: Initially I did not ask somebody to help me with the art, as I enjoy making horrendous Paint art, but I did get two people that were willing to contribute. However, since it was spontaneous we did not have a schedule and at the last day I ended up having no artists at all. I should have asked people beforehand so I know what to expect.

Overall I am still happy with the output. There is a lot of stuff I still wanted to do, but I am glad the main stuff was done and working. Although it was disappointing that only a very limited number of people have finished the game.