It’s been a while since I looked at this game.  For the most part, I’m pretty proud of what I was able to punch out in the busy weekend I had.  At the same time, though, it obviously had its fair share of problems…

The Good

– While the game was made in Game Maker, this was my first game that was made almost completely with code.  Previous games I’ve made in GM were mostly generated with drag ‘n drop functions, so it was nice to get knee deep in the code this time (which I discovered was a lot more flexible to work with)

– I’m glad I was able to keep the art simple, while not completely bland.  A talented artist I am not, but I could at least make a decent stick figure.

– Getting the basic mechanic to work was a lot more complicated than I had originally thought.  When the player would kill a ninja by typing a specific letter, ALL of the ninjas with the same letter would die as well.  I didn’t want it to work like this, considering I was using repeated letters to try to make certain levels easier for the player to beat on the fly.  Eventually, I was able to get it to work, and I think the game benefited greatly from it.

–  I’m happy I had time to add in sound effects and music to the game.  I felt it gave it a bit of charm, and made it a lot more exciting.  I intentionally made the title music super cheesy, almost reminiscent of early Flash games you’d play online.  The punching sound effects added quite a bit of “oomph” to each hit as well, which I felt was very satisfying.

– I tried to keep the levels as basic as possible, and I think I succeeded for the most part.  Originally I intended to have random letters thrown about in one level, and the player was tasked with reading all of the letters and typing them out in one second.  I also planned on having symbols and numbers in the mix as well.  However, upon consideration, I opted to have the levels consist of simple words, like “KILL” or easy patterns, like “ASDF” in order to give the player more of a fighting chance.

– Originally I didn’t have the clock timer that counted down to the end of the round.  There was just the bar at the top of the screen that would deplete until the round was over.  A lot of people who I had playtest the game seemed to really enjoy having the clock there, though.  Knowing you finished the round with 0.01 seconds to spare is an exciting feeling, and adds to the sense of accomplishment.

The Bad

–  It’s been told to me a thousand times, and I can’t say I disagree with it, but the game is WAY too hard.  Turns out making a game where the player has to process information and snap decisions in ONE SECOND is way too much to ask.  Most players resorted to simple trial and error, as the rounds were way too quick, and the hints were a tad too vague.  This wasn’t exactly my intention.  Some players seemed to enjoy the challenge, but most just left frustrated.

– Starting the game over every time the player died was not a smart idea.  It only added to the frustration of an already super difficult game.

–  The static images also made the game a little bland.  It makes it immediately apparent that the game was made on a time budget, and in competitions like this, I try to avoid that feeling as much as possible.

–  I literally pulled the story out of my ass in the last half-hour or so.  I wanted to inject a lot more humor into it, and make it a sort of parody cheesy ninja movie, but alas, time was short.

–  The backgrounds didn’t come out like I would have wanted them to.  Like I said before, I’m no artist, but even still I probably could have come up with something better.  The warm colors of the main background kind of make the red ninjas blend in a bit, which is absolutely NOT what you want when the focus of the game is to process information and act on it as quickly as possible.

What I could have done differently:

–  The game definitely needed some checkpoints.  It would have at least eased the frustration tremendously.

–  If I instead chose to make a game that felt like it lasted one second, instead of being dead-set on making it actually last one second, I think it would have been for the better.  The player probably wouldn’t have noticed if 1 second or 2 seconds had passed as they were frantically trying to type away at all the ninjas on the screen, and I think the player would have found the game to be a lot more fair and fun if given more time to execute their actions.

–  I think it would have been neat to have the static enemy ninjas slowly close in on the player character.  Like, everything was happening in slo-mo, so things were moving, but just not very fast.  I think it would have given the game a nice little comic book effect that would have added to the excitement a little bit.

All-in-all, I definitely enjoyed making this project, and despite its issues, I’m pretty proud of it!