10 Seconds at the Carnival – Post Mortem
This turned out to be a really great weekend. I learned a lot about what I need to learn and practice, I got my game done in half the time I thought necessary and spent a lot of time on polish, and I feel like I got more done than any previous LD I’ve done.
The good:
I managed to spend all day the first day on task. I had to use caffeine to do it, and I’m paying for that today, but oh well. I got a *lot* done.
My code was very reusable, with only a few exceptions. I managed to make the second game (Ball Toss) with pretty much the same scripts as the first (Ring Toss). Dart Throw took some re-engineering, but I managed to use most of the same scripts there, too.
The game is fun! I’ve always liked these games, but you can still never tell if it’s going to end up being as fun as you hope. It is. And my girlfriend agrees.
The bad:
I had to throw out a lot of great ideas because I simply didn’t know key elements of making them. They’re things that *should* be easy, but you should never do totally new things during a 48 hour compo.
The above point meant that the game wasn’t nearly as ambitious as I’d have liked.
Next time:
I hit my goal of making a ‘fun’ game this time, finally. Next time, I’m going to either trying for innovative or artistic. Both of those are a big challenge for me, so I’ll need to be practicing in the mean time to be able to hit that goal.