This is Poggle Island! The purpose of the game is to breed a target creature. Doing that means eliminating creatures you don’t want from the gene pool, either by making the climate inhabitable for them or sniping them with lightning bolts. Play and rate it here!

Good

• I made a very polished game in 48 hours! On Saturday night, I had the gameplay down but was worried that the game wasn’t very fun. Should I try to make some big gameplay changes or stick with what I had? With just 12 hours left, I decided to keep the gameplay but focus on polish. I think that was a better idea than starting some whole new game features that might not be done in time.
• At the last minute, I added the pile of bones when a Poggle dies. I think that was a great thing to add, because it emphasizes the humorous aspect of killing off groups of small, cute animals.

Bad

• The theme. I couldn’t really think of any very interesting ideas. On the other hand, then one I did use follows the theme very closely. (Less fit organisms die due to environmental changes.)
• Not playtesting! I always think that I need graphics in order to test the game, so I spend hours on the graphics before I even know if the game is fun. In the future I have to use placeholder graphics and nail down fun gameplay before I get started on the art.
• If I had just a tiny bit more time, I would have tweaked when Poggles mate so that it was a bit more consistent and manageable…

Unexpected benefit: Reminiscing about some great old computer games, like Fripples and Mixed Genetics.

Tags: ld24, post-mortem