I’ll be honest, this is my first time writing such a thing. Nonetheless, I’ll give it a shot…

So, what went wrong:

1. Scope Creep. -I planned a lot more than I probably could have implemented, especially with my poor time management skills.
2. Incomplete (and somewhat buggy) Game Library -This one ultimately ties back to me not managing the weeks, and even months of time I had to get my game library to a useful state.
3. Level Data -Overall, I wouldn’t say my usage of level data in itself was a mistake, but rather the methods by which were implemented to edit it. It takes way to long to manually edit a 38 x 25 tile map!
4. Time Management , Late Start, Interruptions – I got started late because of dinner with my family. Several other interruptions occurred after I had started. Lastly, my time management could have been better, I often found myself getting distracted with either the irc chat, or with private chats with my online friends. I also may have taken a few breaks that were longer than necessary.
5. Bugs – The last feature I implemented, the first mobile type of enemy, has some major collision bugs. I suspect this was related to the copy-and-paste coding I did. By the time I just through in the towel with coding and decided to finalize some graphics, I had an enemy with only 1/3 of its collision active, and that part still was horribly wrong.
6. Loading Issues – the .json files for the “web” version weren’t being re-downloaded, causing errors in some cases.

And what went right:

1. Well, I did actually get a game made. Not a very complete game, but I got more done that I was expecting to, after the numerous problems and delays that occurred during development.
2. I would say that this was a great learning experience.

Overall, while I do consider this game a catastrophic failure, I am proud of what I did manage to accomplish, and I look forward to what the future may bring, including LD36, if my schedule permits. I shall take into consideration the lessons learned from this experience in all of my future game or software design endeavors. Also, I’m not done with this game just yet. I really want to see this game completed as I originally had originally envisioned it, so I might set some time aside to complete it, hopefully with help on the graphics.

Play/rate/review my game here (feedback is welcome and encouraged): http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-35/?action=preview&uid=91339

My library: https://github.com/Brian151/UnNamed-html5-Game-Library

My Game (github) : https://github.com/Brian151/LD35-UnNamedShapeshiftingGame-

my library declaration and “I’m in!” post: http://ludumdare.com/compo/2016/04/14/declaring-stuff-first-ld-for-me/