After a few days to reflect on my game and get comments from people, here’s a brief post-mortem:<\/p>\n
Overall, responses have been positive.\u00a0 Between the comments here and from friends, the general consensus is that my game is based on a cool idea, but that there’s not enough gameplay there.\u00a0 It’s too simple\/easy.\u00a0 Also, people have often said that the sonar sound gets annoying over time.\u00a0 I definitely agree with these opinions (and sometimes hear that sound effect as I fall asleep).\u00a0 These are certainly issues that can be fixed though, and I plan to update the game in the coming days\/weeks to get it up to a state where I feel comfortable giving it a wider release.\u00a0 On to the specifics:<\/p>\n
What Went Right:<\/strong><\/p>\n Brainstorming\/Planning – It didn’t take me long to come up with a few ideas that used the theme, and I’m definitely happy with the one I ultimately chose.\u00a0 My initial planning of the game- the general design, what pieces of code I needed to write, and what content I had to make– <\/strong>also went well.\u00a0 Having a design that didn’t require many changes certainly helped with working in such a time frame.\u00a0 I was able to budget my time a lot better because of this.<\/p>\n Coding the Big Pieces – Though not perfect, I got the core pieces of the game working in good time.\u00a0 The level generation, sonar, and control code didn’t take too long to get working on a basic level.\u00a0 Debugging and getting things working just how I wanted took a bit longer though.<\/p>\n Asset Creation Process – Although I didn’t get as much sound in the game as I wanted (I’ll get to that in a minute), the creation of the art and sound that did make it into the game went a lot smoother and quicker than I expected.\u00a0 Obviously I’m no great artist, but I’m happy with the way everything looks, particularly the monsters death animations, and none of it took me very long.\u00a0 I made the music and sound effects in the last hour of the competition, and that too was quicker-going than I expected.<\/p>\n What Went Wrong:<\/strong><\/p>\n Not Enough Playtesting – Definitely the biggest problem.\u00a0 I was so concerned with getting all the basic functionality and assets done that I didn’t take much time to actually play the game.\u00a0 If I did, I would have realized that it’s a bit simplistic, as well as exploitable.\u00a0 Next time, I will certainly leave more time for playtesting, as well as getting opinions from friends during the process, not exclusively after I’m done.<\/p>\n Not Enough Sounds\/Music – My game ended up with one very short piece of music and two sound effects.\u00a0 Not at all enough for a game based on sound.\u00a0 I think prioritizing other aspects of the game was the right decision, but I wish I fit in more time for sound, especially figuring out how to make the sonar less annoying over an extended session.<\/p>\n Key Bugs – There were a few issues that took way too long to resolve.\u00a0 For example, being a bit lazy with determining how fast the sonar should beep led to at least an hour of debugging caused by a shortcut that would only have saved me five minutes.\u00a0 Though I can’t think of specific examples, there were definitely a number of other bugs that really slowed down development for long periods of time.<\/p>\n What I Learned:<\/strong><\/p>\n That I can release a game!<\/p>\n That I can make a game with a small scope that is still interesting, and that I should do so more often.<\/p>\n Even though I already knew the importance of playtesting and rely on it heavily in my larger project, I learned that even on a small project it is one of the most important aspects of game development.\u00a0 Especially when working in such a tight time frame, I get to know my game so well that I can’t make any objective judgements about it or consider alternate solutions.\u00a0 Therefore, I need a nice dose of outside perspective.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n That about wraps it up.\u00a0 If you haven’t played my game yet, give it a try and rate it.\u00a0 If you have, keep an eye out for updates to fix some of the issues I talked about here, as well as those which I didn’t address but that are mentioned in the comments.\u00a0 I put the first (small) one out about an hour ago.\u00a0 And of course, I can always use more feedback!<\/p>\n -Tim ‘Fueelin’ Beck<\/p>","time":"May 5th, 2011 12:10 am","title":"Post-Mortem"}