Thoughts on Bees n Flowers

Well this is my 2nd LD and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed it once again.

Tools I used

Novashell

Paint .NET

Notepad++

Audacity

sfxr

Here are some random thoughts both good and bad about my experience making Bees n Flowers:

  • This time instead of spending time trying to do pixel drawings, I drew my graphics freehand, scanned them in, and touched them up using in Paint .NET. I got this process down pretty good and felt pretty good about the results.
  • Aside from a few annoying bugs I fought with, the Novashell engine worked out well for me and it also has the advantage of being able to generate both Windows and Mac packages (which I still need to do). I know, Unity can too.
  • I had originally intended to learn Unity beforehand and do the game with it, but alas I just … dropped the ball and didn’t get to looking at it until it was too late.
  • I really wanted to get random generation of the sequences, and at least one enemy (a wasp)  into the game but was unable to do so before the deadline
  • I think the game could have used actual levels that change after you get a certain number of sequences. Then the locations of the flowers could be changed and maybe keep things a little more fresh.
  • I had more flower types but they didn’t make it into the game
  • I wanted to do more with the flowers as far as player interaction goes but again with the time…
  • I had a list of features I wanted in my head, but I still found myself thinking “now what?” every so often

In the end it all comes down to how prepared you are beforehand and how well you manage your 48.  A few things I want to do do better next time:

  • Get all my tools installed beforehand and familiarize myself with any new tools I plan to use.
  • Figure out my process for generating art and sound and practice executing it.
  • A written and prioritized list of the features I want to shoot for broken up further into ‘must haves for a complete game’ and then ‘icing on the cake’ features.