Glass Houses post-mortem
This time round, unlike my last Ludum Dare (36) - I really liked the theme. It can be interpreted in a lot of ways - which is obvious from the number of games that has the "tiny planet" interpretation to the number of games that have the more story-driven "it's a small world" interpretation.
The Origins
The team was me, @pranjalbisht (art) and @joelMontpetit (audio). We had worked together for over 4 years, having done ~15 jams together, so we were comfortable with the team setup - everyone knew their roles. This time though, we decided that we'd make something different, and take a break from the usual arcade or puzzle-kind of games we usually make for jams. Our decision was that we'd either make something 3D since we're now more comfortable with it (I work in Unity in my day job), or make a story-driven thing. That we did in the end!
What went right
The team: Naturally, we were very comfortable with each other. It has been a little pain ever since I moved to Canada, to co-ordinate with a teammate in India 12 hours away, but I work mostly at night anyway - so we kind of covered that.
The idea: It was comparatively novel (avoiding talking about it in case you haven't played the game), had a social message in the current context, and our main goal was to tell it in such a way that the message would not be lost. I think it paid off in the end, considering the comments for the most part.
The polish and the mood: This is something I personally heavily emphasize on, with jam games - I'd keep things small and polished than big and unpolished - just because past experience has shown that higher polish usually attracts more feedback, which is an essential reason for the jam. This time too, we had originally planned for 5 days, and some more things happening each day - but cut down on them to polish the other stuff. I think we nailed the mood in this respect.
Scoping: There wasn't a whole lot to program here - just scripting events, and since I basically had a day less this time (can't skip work on Monday!), that was maintained pretty well. Could have been better, but it didn't affect much.
What went wrong
Time management: As with human nature, while we made the task list early, I did 60% of the work on Sunday. So did our artist. Which resulted in us being awake for most of the night on Sunday, and going to work as zombies on Monday. This could have very easily been avoided by doing more things earlier.
Nuances: We wanted to have some nuanced foreshadowing in the backdrop, and included it in the game - to let on what is going to happen at the end, as well as an explanation for why the player is doing what they are doing, while leaving some parts to their imagination. I don't particularly think it has worked very well (from the video playthroughs at least, when some people were a bit visibly confused). It is to be expected when you're speedrunning through jam games and not paying attention to the little details, and we should have expected that.
Interaction: We originally planned more interaction apart from the two basic ones that currently exist, but decided to cut them out gradually, to maintain the pacing and avoiding shifting the focus from the story. This has led to the experience being hit and miss. Some people would appreciate the slow pace without interaction, while others would try to find things to interact with - expecting a more traditional game. One particular nasty effect of this is near the ending - where we take control away from the player for a little bit (because time did not permit to make an animation/UI for that interaction), and players think that the next part is a cutscene, but it's really not - and which ending you get depend on this part.
Well, that's about it! I hope you guys like our game!
We've already been playing other awesome games, and will keep playing!