As usual, I wasted way too much time on my character.

I do have some very basic gameplay, but I still need animation and environment graphics. Then I can try to find ideas to make the levels interesting. I don't know if the game will be fun.

So I missed the compo deadline.

Today I'm working so I probably won't finish in the jam category either. Mostly the problem is that I don't have a solid gameplay concept, I have a very basic level but I can't really think of ideas to extend the gameplay further and make it a fun game.

This LD almost ended badly, the development of my game was not going according to plan and I almost gave up. Fortunately I was able to come up with a new plan and managed to save it.

* PLAY THE GAME HERE *

* POST-MORTEM: Flame Keeper, a solo jam entry *

My initial idea was a puzzle game based on the Olympic torch relay idea. Here's how my initial prototype went: you light something, go through water then have to relight your torch from the other side. From then my plan was to add levels that would each be a more complicated version of this by adding new gameplay elements.

Here's how the first two days went:

Day 1

• 8h Prototype gameplay
• 8h Made the character graphics

Day 2

• 5h Rigging and animation for my character. Integration into the game
• 2h Made textures with Substance Designer for the level
• 4h wasted trying to come up with a good level design based on that first idea
• 3h Trying to make a game out of that mess and failing

My plan was to make a 48h compo game, and I didn't have a game yet. I could still have done the jam but I wasted too much time on the character and while I thought I already had a solid gameplay and level prototype: it just didn't work well in practice. Also I realized I just had no idea how to make more levels of increased complexity, my initial concept just didn't work that well.

Day 3

First problem of day 3 is that I'm working that day (fortunately from home). So part of that day is going to be "wasted" to that. So I'm thinking of just admitting defeat but at the same time I don't want to and I feel like I already have created everything I need to make a game. I just need a...

* New Plan *

I cannot risk vague gameplay concepts that will need tuning and may or may not work. The game is just going to be a series of simple challenges.

So while working I think of some ideas, I have a look at my previous LD games to find some simple things that worked and get inspired by that.

Once done with my work, I just implement those ideas one by one, each is simple enough that it's not very difficult. Then it was just a question of putting everything together, add the missing graphics and just polish the whole thing with a few sounds.

I was done just in time for deadline.

So in the end I managed to save my LD by focusing on safe and simple mechanics.

The feedback seemed OK so I don't quite understand what happened. I agree it wasn't my best game ever but my only game that scored worse was one I rushed in 7h total for LD#15 (that one was really bad).

I have been doing LD for 18 years and I can't even score in the top half anymore... :/