This is mostly for our sake, but we hope that anyone who reads this can help learn from our experience.
Our Entry: At Night They Come
In this analysis, we’ll be going category by category to examine what we did right and what we did wrong, and what we can improve for next time.
Humor: This wasn’t a category we were particularly invested in, hence it was one of our lowest scores.
Audio: One of our larger complaints was that the audio feedback for attacks was unsatisfying, and that it left some players confused. This was a feature that went under our radar while we were developing, by the time we added some it was too late. However, Keagan and Joel, our music developer friends, did a lot of good work. Overall the music side of things was fine, I don’t feel like we need to change much of anything there.
Theme: I feel we used the theme pretty well, having the game take place in a child’s room. We could’ve improved the technical side of things however, instead of making a separate screen for a menu, help, winning, and dying. Stylistically we followed the theme well, on the technical side we didn’t really. We’ll try to be more strict about how far we need to deviate from the theme.
Mood: We tried to keep the mood generally light through this, while still making the game at least somewhat immersive. This again wasn’t a category we were heavily invested in, however our score was a bit better than Humor.
Graphics: Graphics is usually either a hit or miss. It all depends on people’s graphical preferences and what styles they like. Our style was a bit mixed, jumping between minimalism to some detail in different parts of the game. The palate, I think, stays pretty consistent, and highlights important objects/enemies, which is always important. There were some sloppy mistakes here and there, and some sprites were hard to nail (specifically the bed bugs) and it inevitably led to some sprites being over simplistic to make time for other ones. In the end however it looked pretty good, we’ll be looking to improve time management and a more centered graphical style for next time.
Fun: This is the most important category for us, because if your game isn’t fun, what’s the point? We scored a little lower in this category than we would’ve liked, but after some time we have managed to find some reasons. The first is that enemy spawns were inconsistent, sometimes you could go a really long time without a single enemy spawning, or sometimes you’d get hoarded by one specific enemy and nothing else. Another reason is that we didn’t implement a better shooting system, and it was very hard to shoot some enemies with the in-game version. Another factor was again the lack of audio feedback. Although some of these issues aren’t present in all genres, it shows that we need to dedicate more time pre-release to making sure the game is balanced and fun. In my opinion, the formula is much better now, it has some minor hiccups but we’ve definitely tried to improve it.
Innovation: We couldn’t come up with a lot of ideas for how to make a good twist for this. The idea was there, and I think it’s pretty unique. The enemies and their mechanics were fun to work on, too. Again, not a category we were overly concerned about.
Overall/Final Thoughts: When it’s all said and done, we made a nice little arena shooter in 72 hours for our first official Ludum Dare. We didn’t expect this to win any awards, but rather to get some good tips on what we can improve for April, and also what we’re currently developing. After all, what’s the point of participating in a game jam if you don’t use the feedback you get? We had a great time making this, and seeing all the other entries for this, and that’s what’s really important to us. Congratulations to everyone who participated, and we hope our analysis gives you some valuable information.
Until April, best wishes – The Gamechoy Team
(The Trophy)