I decided to finally make my first postmortem, a Puzzmortem, about the development of my entry, Puzz Snake.

Short Intro

This time, I tried to learn from previous LD editions not to make the same mistakes. Comments suggest that I succeeded, at least partially.

My idea: Puzzles mixing the traditional Snake with platformer -- Snake with gravity, in essence.

What didn't go well

• Once again, I wasn't able to put in some interesting features.
• As in last LD, I wasted time with audio -- mostly trying to record. The cable was guilty.

Anyway...

What went well

• I had a simple idea. No complex physics. And no complex AI. Yet. (???)
• I got music and sfx, even though the music doesn't sound very well. I wonder if anybody noticed it's synchronized with the snake's steps. I also wonder if anybody noticed it's generated randomly in some parts.
• Acceptable placeholder art made it to the final Compo version.
• I started with some useful UI base code.
• To some extent, I ended up with a complete and decent game -- the levels weren't too hard and I managed to pack the playable levels I had before the deadline into something coherent.

Final words

So, overall, I had fun and I didn't exhaust myself. This is the first game in which I really started making updates soon after the Compo.

(Image: A new feature, bugged right now, that certainly would make people notice the synchronization between the music and the snake)

So...

If you want, give it a try! I'd like to get more opinions this time: Puzz Snake =)

And... How about Puzz Snake? Have you tried it?

Click here to play Puzz Snake! :D

Puzz Snake is now looking for those stars...

So... Those lines are trying to go up, just like that snake.

Looks like theme is my best category in general, but my last entry lacked some key features, so the relation to the theme wasn't very clear.

Puzz Snake gave me the best results so far in every category and top 100 in fun! But I've just checked the comments of my LD31 entry again and... You know what? I'm really glad there was people who enjoyed it! There were things that clearly should be improved though.

Anyway, surviving and learning, that's Ludum Dare. But don't forget to enjoy it! :smile:

Firstly, sorry for the pun.

What do you think about a new category for ratings, "Potential"? I.e., how much potential does the game have? How good/better would it (probably) be if it was developed into a full game? In other (LD-oriented) words, how better could it get if there was more time?

What made me think about this is the fact that people (me included) frequently don't manage to get many (amazing!1!!) features into the game. This would give us a sense of whether it's worth to keep working on the game. Yes, there's feedback for that -- but think how cool it would be (or not?) to see the games with the most potential!

Going further, are there any other (non-redundant) categories you think it would be nice to add? Progression (whether difficulty increases gradually), Gameplay, ...? We could have optional categories -- maybe hidden by default or so when rating, so people don't get overwhelmed -- that don't affect Ratings given/received. Also, the description of the categories could be shown somehow (in fact, this is independent of the discussion in this post).

Lastly, changing the subject: would it be interesting to have some measure of dispersion in the results for each category?

Sorry if some or all of this have already been discussed and I missed it.

Share your thoughts on what's good and what's terrible! :speakinghead: :slightsmile:

I've chosen only the (supposedly) best of my 6 candidate suggestions. Wow, 2 less suggestions for everyone to downvote! This adds up to...

No, seriously, maybe this will encourage others to do the same :slight_smile: Why? Because :bacon:

So... Right now, I tried to type gst, my alias for git status.

When I looked at the screen, it was written fart.

LOL First time this happens LOL

Now, after noticing this bug and staying away from Puzz Snake for three months:

I've found the bug in 20 minutes :openmouth::openmouth:, plus 10 minutes to confirm what was happening.

Debugger FTW!

NOT...

My little game is here -- in English and in Portuguese (BR). Growing Cities!

Last moments to give Growing Cities some feedback, if you'd like! :smile:

(Ok, that didn't happen spontaneously... But it could indeed!)

Don't flood the GUI :laughing:

That may submerge the user experience.

Ratings: 7

Downloads: 6

:thinking:

A team playing together, so two people can rate downloading only once, right?

Help my Breakout-ish game/prototype/something get feedback! Thanks :wink:

Play Buildout

Submission time!

Please keep it alive!

Play Oh, the Connection!

(Windows only for now)

After killing annoying Game Maker HTML5 module bugs, HTML5 version of Oh, the Connection! is up and running!

Not for not keeping it alive, but for the confusing visuals!

Now, if you haven't tried it yet or just want to give it another try, play Oh, the Connection! (HTLM5 puzzle game)

Oh, the Connection! has just reached 30 ratings!

Here's a playthrough to celebrate (you'll notice 6s of deep thinking somewhere :sweat_smile:):

https://youtu.be/M1Kt4zbshCs

So Oh, the Connection! is my first entry to get 4 stars! :grin:

Also, last time using GM:S. Kotlin, here we go 🤩

(Own engine under development for over 2 years)