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What went right

• I was surprised people liked MION's character design so much! (little tidbit: her hat's feather changes! It is a heart for her lives, a broken heart when she is hit, and an exclamation mark when she dies!)
• The animations worked as well! I am so glad that my intuition with frame timing has not faltered with a transfer to game design!
• The sound is exactly what I like to work on. They were the style and feeling I've wanted to do for so long. I am so happy I pulled through.
• The Dash was satisfying and was keyframed well! I hope those who talked about it, talked about it when we added the extra i-frames to it! I thought it gave more freedom to an already unfair game.
• The Attack was also satisfying to hit and see the animation go! The lights and sound helped a lot to make it pop!
• No-one mentioned the i-frames being unfair nor the movement being too slow so that's a plus! Or maybe that was also part of the difficulty problem. Either way, I hope the extra invincibility at the beginning and end of the get hit animation and the end of the dash helped!

What to focus more on

• Explaining the game better (in game & browser descriptions): Goal, Obstacles, and how to overcome and achieve.
• Images for Clarity: Have graphics for controls and images to show off as previews
• Controls should feel intuitive: maybe this is b/c of the above^ point but I feel like we could do better and maybe make more actions to do!
• Make sure the HUD is the perfect size and it is big enough to see without giving the player a disadvantage! Possible transparency could work!
• Balance focus between the theme and the game you want to make: we had a lot of trouble trying to fit in the theme. tbh, it slowed us down and we should have just went straight into gameplay ideas rather than the theme of them.

What went wrong (+ what to work on)

• The light mechanic (having it spotlight the player & clover ball) had no purpose and hindered the player more than offer a challenge. Removing it or making it more intuitive to discovery would make it more useful.
• The attack system (moving the ball by pulse attack left click) was almost executed well! But due to the ball not being able to rebound and us not explaining how the ball can kill the enemies (the ball has to be bounced at an enemy)
• Overall Difficulty: while we worked and worked, we did not playtest enough and the game came out super hard and unfair in the end. I like to think of it something like Super Mario Maker: if you cannot beat it yourself, you can't upload it!
• Camera Distance: the camera distance/angle must match the gameplay you are going for! Ours did not match and the camera was too close for the player to react fast enough!
• Enemy Balancing: The blue ball is basically a non-threat compared to the red ball's fast speed and high stealth. It is an assassin stacked against the player. There should be less of a difficulty difference between the enemies in the same level. Ramping up difficulty as the player progresses can also be a better fix.
• Due to us revamping the gameplay mechanics back and forth, it left the gameplay in the end feel far from fleshed out. Deciding on a basic idea for the game (goal, controls, and how to achieve the goal) would make it much easier on testing and coding.
• The Dash's charges: Heads: they turned out to be an afterthought as it was first thought that the player would be collecting the heads (as MION FOREVER was a puzzle game) but the heads later became just pickup charges for Mion to use to dash. The idea turned out to be a hindrance as the dash felt too good! Maybe it would have been best to just let yall dash!

We currently have no plans to continue working on MION FOREVER however, we love to see all the feedback as we will definitely continue to design games! :D

THANK YOU ALL FOR PLAYING OUR GAME <3

Links

Game Jam Page: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/mion-forever

Itch: https://polkoii.itch.io/mion-forever

Newgrounds: https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/791388

SOUNDTRACK: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1OFXjTpl97jwCtsW8TR3sPf0HgiQbmHP

Credits

Programming: @royalcookiex @joshthestriker

Art & Sound: @polkoii

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NEKONOVA'S NOT HOME IS OUTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

Had a blast doing the Art and Sound!!!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/nekonovas-not-home

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RECORD SCORE SO FAR: 37 | @itsboats

What went right

• cat in ship good
• shapes good
• A lot of people liked the atmosphere, concept, and the gravity!
• The dynamic camera movements were overall well received and added to the game experience
• A simple control scheme (just mouse) offered a lot of accessibility and added to the chill vibe!
• The cat rotating, moving, and whirling around space.
• The incentive to play again was amplified by the music and the spawn animation.

What to focus more on

• More QA work would of been beneficial as since we played the game as we worked on it, we were biased when it came to dying. Dying ended up being a deterrent for people to play more (but hopefully the animation and the music helped push them to try again).
• A quick tutorial is always needed. Need to be either in the game or immediately on the Ludum page on launch.
• Preventing the possibility of players being spawned and sent into a very close blue shape too quickly with the likely outcome of them dying without knowing what happened.
• The hitboxes of everything felt off.
• maybe having the red shape take your jump is too mean?
• actually put in the jump indicator this time lol
• less "hope for the best with you shots" and more "do your best with your shots"

What went wrong (+ what to work on)

• Making a game based on dying and dying while feeling helpless is a good idea for the unstable theme but not a longterm effective pitch for a full fledged game. Players had feelings of no control and panic - some left it up to luck if their score would be high or not.
• Way too much RNG left the player losing control. The added possibility of their ship slowly descending to their death with every hope of them being caught by a random blue shape did not help either.
• The RNG cannot be a huge part (and main reason) of the unstable theme as that is an excuse for poor game design. We want the player to have control or the ability to take control. We did not have enough of the latter.
• It was unclear how to aim and what affects your speed. (The farther your mouse was from you, the bigger push it had)

We currently have no plans to continue working on NEKONOVA'S NOT HOME however, we love to see all the feedback as we will definitely continue to design games! :D

SIDE NOTES

@binaryprinciple I forgot to say, but I really like that you called it constellations. That gave me a whole lot more ideas. That and @pkzinpo's planet idea.

@ic-rainbow sums up the strategy very well: "...not all blue things are good for you and not all those red are bad. Sometimes you’ll want to take a risk with a red one, to save yourself from riding a wrong blue."

THANK YOU ALL FOR PLAYING OUR GAME <3

Links

Game Jam Page: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/nekonovas-not-home

Itch (Web): https://leyamez.itch.io/nekonovas-not-home

SOUNDTRACK: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1OFXjTpl97h3e0ZYu_c-KtndO7nctN0f

Credits

Andrei Cabungcal | https://ldjam.com/users/royalcookiex | Lead Programmer

James Hicks | https://ldjam.com/users/leyamez | Programmer

Justin Choy | https://ldjam.com/users/polkoii | Art* and Music

Joao Villela | https://ldjam.com/users/villeloso | Modelling and Programming

Josh Estillore | https://ldjam.com/users/joshthestriker | UI

Tyler Lee | https://ldjam.com/users/ | Design and Ideas

*Responsible for all animation, 2D art, graphics and most 3d modelling

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