LD44 Retrospective/Post Mortem

Been playing a lot of other participants' games. Taking a break to write how the weekend went.

So this was my first attempt at Ludum Dare. I've dabbled in game-making since high school and I wanted to see if:
- I could actually finish a project for once.
- Publish it so others can play it.

I like to think that I accomplished both of those goals. While I did have to cut some nice-to-haves, I did create a game from start to finish using RPG Maker MV. There's quite a bit of content in the game for a 72 hour project (according to people who have played Temerarious), so I'm really proud of that. As of this post, I've met the 20 review mark so I should get a score at the end of the Play+Rate period.

To sum up the three days:

Friday - I spent perhaps the first hour or so setting up my environment. Then it was into setting up the core mechanic - my battle system. I wanted the fights in my game to be the highlight and so I went into figuring out how to incorporate the theme into it. I was very attached to one idea and while it was feasible, I had a lot of trouble figuring out how to make it work over the course of the weekend. How could I balance it? How could I expand on it? I burned quite some time stewing over this before swallowing my pride and simply going with the next idea I had. People watching me gave me good ideas and feedback, so that was very helpful.

Saturday - With the core battle system down, I went right into creating my playable characters and my first cutscene. I didn't want to neglect making a story so I sort of thought of one as I made up an opening cutscene. Once a prototype was done, I went straight into making maps. They are always the most time consuming part for me. I knew I had to limit my scope so I only did two bosses' worth of maps. I'm glad I didn't get too ambitious - I was starting to burn out HARD by the time the maps were designed.

After adding in any missing core events (like teleporting), it was time to set up the database. Cleaning up stats a bit, adding stuff like items, skills, etc. Then start putting the pieces together, such as adding treasure, random encounters, balance, etc. I was able to build out the "happy path" - getting the player to the first boss. The night ended with some name generation and testing.

Sunday - I started the day admittedly a little overconfident. I was able to upload the "MVP of MVPs" onto itch.io. I was almost done, right?

Nope.

I spent the day refactoring my "fast travel" system as well as adding in "small" things that I had put on hold. On top of all that, I created the next dungeon, playable character, and boss. Adding in these small things + the refactor really took a toll on me. Balancing my second boss was also a nightmare. But after Game of Thrones, I was able to get the second path down. Things were looking up!

Monday The day I wanted to devote to testing. I told myself "no new features" and while I didn't add anything major I still added in small things. Heck, I would add things and then take it out after realizing how much refactoring or testing was needed (a good example was having the player give up some of Juniper's max LF to gain stronger skills. The mechanics around it would have involved messing with my fast travel component).

Then balancing came back up again. It's a numbers game, but it's also just feeling out how fair the game is. I changed formulas, ran calculations, etc. It got to a point that I completely messed up my battle system! I was done for!

...or not. Thankfully, I had been maintaining my code using Git, so a simple revert command was all that was needed to undo my mess.

The final few hours were testing, adding in final, final touches (like credits, and autosave - the latter came back to haunt me). By around 7-8PM, I was done! Game was submitted. Within two hours I got my first review. Positive feedback. Hooray!

Lessons Learned:

• Don't be so attached to ideas. - I was being very stubborn on Friday and thus burned valuable time trying to make an incompatiable idea work. I really liked my first concept, but it just wasn't going to work.

• Maintainability. - I was able to refactor my hub/fast-travel concept but in doing so, I made it near impossible to add new features to it. I had a pretty big miss here because one of the features I had planned had to get cut.

• Code Freeze. - I was adding new features a few short hours before the deadline to submit! That is asking for trouble! My worst fear did come true - a streamer was playing my game and the game crashed LIVE because of an edge case I did not think off because I simply threw in a plugin and called it a day. How embarassing!

• Don't neglect the game page - Minor, but I had lots of typos and other small issues on my submission page. Not good if I want streamers and such to play my game!

Things that went well:

• I made a game, damnit! - Despite my self-critisms, I did it! I made a game and published it!

• High Level - Avoided Scope Creep. - While I did add small features towards the end, at a high level I did eventually tell myself to shut up and stop adding big new features. Instead I focused on polishing what I had and it seems from feedback that it paid off.

• Avoided Burnout - While it can be a bit annoying for viewers, I did take small, semi-frequent breaks. I tried to get some fresh air, do something that didn't involve thinking, etc. While I did get close a few times, I avoided burning myself out and thus am able to play other peoples' games...and prep for going back to work tomorrow!

• Provided feedback to other games - I played many of the participants' games over the past 24 hours. It was neat to see what people came up with, but it also helped promote their games as well. A neat side-effect: my game got promoted as well! :)

Goals for next time

• Make my own assets. I leaned a bit too much on out of the box assets for RPG Maker MV. I got (rightfully) called out for it. If people didn't see screenshots/gameplay footage, they'd just ignore my game for not using custom assets. Next time, I might try to create my own sprites, or even my own music. This way, I can get ratings for those categories too!

• Be more attentive while streaming. There were times I got in the zone and neglated the stream. I'd like to get better at streaming in general.

Until next time.