Ammodillo --- Retrospective
.
I made another thing!
Whew! It's hard to believe that my first Ludum Dare was only two years ago. This was my sixth Compo, and it might be my favorite jamming experience so far.
As I have historically have made games that look nice, but aren't very fun, I decided to focus a lot more on gameplay, juice, and 'art of screenshake' elements. My personal goal for this event is to score top 100 in Fun.
.
.
What Went Well
Overall, I think this was a pretty good weekend for me.
- The Troubleshooting: I actually didn't get hung up on any major bugs this time around. I had one bug that kept me occupied for maybe 45 minutes (screw you too, boss fight), but other than that, squashing was pretty painless.
- The Scope: I think I hit a good balance of core gameplay and nice-to-haves. The game has a good amount of content, but I don't think I overextended too much.
- The Assets: I honestly really like how my player and enemies turned out!
.
What Went Poorly
Honestly, not all that much.
- Paint.NET, please: I ended up repeating a bit of work on the background after Paint.NET crashed on me (rip).
- Certain Priorities: Near the end, there were a few features I think I worked on in the wrong order. The player currently heals one heart between rounds, but there's no animation or explanation, so it's hard to tell why it happens. Additionally, I sorely needed a tutorial level, because some of the first feedback I received was that the controls were confusing.
.
For Next Time
I liked a lot of my choices for this jam architecture-wise, so I might keep some of my code base for things like particles and collisions. PyGame is pretty low-level, so I end up redoing some of this work every time.
You can play Ammodillo here. Any feedback, especially critical, is appreciated! I'm always looking to improve for next time.
Thanks for reading, and good luck for the rest of rating season!
Source: ldjam.com archive