BreakEven - Post-Mortem

I still have some rating to get done, but with the jam entering its final week, it's time for my usual post-mortem. What went well with BreakEven, what went badly, and what have I learned for next Ludum Dare?

What Went Well ###

• Despite running into a whole bunch of problems with coding this game, I kept going and managed to get it released in a playable state, despite repeatedly panicking about whether I would be able to. I've had a tendency in the past to abandon projects if I run into difficulties I can't overcome, so the fact I managed to avoid doing that is a major plus point for me.
• I'm continuing my trend of "outside-the-box" theme interpretations. Whereas a lot of people went for the obvious interpretations of digging or cave-exploring, I deliberately eschewed that. BreakEven actually fits the theme in three different ways at once: your country's sinking deeper and deeper into debt, you're forced to go deeper and deeper into enemy territory to pay it off, and (spoiler alert!) the general's choices ultimately plunge the country deeper and deeper into trouble.
• I'm continuing to push my boundaries and try new things. I don't want to fall into a rut of making the same type of game every Ludum Dare. I won't learn anything that way.

What Went Badly ###

Oh boy.

• I pushed my boundaries too far. I can't and won't sugar-coat it. I tried to do things I had no idea how to do, I tried different approaches to things I already knew how to do, and none of it worked. The end result is that I've gone from submitting a completely glitch-free entry last time, to submitting an entry that was so hopelessly broken I had to put a disclaimer on it. Even after a fix, it's still the most broken game I've ever submitted. The AI doesn't work, the collision detection is bugged, and it's going to take a lot of time and effort to fix either of them.
• Because the above issues sucked up so much of my time, I couldn't put anywhere near as much effort into the rest of the game as I wanted to. There's only one level, and it's tiny and bland compared to what I'd envisioned. There are only two different types of enemy. There's no music (again).
• All in all, LD48 was easily my worst Ludum Dare experience. It's knocked my confidence and sapped my creative energy.

What Comes Next ###

I'm going to make one last attempt to fix BreakEven's collision detection system, which will hopefully also improve the AI slightly. I've already made some tweaks to the animation system, and I'll also add a much-requested feature that I'd initially planned to implement anyway: the ability to run over enemy soldiers in your tank.

After that, I'm just gonna chuck this project in the bin and move on.

I think, for next Ludum Dare, I'll try something simpler. Even if this didn't go very well, I have, at least, learned from it, and I'll do better next time.