Project Drillco Post Mortem! I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Okay, the dust has settled, and I've slept at least once since I finished my project. Time to post some mortem ^^ Project Drillco was a really fun and rewarding project- It's the first thing I've made that I felt came out the way I wanted them to. I learned a lot, and it wasn't without some stumbling blocks.

Project Drillco is an arcade time management game, where you try to keep a drilling platform fueled as long as possible while descending deep in to the earth.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/project-drillco

Right out of the gate, I almost did a completely different project. Nothing was really pulling to me, so I thought about going deeper and deeper in debt- doing some kind of "You never escape your debt" moral game, but talking through the mechanics just... bored me. Heh, bore... Sorry, it'll be funny in a minute. So I burned about my first hour deciding on the direction I wanted to take my game, but when I did, I was excited about a game I could actually see the finished product for.

Drillco as it currently exists kind of happened with Freddy Fuelfriend. I was drawing a furnace, and thought it'd be fun to anthropomorphize it, and when I finished, I found myself giggling at my creation- And that was it. I remember thinking about Brian David Gilbert's Kirby video, "Shaped like a friend", so I shaped all the mechanics like friends. I kind of thought shoveling fuel would be enough to carry the gameplay at first, and got to work designing the machines. I had a pretty good rhythym- figure out the mechanic, and start organizing my thoughts in to code-able elements while I did an initial pixel art work for it. Then, when I had a frame, I'd program it in to my game.

I think that was my first flaw- I didn't sit down and scope out and prioritize mechanics- I kind of just made them as they came to me. The advantage of my approach was a certain agility- I designed around the game as it was, free of a preconcieved plan from the outset. The tradeoff, of course, is that my source code could feed an italian extended family reunion. My main loop code is so convoluted, it could be mistaken for an M. Night Shamalan script. Next time, I think I'm going to do a little forward planning, essentially design out design mechanic scaffolding, that could be designed around as the jam progresses.

The good news really hit when I designed the precision plate. It was the most complicated system, so I erroneously assumed it should come last. It was when I tested it for the first time that I went "Oh no, this needs to be the core of the gameplay loop." Luckily I had designed in Serialized variables to control what level stuff unlocks, so I could switch around the order, and have the precision plate unlock first.

When I first put the game together, it was on a 9-sliced background to give it a rough "video game" feel as fast as possible, and then I assembled the machine background on the last day of the jam. When I extended the glass and coded the parallax background, and everything started looking like the game I had envisioned in my head, I actually teared up a little. I'd burned so much fuel, and to have the thing I'd poured my heart in to was actually coming to fruition the way I'd wanted to. I'd completed projects in the past, but always with a group, and always with some kind of quality tradeoff. This was the first one I'd done myself, and where all of my seperate endeavors were, while perhaps not professional quality, at least something I was damned proud of. Even the music- the thing I'm weakest at, admittedly - came out decently well and fit my general game mood, I feel really well.

I wouldn't have been able to make this game without the help of my wonderful support team- having someone to help you remember to get up and stretch, to order you a pizza, or reassure you that you're going to make it, is amazing. It wasn't ever me who decided I was too tired to work, it was my amazing partner going "Hey, time to pack it in for the night."

The one thing I'm a little disappointed about was the objects hidden in the dirt behind the machine- I'd dreamed of turning out like 30 odd little trinkets, broken in to rarities, sprinkled through the dirt. It'd be a fun encouragment to keep playing, to see all the easter eggs, but by the time we'd gotten to Monday, just after noon, I just had too much left to do to justify putting in more art.

Some lessons learned:
A break and a walk outside can turn a 15 minute investment in to 45 awesomely productive minutes. Get your head out of your project once in a while, even if just for a minute.
Don't leave naming your project to the last priority, or you'll spend 30 minutes deliriously giggling over "Hehehe Project buzzbuzz...."
Make gifs of your animations, if possible. Post em online- it's great for morale, and fun souvenirs ^^
"My Hero Academia inspirational OST mix" is a great youtube search for coding friendly inspirational music.
More than four red bulls in 24 hours will give you the ability to smell color. Science.
Try having a game like loop hero open that you can mix a loop in here and there- as long as you don't get hooked, it can shake up your mental practices and keep you engaged.
This one's from previous jams and this one- Guys, 30 minutes for audio management goes a long way. Don't have your game blow out your player's eardrums, and put in an in-game mute command.
Play. Your. Game. We're under a 48/72 hour deadline, absolutely, but I had my greatest revelation of my project when I actually played it the first time.
If you posit on Facebook "What are some ideas for thing that would be funny to be found buried in the ground?" make sure you're not drinking anything while reading the responses.
Spillproof keyboards were a lifesaver for me.
If something doesn't feel fun, ask yourself what WOULD make it feel fun? Stay frosty, and follow the fun ^_^

Anyway, it was an extremely valuable experience... I learned an insane amount in an incredibly short amount of time, and I'm really proud of the result.