Postmortem: Buttonlands

I had a really good time this time around. I think my game turned out pretty well.

What went right:

• Keep it simple: I abandoned a much more complicated idea in favor of buttonlands. As it was, i was barely able to finish it on time.
• Art: In the past, I've tried to either put a lot of time into the art, or use placeholder art (which never gets replaced). This time I made a concious effort to stop as soon as things looked "good enough".
• Simple AI: I was initially planning a pretty complicated AI, but first tried a simple brute-force/heuristic approach, which turned out to work really well.
• transparent jpegs: huh? I was worried about file size because i knew id have a lot of large images, so I tried using color-keyed jpegs with a little bit of code which agressively replaced anything that was close to the key-color with the exact one. This cleaned up the jpeg artefacts and kept the images small (the whole entry is about 1MB )
• Map Generation: My map generator just turned out really well. It's even better now that it leaves some cycles in..

What went Wrong

• Not enough playtesting: I didn't actually sit down and try and play through the game until after the contest. When I did, I immediately noticed a few tweaks which made it much more fun to play and less confusing. A little more time playtesting would have made a big difference.
• Not enough character portraits: Right now the game only has three characters: a goblin, a knight, and a last-minute hoody guy. A few more portraits would have really helped.
• Not saving .psd files. I had to redraw a few things (like the button background images) because I didn't save the psd source file, only the exported jpg. Silly mistake but a pain.
• Instructions: I didn't include any instructions, and just included a link to the real buttonman game, which is a little different. See appendix.

In the end, the game is pretty fun (esp. after a few tweaks). I'm working on a post-contest version with some great features:

• Everyone who submitted an entry is featured as a guest button (if you have a specific pic you want me to use for you, send me an email :) )
• You start with three heros instead of one, so it's not soo hard in the beginning.
• many more character portraits
• lots of bugfixes
• red dotted line in combat is now way less confusing
• improved maps
• maybe?? tutorial mode

and maybe quests, items, teleports, and even sound.

Jovoc

Appendix 1: Better Instructions

To win, visit every location on the map. When you visit a location, you will be challenged by an enemy. If you win, someone will join your party.

Combat

Whoever rolls the lowest number goes first. If there is a tie, the next lowest dice is used, and so on.

Each dice has a number at the top which is its max value. It has a big number which is its current value.

On your turn, you can make a "speed attack", "shadow attack" or a "strength attack". A strength attack means that one of your dice kills one of the opponent's die which has a lower (or equal) value.

If the die has a bar over the number, it is a SHADOW DIE and instead kills an opponent die with a greater value. (Unlike real buttonmen, in buttonlands a shadow die can attack any die, not just ones within their range).

A speed (aka Skill) attack means you use multiple dice to attack a single enemy die. The sum of the values must exactly equal the value of the enemy die.

After an attack, all attacking dice are re-rolled.

The red dots indicate the enemy attacking you. There is a bug that makes it sometimes come out of different dice. Just ignore where it comes from and look at which enemy dice are selected.