Post Mortem
Firstly, here are some links :
Well,
First off – Timelapse. While i tried my hardest to get this to play nice it caused more trouble than it was worth and i was more intent on finishing. So, i only ended up with about one day maybe of timelapse. Ill post it anyway, lots of random rubbish there.
Secondly – What my goals were and what i didn’t achieve, and what i did.
A) Goals.
The original concept – “The Discovery of game development” ie ; the character is me ( i tend to wear a tie all the time).
The character would go through the phases of game development, seeing each department in this large company and thinking how cool it is, making it to a small apartment with a laptop , and discovering game development for himself.
The second concept – “Discovering you are inside a game” ie ; The current
I changed to this about half way, not really enough time to go with all the mechanics i had planned. I was attempting to mix platformer and point and click adventure, where you explore with look/use and could move things, break things etc. A few minor hurdles got me with the last 5 hours to finish the gameplay side and stop working with all the planned options.
The story as of now :
You are suddenly spawned into an unknown world, a realistic surreal place that your pixel eyes cannot begin to understand. A small mishap perhaps but a broken console in a pool of coffee somehow extrapolated too worlds – colliding what is defined with what is real. Your journey starts here.
The missing elements :
The bugz. They were from the game world, escaped along with you into reality. You must collect them (they are hidden all over) and drop them off in the programming department.
The environment . Alot of the point and click world is missing its interaction. This is just a limitation of time and i plan to implement all the pointy clicky things soon.
The other 6 levels. There were 6 more levels, and a final rooftop (where you fought the boss). These should be easy to add with less pressure and with the working mechanics.
The boss battle. This was something i threw in randomly. When you discovered you were in a game, you met with the evil publisher guy who decided to change everything about you. Your hair your colors everything. In order to regain your originality and to be who you are, you must destroy him. As his health drops pieces of you are dropped to collect. So, imagine platformery gameplay with projectiles (water cooler dispensed plastic cups) and mostly avoid and attack, no real combat per se.
What went right :
1) Planning something scalable. Going from 12 levels to 6, removing erroneous stuff was easy. I did most of the pruning along the way so i am glad i chose something scalable.
2) Writing alot of the tech specifically for this game. Instead of aiming for super flexible etc i just coded what was needed. I have trouble with this a lot before.
3) More time on code than on art. I finished all of the major mechanics i had planned barring projectiles (i did have a working prototype where he throws a handful of pixels from his pocket)
4) I had a crapton of fun.
What went wrong:
1) Leaving gameplay elements till last, interactivity is super simple to implement but its lacking because of other things (like text messages etc)
2) Plenty
Thats all i guess. I can only hope to do something better next time but that isn’t to say that i am not happy with my submission 
Thanks!
Tags: post-mortem