Postmortem

This was both my first game jam and my first completed/published game. That being said, there was a lot to learn from the experience.

Positives

One of the biggest positives for me was learning how to incorporate player movement and animation. Though the character looks like he is ice skating across the floor, I was still able to successfully produce a somewhat decent set of animations. I also discovered how to make scene transitions which really helps moving from scene to scene feel smoother and less like you're just getting dumped into a level. I was able to learn a lot about the game engine I used and I believe if I were to make the game a second time, I could do it significantly quicker and maybe even have additional content.

With those items being some good positives, the biggest positive is the fact that I completed a game. Though I wasn't able to find the time to do a ton of decoration and polishing of the rooms, it is a game that can be played from beginning to end with re-playability for an alternate ending, and a mysterious story that I believe leaves you wanting to know more. It feels really good to complete a game.

Negatives

The game ended up being quite bland aesthetically. I think there are elements of the game that are fun such as in the "Danger Room" when you are trying to escape enemies and there is a sense of reward when you finally find a Treasure Room, especially if you've been unlucky and have been thrown into room after room of enemies or timed rooms to find keys. This could have been improved on greatly though.

1. You shouldn't be able to enter the same room consecutively, the next door you choose should always be a different room.
2. The difficulty should have been higher.
   1. More enemies the more times you enter the Danger Room
   2. Remove the light from around the key in the Timed Room and make the room darker so you have to rely on your flashlight to locate the key
   3. More variety in the types of rooms with additional puzzles or challenges
3. Adding additional decorations to the room and maybe some additional interactable objects that helped define the story more

I also used a scene approach to all of my game windows instead of creating panels that can be hidden and shown for menu options. This resulted in a bug that stops the game music if you navigate to and away from the Credits screen.

I ran into some issues with efficiently creating a HUD. I think I should have taken a more zoomed in approach to the character with a camera that follows the player and a static HUD that moves with the camera. This probably would have made the game more immersive and less like a bad 90s arcade game.

Again, I ran out of time and ended up not being able to finish the Safe Room and add decoration and aesthetics to many of the other rooms.

Overall Summary

I learned a ton by developing this game and again, it feels great to have finished a game and published it. I can now create the same game in a fraction of the time which is a huge deal. My confidence has been boosted by being able to complete a game and I look forward to working on additional projects. There are certainly things I could have done better and there are some things that I should have done better and had no excuse to not do them better.

It was a great experience and it's all up from here!