Post Jam thoughts

  Bounceman says hello!

Heya! Welcome to my pogo-lift postmortem! Here i'll talk about my thought process about my entire ludum dare process if you're into that kinda thing. So buckle up! 

Day 1

This ludum dare was my first ever time attending! And like my friend Belphegames i wanted to go for the compo submission (2 days). I didn't really feel the theme though... (depths) I felt like there would be an overload of mining and diving games so i tried my best to stay away from that. Nothing wrong with those themes of course! but i wanted my game to stand out and felt if i followed one of those themes my game would become lost in the sea of other 'better done' games with those themes.

Eventually i though about a big elevator that would go deeper and deeper as one giant moving level. As for gameplay i first thought to play it safe and just make a platformer character that can shoot bullets.  But after playing around with the placeholder sprite of the player, i decided it would be fun to "parry" enemies to bounce off them like cuphead. This resulted in a difficult but fun combat system wich definitly helped to make it stand out more instead of a generic "jump on them to kill them" thing most platformers do.

I dont know what led me to focus so heavily on the UX (user experience) but i had a blast creating the impact/freeze frames on hit,  with a smash bros like smoke trail after enemy kill. and some nice sounds on top to make killing enemies extra satisfying. That was really important for me. since i figured the game would be pretty challenging. i hoped people would stick around and try again thanks to the feel of the game.

In the video above you can see everything that i had done on day 1.  With an already satisfying gameplay loop, i decided to head to bed.

Day 2

On day 2 i mostly created the rest of the game. with a new enemy. 3 playable levels, the interior of the elevator and a tutorial to hopefully teach players about the mechanics of the game.  Below are some cut thingies that i didn't manage to implement.

cut enemy that was supposed to move horizontally across the level.

Breakable platforms that the player could destroy with the downwards dash.

A cut shoot sprite for the fat enemy (yes he was initially supposed to shoot acid at the player. be thankful he doesn't now!)

lastly i wanted to overhaul the combo meter but due to layering issues i decided to keep the old one.

As for the levels themselves. i first thought about doing a highscore based endless level. But since i couldn't figure out a guaranteed way the objects would be placed fairly, i decided to scrap that and just make handcrafted levels. handcrafted vs randomly generated levels both have their pros and cons and i think both could've worked great with this game. but for a game that's heavily combo focussed i do feel like handcrafted levels were the right call in this case. 

Lastly i wanted to resprite the player character but i grew too attached to his slimy appearence and think it worked fine with the gameplay of the game. i do wish i got resprite the regular enemies though...

I wanted to add/polish more but i was starting to get low on time so i decided to play it safe and port the game to html to publish it, Because most people don't play a jam game for longer then 10 min anyway and i thought 3 levels was substantial enough. 

To my dismay when i wanted to submit for the compo I found out that for your game to be eligible for the compo submission, you must make the audio all by yourself.  I was pretty dissapointed but of course it's all on me, i should've read the rules more clearly before starting the project ;P Since the audio was one of the most important aspects of the game I decided to just submit it as a jam submission (wich is 3 days) and call it day. surely i wont regret submitting a day earlier right?

Post Jam/Rating

When the first comments started to flow in it became painfully obvious the game was waaay to difficult. this mostly came down to the very small hitbox to parry enemies. Also the early levels where too difficult and didn't lead people to experiment as much as i would've hoped. One friend i send the game to said the freeze frame was kinda annoying, wich ngl kinda killed me inside because to me it felt really good lol 😭

My biggest mistake was to not ask my friends to playtest the game before release. i had a fully gameplay-ready prototype on day 1. If i would've let them test the game beforehand then i could've easily tweaked the hitbox and enemy placements before submitting. But oh well, rules are rules, and i wasn't allowed to tinker on the game anymore for the duration of the rating period. you live you learn i suppose.

There were also amazingly positive things said about the game. People appreciating the gamefeel and gameplay was awesome! some things i wish people would pickup on like the ultrakill-esque freeze frame was recognized by a commenter wich made me feel really good! those comments elevate the entire game making experience for me. in general the entire ludum dare community feels very welcoming and friendly. good stuff.

here are the results for those that care.

I'm very thankful for all the feedback I've received and it felt really rewarding to gain so much interaction on something i made. And i will from time to time look back at those comments to keep me inspired to continue making games.

Final thoughts

All in all this was a fantastic experience and i'll try to join every ludum dare from now on.  Playing all the different games was also fun and it's cool to see what other people cooked up.

Regarding the game, I'm really proud of it. the gameplay, audio and UX come together in a super nice way.  and i see myself reusing the parry like gameplay for a bigger project someday.

Be on the lookout for a postjam update sometime soon! wich will add some new levels as well as finally tweaking some levels and the parry hitbox.

And that was all. Thank you so so much for reading. and see you hopefully next ludum dare! buhbye!

Bounceman says smell ya later!