Ludum Dare 50 Post-Mortem

Well, that was a fun ride! We might not have a blockbuster to show for it (or even a complete game), but the experience was well worth it, in my opinion.

What went well

Choice of tools

For fast development and iteration, especially for that size of (2D) game and (2P) team, Godot was really the best choice. Gdscript is fun and simple to use, especially for someone like me who likes to work with Python.

Preparation

It certainly helped to have the basics set up beforehand: a git repo, a Trello board, file sharing, updated tools and all. We were able to jump to design and development as soon as the theme was announced.

Fun and learning

My brother and I didn’t get the chance to do a lot of game development recently. These days, I mostly do product management, so jumping back to programming was a fun experience. We also had to dig deeper than we previously went in Godot, so this whole exploration was really enjoyable.

What went not so well

Too large scope

As is typical in first_-ish_ game jams (this is our third or fourth, depending on how you count), we didn’t properly scope and went for something way too big. Not only were we not able to deliver a balanced game loop, the game experience is just all around the place. Is the game a survival, a puzzle, or a sim? All of them, and yet not any of them at the same time.

Art & assets

As expected, a team of two programmers was not the best fit for a beautiful and good-sounding game. The game looks like nothing and sounds literally like nothing (as we did not add any audio). We had access to multiple paid asset packs (and all the free ones, of course), but this just contributed to the disjointed overall feeling.

Takeaway & the future

The general takeaway for our next jams is: Focus, focus, focus! Let’s try to calm down the initial excitement where we feel all-powerful and able to do anything, and instead, just focus on a single concept. This may allow us to actually complete something, and ideally something fun to play.

As for the future of this specific project, we plan on using it to develop a couple of mini-games and hone our game dev skills. This will probably never be a “proper game” in any sense, but it will provide us the terrain to experiment, grow and better prepare for future projects, be they jams or not.