Postmortem Rambling and the future of this project.

-Introduction-

This was the first jam where the basic concept come to me without struggling through it during the time I'm supposed to be making it,
also the first jam where I could start working on it day 1 AND the idea I had was perfectly workable and interesting, I could scale it up and down as needed.

Basically, from my perspective, Haroldjam2024 was set to be the 'easiest' and 'my best' jam. I had high hopes.  But my poor choices managing my time kept me from achieving much. And at the end, like with every other jam, I was rushing without proper time to test or even crank out the final further down-scaled concept I hoped would be enough.

But right now, I kinda want to look back at the possibilities that were. What could this have looked like if I actually managed the time I had better? Afterwards a brief view on what comes. 

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-Beginnings-

Even before the jam began, The idea was to have this be a Space game with a sort of 'turn-based' movement map movement. Enemies moving after you do. Take too long though and they 'take a turn'.  I'd create a simple grid graphic, with specialized ones for no-pass zones or damaging tiles. 

I also hoped to take on CallmeDJ's challange with making a winning custom soundtrack... But at most, my music ideas remain half-started LMMS (my DAW of choice) projects...

The story was simple, you need to find the hero Harold (along with perhaps his team), others are looking for him too. Who the player was going to be was not yet solidified. Nor who the enemy was. Though at this point I thought that you'd probably be inside spacecraft.

Part of my plan this gamejam was not to get too stuck on paper planning, just start working on the basic mechanics immediately. (since usually I took too long figuring out what game I was actually making) Improvisation was going to be one tool to keep myself from avoiding actually making stuff in the engine, and any paper-planning was reserved for when I couldn't do anything on my PC.

Quickly got the basic systems sorta working in the first week, though I also had a lot of issues with it which causes issues later down the road.

One feature you can see in the first screenshot here that inexplicably didn't appear in the final build was the turbo feature (Meant to help you get away from a swarm of drones, being that you could get ganged up on with up to 4 of them) turns out to be a variable wasn't activated at the right time XD.

A feature that I couldn't get to work at all, wasted at least a couple of days trying, was implementing path-finding into the enemy events, Without which enemy AI would often just get stuck on walls and such when they tried to get to you (or away from).

I had several ideas for the final graphics style. One that I ultimately dropped was for all SPACE graphics have a more vector-line appearance. The one I tried instead was to have at least some sort of fully-customized appearance with everything. The idea being to simulate the usage of a screen in some fashion, as though all graphics were simulated using non-visual data. 
Since, during the first week I was already clarifying the hoped for final vision, the player was going to be remote controlling drones from some sort of spacestation. -which they'd be able to walk around in. This portion the character graphics style at least would be similar to the DS-packs style.

At first, the goal (after dealing with the imminent threat surrounding your base) would be to collect infocards (or whatever else I was going to change what it would be called) to help find where Harold and the heroes were. Gaining new locations to traverse to in the search, Along with fighting 'the enemy', who would be doing things alongside you (as the story progresses, events happen).

I hoped to have several enemy types to deal with, including a turret inspired by tower defense games (while on map it shoots projectiles at you), a mothership-type boss launching out swarms of drones, etc. None of which was actually implemented sadly, though I did have several types of on-map movement ready (slow, fast, pseudo-random, and of course the runners).

I also hoped to have a skill-equip system. Allowing the player to customize their drones for various purposes. (And even considered allowing the player to have multiple specialized types of drones available.) There would also be a 'lives' system, in that as you went along the game you'd gather resources that DAVID would then automatically make extra drones for you to use. But every 'death' meant you lost one, (though you could salvage the wreckage once you returned). Espionage and salvaging enemies would at times gain you new skills, (or permanent stat-ups or passives)

Suffice it to say that I had plenty of ideas, more then I've mentioned here, all of which I was ready to cut out if need be.

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-In The End-

The biggest Issue I had this entire time is my rather inconsistent work ethic. Some days I wasted watching Youtube reactions, or other time-wasting activities, without doing a single thing for the game. I'm fairly confident that the game would have been a lot bigger, and better tested, if I simply didn't waste time. 

Because sure I had issues with core features, things not working or working weird, etc... And those did take time to figure out and fix, but all that was doable. If I'm not actually doing, then of course nothing comes out.

By the end of the jam, 2~3 days left, I only had core features ready: i.e. Movement, basic enemy, grid graphics, menus, and a few other things. So I had to drastically cut down the concept, and crunch on the final day (being the one which I had the most time free) to get the final result out the door... Unfortunately preventing me from achieving one of my goals of getting playtesters to help out this time (having never done so before).

Hawk's video shows just how bad of a release it was, botching nearly every element I hoped to do: 

(at least it was worth a few laughs, thanks to Hawk's reactions XD)

 Much of what you SEE in the video was accomplished in the final 2 days, excluding graphics work (which I worked on and off during the month): the maps, dialogue, music choices... Though perhaps only constituting half of what you experience (outside anybody who visits the testmaps)...

Normally at this point, I'd drop the project and either move on to something else or stop making stuff for a while. But this time I'd like to do something different, I'd like to rework this project into a Definitive Edition. Though I'm doubtful that most of my ideas will make the cut, nor that the 'story' as seen in the entry will remain intact beyond the basics. - I'm also considering doing something for the currently on-going Grid Jam https://itch.io/jam/grid-jam... As a sort of side-project to help this one... But I may have to drop out of that.

If you've reached the end of this rambling... Thank you. And thank you to everybody who played and voted, esp. to all those who provided useful feedback. Feel free to ask questions, give me further feedback, hand me ideas you'd like to see, or harshly criticize something. (Saying nearly anything is better then the silent treatment imo)

See ya guys later!

LegoNenen^C.N.Gentle