The context and the reason for this abandonment come from 2 significant factors but which can be summed up as a Features Creep and a cruel lack of time… Because I started the JAM barely 3 days before this one. By the way, I’m just a beginner in Gamedev, I’m still discovering certain things and trying to improve later.
To summarize the pitch of my game a little. I wanted to make a survival game but like Wave of enemies by Wave of enemies. In connection with the theme of the Calm before the storm, here the calm would represent the period during which the player can relax and prepare his defense while waiting for another wave of enemies which would therefore represent the storm. Knowing that I only had 3 days to finish my game, I rushed on certain elements but I was still able to finish: The player, the enemy and the system of appearance of enemies by time intervals.
However, where the trouble started was when I realized that well… The game was over. Just set a maximum number of waves to hold and that was it.
And the problem was that I found the game quite empty… The player only had one weapon which had unlimited bullets, we only had one enemy and above all the waiting times between waves did not help. nothing since there was nothing to do. Just the game was empty.
Being still in the prototyping phase, I wondered if there wasn’t a way to add something like this: A reward system for each wave like a new weapon. Then also, if we couldn’t add the possibility of installing baricades… And why not the possibility of making them with wood or objects left by enemies? Or the possibility of searching for resources during waiting times and crafting equipment or protective objects… etc.
Do you see the error that is occurring? Do you see the socket arriving? Yes, you guessed it I was in a Features Creep state.
Once I had these ideas in mind, I tried to realize them… And it destroyed all the logic of the game up to that point… The weapons were buggy, the feedback was absent and the player was overpowered not to mention huge bugs which I couldn’t solve.
In short, after the ordeal that it was. I had a burnout and I abandoned the project for 1 day… Afterwards when I came back to it today… Well, I said to myself that even if it means returning a game I might as well return the version of original without the features and other bugs… But the GIGA PROBLEM is that I don’t have any backup of the original version and since I modified so much of the basic code of the game elements, it’s a bit complicated to restore everything to the way it was before.
… After a few hours, There was nothing left to save, it was buggy everywhere and the stress of the deadline wasn’t helping me. I decided to completely start the project again and use old code to go faster but that’s when I realized an extremely serious problem… I was still prototyping . I had no assets, no sounds or music and no menu. Nothing, I check the remaining time and I see 6h 12min…
No miracle solution, there are no other choices, I had to resign myself and accept that I had killed my project by wanting to perfect it too much.
So if I have one piece of advice for you when creating your game… Keep it simple and within your capabilities.
The First Prototype of My game.
The “Featured” Prototype of My game.