My project isn't ready for a public demo so I don't have an itch.io page to post this,
but here is a link to my Post Mortem
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(copy/paste from my blog; Missing embedded tweets)
What Went Right
Link to my #Devtober Twitter Thread
Right before #Devtober started I had posted a devlog here on the blog for Reel Dream which obviously showed that I was stressed and burnt out with the project. While my motivation for the project isn’t as strong, the reasons why are different now, and I’m actually excited to see where things are going.
At the start of the month I was pretty much gutting Reel Dream and changing a lot of things. While most things didn’t break the game too bad, I was still changing which fish were in the game, changing up my whole database of items. Yet this change was for the best, as I went from a game based on fish from all kinds of environments from freshwater to salt, I settled on making it more familiar to me and sticking to fresh water fish, specifically fish in the local region I live in, so the game feels more like I’m emulating home. You know what they say ‘write what you know’. I guess it was true here.
By the second week, while for personal life things had some ups and downs and craziness, dev work on Reel Dream entered new areas with the addition of the cast command and fish battles activating from the player casting the lure. It wasn’t a feature I initially thought I wanted, but it ended up being perfect. Don’t be afraid to try new things.
Mostly I’ve learned to take things one step at a time, and work on my project even when I don’t feel like it. It’s helped keep it from the backburner, and slowly gain excitement for it again.
What Went Wrong
I’m a disorganized mess. I guess, looking back, I should have actually planned what I wanted to do. I was dealing with some emotionally low points and frustration with myself this month which prevented me from doing anything serious with Reel Dream, and eventually led to me getting distracted on other projects to where the last week was about a plugin for RPGMaker MV…like nothing to do with my game.
Even in my personal life I’ve learned that I have to get myself on a plan, a schedule.
How to Do Better
So that’s what I’m going to do, find and try new ways to keep myself on task, and work each on my game. To not fully burn out again, I’ll probably schedule to work one day a week on a non-Reel Dream project, as well as tame my side project(s) to not be worked on during certain times of the day.
Thank you all for keeping up with my #Devtober experience! I can’t wait ’till next year! God bless,
Meike Kima
Also I apologize to @RPGMaker as pretty early on in October I accidentally tagged you instead of writing #RPGMaker. Haha, forgive me but once I realized I didn’t want to abandon my twitter thread and had no idea how to not tag you!