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A jam submission

On Time For HalloweenView game page

A GBJAM Game About Joining the Humans
Submitted by AlexTenFit — 8 minutes, 4 seconds before the deadline
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On Time For Halloween's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Gameboy Soul#2992.7913.222
Gameplay#3252.0212.333
Interpretation of the Secondary Theme#3312.5022.889
Overall#3592.0212.333
Graphics#3671.9252.222
Soundtrack/SFX#3800.8661.000

Ranked from 9 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

How does your game meet GBJam's theme?
Gameboy themed spooky game about escaping the underworld to be with the humans!

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Comments

Developer

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. There's a day 14 update up and I hope it's reasonably better for you to enjoy. 

I strive to grow so I created a list of my conclusions for this Game Jam, I post it here as accountability, and in hopes it might help someone else, too, in the future. It would also be nice to look back on in a year if I'm still doing this then :) 

Here it is:

Conclusions:

  1. If you sign up for a Game Jam, align time expectations.
    1. I had 10 days, but used around 2 days in total, maybe even less 
    2.  I planned for the full 10 days 
  2. Mechanics first, content second, polish last 
    1. I spent little time on mechanics or levels and way too much time on art which was subpar. Basically, my game would work with much less effort put on art and animation
  3. Add minimal amount of ALL game components first, then iterate
    1. Game was submitted with no music or sounds, which is a big component of the score 
  4.  If it works in editor doesn't mean it works on build 
    1.  Collisions, level loading were broken on the uploaded build

Lessons derived from them:

  1. Plan for the minimum time you will spend:
    1.  If I have 10 days but will work for a minimum 10 hours, my plan should be for 10 hours. Anything extra will be a blessing and improve the product, but I shouldn't count on time I may not have. 
  2. Divide my time to three (uneven) parts for mechanics, content and polish. The amount for each area depends on the type of game. 
    1.  Sound may be more important than visuals. I can play a minimalistic game but playing a silent game is a bummer.
    2.  My art level is not enough to carry a game, so the game has to be fun and functional first. 
  3. Add some basic art, music, writing, as necessary, after the mechanics and code are in a decent shape. 
    1. Cycle through all areas, start with something minimal but presentable, if you have time, you can improve it by cycling iteratively again (it will be weird if the art for level 1 will be amazing and the art for level 2 will be placeholder assets, improve everything by a bit each time) 
  4.  Upload a test build early (As soon as there is something controllable, and after each new feature or piece of content) to make sure it works at all and to identify bugs that don't exist in the editor (such as collision in this case)
Submitted(+1)

Nice work! The art style is really charming.

Submitted(+1)

At first I wandered aimlessly to the vast void of the underworld. After I returned back I saw the "portal". After a couple of jumps I lost, but did not understand why. Anyway, nice entry, but the missing sound is a bummer.

Submitted(+1)

Really cute game love the main character sprite! Also really enjoyed the escape and hiding mechanics felt very nice!

Submitted(+1)

Great effort! I actually featured your game in my livestream review:

Developer(+1)

Thank you for playing! I'm sorry you didn't get to hear my average music and sound effects, maybe next time :) 

Developer

Hope you enjoy my game! 

Known issues:

  • First level is loading twice
  • Animations are not changing 
  • No wall collision in some of the levels
  • Game over screen retry not working

Please let me know if you find anything else! 

Some levels and features didn't make it to GJ build.
Unfortunately, this includes sounds and music, and many more animations, which I had prepared. 
Depending on free time, I'll implement it for the final build after the judging is done :)