Well, everyone should have saw this one coming. I wrote one at the start and at the middle, and everything gets a trilogy nowadays. We're at less than 12 hours left, so it's time to finish up, and I saw a tweet for an exit poll. I don't feel the radio buttons really speak for me, though, so I'm submitting my own poll entry (and closing thoughts) this way, because I like to use 80 words to express something instead of 8.
> Itch.io username
Hi, I'm Karythina.
> Link to your game/prototype/work in progress
> If you decided not to submit, leave blank.
> Gender
cloudhime/@yurigods made references on Twitter a few times about hoping the jam made games more accessible to people, making gaming more diverse. I have a suspicion asking only for this singular bit of personal info is related to that, to see if the hopes became real. I'm not sure why only this in particular would be asked for, otherwise.
[Edit: These probably come off more cynical towards them than I really feel. Both lysandre and cloudhime have been great to talk to and did some awesome work hosting this jam.]
> Game engine
I coded in Python.
> Did you finish your game?
I don't know how to answer this since I never had a finish state in mind. I'm done working with it, so "finished" in the sense that I did what I wanted with it and therefore I'm done. It's not really a game with a conclusion or ending, though, it just cuts off partway through, so in that sense it's not really a finished product.
> How was your experience?
Overall, I think it was a good experience. I learned a lot and had more good times than bad.
> Did you accomplish your goals?
> If not, what do you think you could have done differently? Would you have set different goals or gone about accomplishing them differently?
Going back to my first post where I shared my goals..
1. A combat system with a couple different techniques you can do (not just "you hit it. it hits back" forever).
Mostly done. You have a combat system with different skills you can equip to do different actions. Monsters don't do anything but hit back, but there's some work in there to allow other actions to be added easily enough.
2. A "hub town" - more generally, something the player plays with that doesn't involve to the combat system
Done.
3. A means to make your character stronger, such as a store to buy gear, or a way to enable a new combat move.
Gear is there, upgrading base stats is there, so done.
Perhaps I should have been a little more ambitious and focused on making a complete game experience rather than using the jam as an excuse to faff around with code. On the other hand, maybe not - it might not seem as impressive compared to a full graphical game or whatever, but this really is what I wanted to do. It's not too far off from what I envisioned but getting the final steps for a real match to my "ultimate dream game" will involve a LOT more effort and work.
> What worked for you?
> Preferred tutorials, processes, ways of learning, solving problems? What about the game jam and/or its format helped you?
> What was frustrating?
> Any tutorials or resources you would like to see? What about the game jam and/or its format was difficult or frustrating?
Pooling these together as one answer.
Most of the resources the jam itself linked to weren't extremely relevant to me. That's not really the jam's fault, though - the game making engines didn't seem like they were a good for for making what I wanted, so I set out to try and do it myself instead. Invent With Python and Program Arcade Games proved useful when starting out. I had some help from a few good friends both on mundane coding issues ("what sort of angle should I approach this problem from?") and making a suitable dev environment.
> Was two weeks an appropriate amount of time for a game jam centered on learning?
More than fine. Honestly, I did some heavy work the first week, met all my goals strictly speaking by then, and spent the second week busy with real life and doing minor tinkering/additions for flavor and fun.
> Would you encourage others to join this jam?
Yeah, I'd say so. I'd do it again if I went back in time, at least.
> Any other comments?
I regret not engaging too much with the rest of the jammers. I'm not super-sociable even online, and admittedly I'm a little self-conscious about my work compared to others, but all it really ended up doing is leaving myself at the outskirts and not really getting in with the fun everyone else was having. This sounds pretty bad, but I honestly don't know anything about any of you, and at the end of this I'll probably end up going my own separate way afterwards, having made no connections. I should have been more involved with
In terms of creating, I set out to do something, and I did it. I even started learning a useful skill while I was at it. I'm pretty happy about that.
In the future? I'm definitely going to continue learning Python, it's already proven handy a couple times over January outside of using it to make something for the jam.
As for making games? I don't know yet, but probably not for a while. Once I learn more about coding I'll take another stab at it. No real ETA for it, but probably by the time summer rolls around, if I keep reading and playing with Python on the side, I might give the mythical "project 2" a shot.