Final update!
My game has been submitted! Huzzah! I'm considering it a pre-alpha build, a proof of concept if nothing else. It has it's little bugs and some spaghetti code, but it starts and plays and ends, which is more than what I thought it would do! I got a lot more done in the last two days than I thought I would, and today I finally got to a point where I was happy with my product enough to submit it.
I learned a lot the past two weeks, which I'm proud of. I was impressed by how much I started to understand how the coding/event logic works in Construct? Like? I had some major moments of 'Oh shit, I actually know exactly what's going wrong!' after days of needing to consult someone or something at every hiccup. I was able to take a lot of tutorials and mash them together to make more streamlined versions to fit my needs, and I was able to spaghetti together some nice fixes to obnoxious problems.
Another thing I have learned is that... video game programming may not be for me! Or, at least, programming the way I approached it. I jumped in way too deep without my floaties and ended up sinking like a rock after, like, 5 days. I had to step away from it all for almost a third of the jam just to recharge - and that's not good. If I ever do one of these again, I'll know to pace myself instead of spending 8+ hours a day in Construct for many days in a row.
However, I found that I LOVED doing the art! I have always been an art person, but Level Design was an interesting challenge, as well as coming up with a uniform visual vocabulary. Finally, all my design classes became useful!
Thanks to everyone in the community for all the love and support, as well as help when I had silly issues. I'm so proud of the work everybody had made these last two weeks, and I hope you all take a nice long nap on Sunday (I know I will!).
Lots of love from me and Maria
Prominence