Post Mortem
After a long weekend away following the submission of A Dash of Magic, the dust kicked up by development has begun to settle. Both myself and Matsuringo had prior family arrangements that led us to submit the game quite literally as we left our doors. Two solid weeks of development, laughs and a marked slip into in-joke inception, it was a really wild ride. As this is my Devlog I'll take the liberty here of commending Matsuringo on his astonishing hard work during the fortnight of development. I owe a lot of my surpassed expectations to the skill and dedication with which he applied himself to this jam, consistently performing beyond what I thought was going to be possible. I am fortunate to have ben working with someone so comfortable with unreal engine & capable of mechanising ideas & getting prototypes going at pace. All this being said, it's high time I spent a final splash of energy closing off the circuit with this post-mortem.
General Thoughts:
This was the first game jam either of us had taken part in, as well as the first game we had collaborated on. In fact, this was the first game either of has had collaborated on, having both worked independently beforehand (aside from, in my case, taking on assistance for some art elements). As such, we really didn't know what to expect from trying to work as a team. However, as is now apparent, the working relationship we fostered proved very productive and healthy. I also don't believe we had and clue what a jam game made by our hands might look like. The bar for quality wasn't clear, but we set out with a healthy understanding that we'd like to finish something 'bad'. I personally owe a lot of recent drive and success to this idea. Making things in anticipation of probable mediocrity, or possibly outright failure, helps to limit scope and keep the project manageable. We delivered things on time, because we had to accept that time was limited and our efforts would be wasted on the diminishing returns of invisible detail, or in Matsuringo's case - invisible fidelity of code. We allowed ourselves the space to brute force things, to cobble things together and build in prototypes with an end always in mind. I can say without hesitation that our expectations of quality for the final product, if there were any, were utterly out-done.
Our Goals:
For myself and Matsuringo, the overall goals for this Jam were similar, yet distinct. Personally, I was keen to try working within a time limit, as well as experience team production and the variations in roles that come with that. While I can't speak for Matsuringo entirely, I am aware that they were also looking at the jam as an opportunity to exercise restraint - by which I mean working on something that wouldn't allow his skills in scripting to become a self-fuelling job machine, prone to feature creep and other catch 22s of a game with large scope. When condensed down, the goals were as follows;
- Submit a complete experience (prototype/rough) within the time limit that is FUN TO PLAY
- Exercise best practises in project planning (scope, time management, task delegation)
- Wherever possible, use bespoke assets (music, sprites)
- Have fun!
What Went Right:
Happily, this section will probably be the longest of the sit-rep!
Starting with the obvious; we submitted our game on time, it is fun and enjoyed a level of polish we are still pleasantly surprised by. Now, when I say surprised, I mean by the level of quality we feel like we ended up hitting - particularly in the looks and functional elegance of the game. This is NOT to say that we didn't plan our time with polish in mind. Quite the contrary. From the very beginning I had suggested a development cycle that emphasised quick prototyping, with a serviceable build to be delivered no later than half way through our timeframe. The aim here was really to avoid key mechanics hinging on work that may take a long time. We wanted to be able to test the 'fun factor' within the first 3 days. This choice of time management, combined with the faster than expected turn around of our core game mechanics (hats off to Matsuringo) meant that we were able to indulge in the 'finessing stage' at a pace that allowed us to push the juicy look of the game to the point we are now. Again, to avoid confusion , it should certainly be made clear that this wasn't at any stage 'easygoing' development. The hours were full working day length, if not longer, for the entire two weeks. But, this is what we wanted all along. Thus, I'd also call it a success in the case of our time-management, scope and task delegation goals.
In terms of the wish for 'bespoke assets' , I'd also have to call that a success. There are areas we weren't able to conquer here, namely the sound effects and font, both of which were lifted from public domain resources such as opengameart.org and others like it. However, the other elements in the game were all crafted by myself, Matsuringo and our 2 key collaborators, Turlough and Henry. Turlough is a relatively recent friend of mine, whose musical talents came to my attention not long before I heard about the jam. He was very happy to pitch in with a track that seals the whole experience with an atmosphere that is exactly what we were asking for. For anybody looking to support a talented musician, I linked his spotify on the games download page. Henry, on the other hand, is a long-standing friend and creative partner of mine. He helped me with the character sprite for my previous game 'LifeLine' & was all too happy to lend us his talents again for the main character of this game. The character that made it to the final build of the game was the first one he sent us, he nailed the theme and look right from the word go. Henry is also responsible for the portraits of the shop patrons, all done using Asprite. It was with the help of these two talents, as well as our own hard labour, that the game oozes with character and originality. I myself created all of the 3D assets in the game, among other things, finding joy in decorating the scene & giving it that hand crafted care. It's my belief that we've made a very sweet, unique looking little game - and I'm so happy about that.
Finally, did we have fun? YES. My goodness, it was an intensely enjoyable and enjoyably tense 2 weeks - something I could easily see myself recommending to people who have an interest in making games. I think that the past experience myself and Matsuringo had in the combined fields of UE4 & 3D Asset workflow did a lot to take pressure off some of the areas that might otherwise really give new developers trouble - so I feel for me it was a great time to get stuck in. I'd be very surprised indeed if this was my last game jam.
What Went Wrong:
Happily (again) very little. There were a few spooks on Matsuringo's end with regard to the project files themselves and UE4 throwing up an unknown error, but it was easy enough to resolve. This provided a valuable lesson in itself - consider version control and save as you go. I think I'd have been fine submitting a project that was even a shadow of this one, but I think it would somewhat crush me if we had made such a lot of progress for it to al disappear. These things happen. hey happen all the time. Back up your stuff if you care about it! But, otherwise, there were no real hiccups. Though at one point I wondered if I was getting ill. Headaches and wrist pain from sitting and working at the PC got quite unpleasant at times. This isn't something I'm willing to put myself through - so in future I'll more seriously factor in breaks. That being said, I always made a point of getting up for water or doing other things to take my mind off the development for a bit each day.
Lessons Learned & the Future:
I think that now all is said and done, both myself and Matsuringo have given ourselves/one another some real perspective on indie game development. In terms of lessons learned I can only really speak for myself - but I would say that the jam provided a space for me to learn about my own creative habits, what drives me and how I like working when in a team environment. It's given me a helping of what I have craved for some time, a hearty bowl of self-belief that indie development may be something I can actually do. I hope that in the future, I'll be able to look at this as a moment of realisation which led to even bigger, better and more exciting game dev projects!
Thanks to all who read along. To any who haven't tried the game, here is the link again;
https://matsuringo.itch.io/dashofmagic
Here is the trailer too;
Joe