Biweekly Games - Game 2 Postmortem
Well, I'm already behind schedule as the two weeks after game 1 were complicated and the game I was making wasn't really going anywhere, so I scrapped it and decided to start again the two weeks after.
I'm doing a challenge to develop and release a small game every two weeks. You can read more about it in my first game postmortem here.
Idea
The theme I polled for this game was "Fragile". Initially I had a few ideas revolving around bubbles, blowing bubbles around a hazard field and they would pop if they collided with something, in a 2d environment. I dropped that because I didn't want to dive too much into wonky controls, and I wanted to try something 3d. Then I thought about glass, and traversing some sort of path of glass that would break on impact. Eventually, I settled on the concept of "thin ice", thinking about those movement puzzles in Pokemon ice gyms and other stuff like that.
I thought of the hexagon ice tiles inspired by that ice level from Fall Guys. My first concept was of a snowman who would traverse these ice tiles searching other snowballs to grow taller and taller. That is actually implemented in the final game, but I had a hard time coming up with some interesting puzzles for that, so I pivoted into having to break all the fragile ice tiles to progress.
What Went Right
Keeping the game very simple was good to finish it in the time I had, especially since the last game attempt was failed (mostly because of a big scope without really having a solid base, but also because of time mismanagement). Also I think giving up on the snowballs was a good move, even though I miss the snowman getting really big.
I also think it looks pretty nice. I'm not a modeler, but I liked the small snowman I made quickly and the overall colors and snow particles.
What Went Wrong
I think this game has a perspective issue, in whcih the height of the tiles can sometimes be barely noticeable because of the camera angle and similar colors. I tried to solve this by adding a number indicator over every tile you can move to, to say how many stacked tiles are left, but I'm not sure it gets quite where it needed to.
I also think the kinds of puzzles this made were kind of limited, and again because of perspective could'nt grow a lot in size. Maybe if it was 2d it would've been ok to make bigger and more intricate puzzles, but I think some charm would be lost. Even then, the ideas for differente puzzles with this concept were pretty limited (without adding any new mechanics).
What I Learned
That making a game that looks at least kind of nice doesn't require a lot of art assets to be made (I spent way less time in art on this than in game 1). Also designing good puzzles is hard, and choosing the right perspective for presenting the information you need to on your game is key.
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Hi! I missed this project, it's good to have you back!
Just played through the game and here's a few pointers.
-> I really want to play the collecting snowballs game, it feels very cool, but I'm having trouble how it would fit with this mechanic.
Having snowball sizes and a correct order to pick them could be interesting and force the player to think about how they move through the level.
Combining this game with Snake could also be interesting. A big snowman occupies many tiles and you have to play your movements carefully to not step on yourself.
Maybe something with a big snowman occupying more than one tile too?
-> You're right when you say that designing good puzzles is hard. I found most puzzles here on the easier side, but nevertheless satisfying to solve.
-> You do a great job of using the puzzle game "grammar" of first demonstrating a trick in a controlled environment so the player learns it before moving onto something more complicated.
-> I wasn't bothered by the minimal art, I think it fits the game.
-> I didn't struggle at all with perspective. The numbers over tiles worked just fine and I could play the game with no problems. You could try using more colors (deeper shades of blue?) to indicate ice column height, if it really feels necessary.
-> That said, it was a bit jarring at the second-to-last level when the camera panned in and everything became bigger. It was kinda uncomfortable and felt like the snowman was right up in my face. And it was even stranger when it panned all the way back for the huge last level.
I think zooming out was actually a good idea, but felt super sudden after the previous zoom in. I'm ok with zooming out, but not in, the standart size is just fine, even for smaller puzzles.
-> The 3D is a big part of the game's charm, please don't do away with it.
-> The whole game feels just a bit too slow to me. The text crawls slower than my reading speed and I have to sit through it. The snowman moves just slow enough that I found myself often double-clicking tiles.
-> An undo button would be WONDERFUL. I had to replay the last level so many times before getting it wrong on the last section :(
----
It's a very nice game and I like it very much.
I felt like Garbage Day was sort of a slog because it never got any harder and had no ending satisfaction, as the game never ended because you won, only because you lost. This game sidesteps both issues very nicely.
Really looking forward to see what you come up with next!