On why I hate mornings and alarms - GameAWeek #2 Postmortem

This week was exhausting, but worth it. It overlapped with Global Game Jam, for which I made a game with two very talented friends, and I'm very happy about it. So I couldn't rush this game on the first day: I decided I wouldn't touch it until the Monday after the Global. That meant only two half-days for it (because I also have a gamedesigner job during the afternoons). Bring it on. 

I had a quite clear idea of what I was aiming for, even before the theme was announced: I wanted a silly game about daily life, where the same set of keys would get you through a series of different vignettes. This is good for my skill set: I'm a lot better artist than coder, so relying on ilustrations rather than complex action mechanics/physics was smart. I had a few inspirations for this: David Marchand's Fiesta Loca, Stuffed Wombat's Flute Person Symphony (which he had made for last week's GAW), and Increpare's Cookie Game. The theme fitted perfectly: rituals and routines.

I had already done a jam with this theme: 2016 Global. We made a sort of Quechua aboriginal ritual to invoke a serpent god; 2D platformer. Cute, but. I was still very unriped by then. My approach this time had more to do with the kind of artist I am now (a weirder and faster one, for sure). I had thought about a game where you could only play certain parts depending on the hour you played, but that meant learning how to use the Date behaviour of Construct3, and also the big risk of it being very boring and having most people only play through one of the parts. Lots of effort for very little exposure, no way.

I basically died on the Sunday after the Global (I didn't even make it for the closure event); but by Monday I had a tangible idea and spent all day imagining how to do it until like 9pm where I could finally sit and work on it. (Night owl here, so no prob). I realized the only way to make this fun, and a bit more game-y and less mere experience, was Jonny's keyboard smashing approach of last week's GAW. I made a bunch of notes:

I did something that I never encourage people to do, that is do all art first and not a single event of coding. But since everything was so art-driven, it made sense. I drew most of the scenes right away, except for the ending. I also wasn't sure how to do a dressing scene in an easy way. Not just coding wise, even just drawing someone putting their clothes on is a nightmare. I told my mate David "how could I do this, in a way that is not Wombat's approach...? UNLESS I do exactly that!! In an obvious and tributal way". Of course, that thing that was mostly just a joke for a friend, became the most difficult of all. That level has a lot of different assets, a bit of coding and visual arrangements that weren't as straightforward as I expected (because the sliding of the clothes needed to follow a certain order, simulating the clothes being hanged --they are not pinned in any way-- and making sure the system would always pick the right one. Sounded easier in my imagination). It also meant learning the Tween behaviour of C3. I've always used C2, so I'd just Lerp my way out of everything.
OMG THE TWEEN BEHAVIOUR. I found myself laughing at loud like a maniac at 3am because it was omg so simple and intuitive. 

At some point of the second day, I had amost everything done except for the ending. But it sounded more sensible to actually finish what I had done, and record and implement all sounds, and THEN do the last scene. If I didn't end up having enough time, I could just do a "you win" screen, but at least have the rest of the game polished, instead of having everything at 90%. Is this maturity??? Guess I'm old already.

I recorded everything with my mouth and did the screaming screens. I had A LOT of fun doing this. As Droqen said on the keynote we made together, "these invitations [to play] (...) should make you happy too." It was also fun to remember than in that 2016's Global, I also recorded some growls for a friend's game, because I could growl a lot deeper than all the big boys. Singer's perks ^^'
I ended up having enough time to do the ending, and have a shower and milk and cereal before the games' showcase (I'm 14 hours away from Melbounrne!).
And also, even with ZERO optimization, I could do this with C3's free version. VICTORY.

Thanks to the feedback, I did a small update next day: 
-Fixed the "I lost my finger offscreen"
-Added qwertz compatibility for my German speaking friends
-Added a small ending message to avoid people feeling like "and now what", a sense of closure is important.

I received A HUGE AMOUNT OF LOVE for this game and I'm extremely happy. Only two people disliked it so far, because it was "too tedious". And that's a great feedback! There's a fine line between conveying a tedious sensation and being way too unbearable to enjoy. I think I could have put some accesibility options to make it less irritating. I'll have it in mind for upcoming games. 

Anyway, I feel very encouraged to make more funny silly games to make people laugh. I hope I do a lot more. 
Thanks for reading, and see you guys next week.