Day 23

Oh, oh, it's getting quiet here. But only here! Protect@ is now in it's final stage. At least I hope so...

The orientation is now vertical, i.e. landscape mode on phone. Because this is the primary device where it will be played (if it's played at all). No one fires up a destkop computer for such a simple kind of game. But I can very well imgaine that someone might have fun playing this game on their commute or alike. 

With the change of orientation comes another burden: Making new screenshots, GIFs, videos, uploading that all... I really dislike those parts of gamedev. I enjoy very much coding, fiddling with small details, even polishing isn't that dreadful any more for me. But uploading pictures, thinking of silly text, cutting video scenes? Nope, that's nothing that will ever be fun. But the work has to be done and I expect it to be done by tomorrow evening. 

For today, the change in orientation is a good milestone and the game is already uploaded to the Google Play Store in this version. Acceptance of the update shouldn't take as long as the initial publication. Maybe uploading screenshots tomorrow will be just in time.

Day 24

Did it! The game is finally available on the Goole Play Store with screenshots and a short video: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.godotengine.protectat

Things to keep in mind for next time: Give the project a unique name from the beginning. Now I'm stuck with "org.godotengine.protectat" forever as it seems. ;) Not a huge issue but com.pixelflausen.protectat would have been nicer. 

Another thing I need to pay attention to is srceen resolution. Obviously  not all mobile phone come with the same as mine so the add on top might overlay the score and time.  It fit's perfectly on my phone but today I had the brilliant idea to use the Android Emulator and well, it didn't look good. So the ad got moved to the bottom where is doesn't overlay anything. An update which still needs to be approved...

Day 31: post mortem

Haven't posted anything the last week because I was way to busy with work and there ought to be some life left not in front of a computer screen. ;) I guess that is one of the biggest lessons I've learned this month: Do not exhaust yourself! Althoug the game is pretty small, I invested way too much time in it. Not that I'm burned out or got sick, no worries! I just realized that working every day on making games is not my way. I like to work in bursts because I need to get into some kind of flow which simply doesn't happen when I know I only have half an hour or so before another task will occupy me. That said, here is my overall evaluation of the project:

First things first: The game got finished. Except one minor issue: ad placement on different screen resolutions is probably off. But this is only an issue in the Google Play Store version and should be fixed within the next few days. Speaking of the Play Store: Yes, the game officially available for Android in the Google Play Store which makes me quite happy!

But there are some things that really bother me. The biggest issue I have is that the game is way too small/ simple for the time and effort I put into it. And that's also a main take away from participating in this game jam: Although a game might be of low standards, it still needs good planning. Because if I don't plan beforehand, I'm constantly tinkering with the game play, thinking of this and that to add and might it not cool if... That turned out to be a huge waste of time in the end. If I would have fiddled with the prototype in the first week and then stick with what I had and just polish that, the game would have been completed much sooner and probably be a bit more good-looking.

Speaking of which: The overall design of the game is quite clean and I think it's okay. Nonetheless I'm not satisfied. I'd like to make a game, be it small or not, that really shines, that looks like something. But I guess this is part of the learning curve. I know somewhat decent how to code (but being far from an expert!) but I do that as hobby for years. Design and aesthetics is a totally different beast and takes equally or probably even more experience before it's getting somewhere.

And I also learnt, that there is one thing I really dislike about game developement: Getting other people to play my game. I don't want to bother friends and family who are all not into gaming and finding players out there is way to hard. I don't like to make posts on reddit "please play my game" (they all got deleted anyway, probably because I haven't read the guidelines carefully engough), brag on twitter about silly improvements, take srceenshots and post them to Instagram and so on. I just want to make games as a hobby for myself. But: It's a good feeling when a game get's finished. Really finished. Finished that it actually would be playable if someone happens to play it. So that's another lesson I've learned: Stick with it until it's finished (or come back to it until it's finished). NB: That's a promise for my other games and those to come. :)

Tomorrow I have a day off and would really like to play some finished games of my fellow contestants!

See you all out there and all the best

Alex aka Pixelflausen