Postmortem

I'm surprised we made it this far, but we finished a playable prototype of our game! We had a team of 3: one programmer, one programmer/artist, and one musician. Over 28 hours of work (~40 total manhours), we got quite a bit done.

I've had this idea for many years now -- A God game where you'd have to send "commandments" down to your followers, but some followers would interpret those commands differently than others. Did we deliver on this vision? Eh... maybe a little bit. At very least I think there's a compelling hint of what the game could ultimately be.

Here's a breakdown of how we spent our time, by hours:

1. Concept and cataloguing the art assets
2. LEGO prototypes of level design. This was a really useful way to hash out our core mechanics. I recommend giving this a go if you're building a tile-based game.
3. Code for basic engine; testing a normal map renderer for tiles. We never ended up using normal maps for our tiles, but we did use bump maps.
4. Code for loading and rendering the levels
5. Code for loading and placing characters
6. Experimenting with multiple art styles for the characters
7. Code for inputting commands. Attempted to make a scroll model to show the commands on, but it didn't mesh with the art style.
8. Art for the stone tablet to replace the scroll.
9. More input code. Begin writing the music.
10. More music composition; implement the main button clicking code; start character movement code.
11. More movement code.
12. More movement code.
13. More movement code.
14. More movement... yeah. I really struggled with this. I attempted a lot of different ways to resolve the movement of characters, but the way they interacted with each other caused some inconsistency in whether or not a move should resolve for any one character. I ended up figuring out that if I resolved the character movement in the opposite order of the direction they were moving, things stayed consistent. It now seems trivial and obvious to sort the characters before running the update command!
15. Write more input code. Implement the jump command.
16. Implement a circular interpolator for the jump animation. Implement gravity. (There are still some issues with gravity, and I think I know how to fix them.)
17. UI for pre and post level writing. Link levels together.
18. Made the billboard UI element model. This took a lot longer than I expected because it had so darn many pixels.
19. Implemented new character, the Gluttonous Priest, who is larger than the rest. Designed new levels.
20. Improved the level storytelling
21. Improved tile rendering design
22. Improved tile rendering design
23. Animated the Glutton 3D model to dance
24. Animated the Prideful King 3D model to dance
25. Level design & general polish
26. Created & animated Follower 3D model; animated Prophet 3D model
27. Level design
28. Level design and submit the game

The core engine of the game took a LOT longer than expected. I feel like we missed out on many things that could have made the game better, for example, more levels (with smoother tutorial curves), sound effects, a main menu/level selector, and better narrative structure. I'm not sure people will be prepared to understand how multiple characters work when we introduce the Glutton. I have similar issues with the Prideful King; will people understand how he works?

That being said, I think we nailed a couple things. I really enjoy the music. It sells the ambience of a journey through the desert. I also love the animated characters. I think the UI is pretty fun as well. A few of the levels are fun and rewarding, though we could probably ramp up the difficulty a little bit if we spent more time with tutorial levels.

All in all, I'm quite happy with what we accomplished