Ok, let’s talk about the good and the bad on my compo entry, “Downbeat“:

THE GOOD:

• This is my first attempt at pathfinding in a Ludum Dare game (and actually, in Unity in general).  I don’t know how to do 2D pathfinding, so it’s actually a top view of a 3D pathfinding area with sprites attached to the objects.  Obstacles worked with carving up the maze when it’s generated.  I will say that sometimes the enemies hesitate for reasons that are unknown to me (probably due to so many enemies re-calculating paths), but otherwise I’m pleased with how it came out.
• Music, as always.  I managed to get the whole rhythm thing working right, and even managed to get it to judge the accuracy of the notes well enough.  It keeps everything mostly in sync except sometimes right at the beginning of the game.
• I’m starting to get better with 2D animations now.  Not that I’m good at animating (just check out that split-leg run cycle on our hero there), but I’m understanding a lot how it all works anyway.  The spider crawl was creepy enough anyway.
• My first mini-map, and it worked perfectly!

THE BAD:

• As usual, graphics are still a weak point for me.  Animations aside, the walls and floor are kind of boring to look at.  I think if I had more time (and skill), I’d have made a much flashier and interesting level design, not to mention more variations in the rooms rather than just empty chambers.
• I really wanted more depth to the music system, but just didn’t have time to put it in.  I wanted it so that playing accurate notes for a while would build up a meter, and if it maxes out, you temporarily get some massive attack bonus that would come with a corresponding shift in the tone of the music.  It could’ve been sweet, but it just wasn’t in the cards it seems.
• Speaking of the above, more variation on the music would have been nice, but again, time.  Ideally I’d have wanted the song to be about four or five times as long before it loops.
• Enemy spawning turned out to be so random.  In rare instances, it will flood the player with a ton of enemies, or it might spawn very few at all.  On one game, I made it all the way to the exit without seeing a single enemy.  I know RNG = RNG, but seriously, give me a break.
• While we’re on the subject of enemies, there’s so little variation in them right now.  All we have is the high-HP slow green spiders and the low-HP fast red spiders.  It would’ve been nice to have ones that shoot at you or do other interesting attacks.

As always, it’s a learning experience, which is kind of the point anyway.  What I’ve picked up about pathfinding will help me greatly in future projects.