Feedback has been positive on our entry, “Foxcrate”. It’s time to do my usual analysis of what went well or what went wrong.

What Went Well

• First and foremost, the actual game plan was completed pretty much in full. I had to make no sacrifices to any gameplay elements this time around. Of course, having an extra 24 hours than I’m used to (and not having to worry about doing the art) helped.
• Kami’s art came out really good! She insisted on doing the wobbly style where the same frame is drawn twice and it alternates between them, which wasn’t too tricky to set up (all the graphics tick on an internal timer so that they change in unison); worth the extra effort I think.
• The music loop, while short, sets the mood well and doesn’t feel that repetitive.

What Went Wrong

• The pathfinding for the map screen was a nightmare. There were probably easier ways to do what I was doing, but my weird convoluted way of trying to send a truck to the nearest intersection didn’t work all the time for reasons I couldn’t solve, and sometimes the truck even bounced back and forth between two intersections endlessly. I eventually just made it so that the truck can’t visit the same intersection twice, and that “solved” it, although it would still drive across the grass much of the time. The important thing is that it always reaches the destination.
• There’s still a game-breaking bug that occurs at random when exiting the truck loading screen while at a customer’s house. It’s extremely rare, but when it happens, you can no longer click in any buttons. It happens on the Windows download and the HTML5, so it’s not the platform. Without a way to duplicate the issue reliably, and nothing obvious causing the problem, I have no idea how to fix it.
• With more time, I’d like to have had more music (or at least dynamic music, like I usually do), and more customers to answer the door (currently there’s just one). I was so overwhelmed with fixing bugs in the last 24 hours that I just didn’t have time to work on any more music. And Kami’s insistence on drawing the wobble effect meant she was drawing double the art for almost everything; it was so much work for her that we both agreed to just have one customer (for now).

The Future?

• Like most of my LD entries, I’d like to expand this, but I’m not entirely sure how to make a full game out of this. Aside from adding extra customers to answer the door, the gameplay loop is pretty straightforward. The only way I can think of would be to add some sort of overarching story to go along with it, plus special events to deal with. Kami has expressed willingness to continue doing art for it if I decide to expand it to a full game. I just have so much on my plate already, and so many LD entries I’d already like to expand on, that I’m just not sure yet.