Oh wow! For a game I tried to keep simple to avoid repeating missing the deadline, I'm quite humbled to get in the top 10 in one category for the very first time I believe.

I'm also very happy to get 36th overall, especially when applying lessons I've learned last Jam. My last few entries were trending downwards, so I was actually thinking of trying out different styles in the last two jams. I decided to go with a more action-oriented, arcade style to it. I've tried doing that in LD52, but scope creep and unfamiliarity with doing this kind of genre for a Jam ultimately doomed that project. For The Convoy, I therefore decided to do it very simple: Run around a delivery truck and shoot the enemies. And it actually kinda worked! Well at least good enough for me to be able to ship the game in time :D

However, after shipping it, I still realised there are two main areas that kinda hurt the game:

1. Players struggled to figure out you could shoot diagonally

This one really surprised me! In my mind, I thought that was something everyone would assume, but nope! But then, looking at Contra (Which inspired the control scheme), there are subtle cues to let the player know that shooting in all directions is indeed possible. Let's look at it shall we?

youtube.com/watch?v=2mWZlNOzdv8 (Sorry for the raw link, couldn't figure out how to embed and don't feel like figuring out)

When you start the game, two things come to mind. The guy on the bottom shooting at you, which would instinctively make you try to shoot downwards, and the bonus capsule hovering around, just enough to coax you into aiming up. And of course, since that game had more memory than mine does (Mine fits in 24 kilobytes... Yes, kilobytes!), they could add more aiming animations to let the player know this more easily. Visual cues are important, obviously, but next time I should not just assume everyone would naturally know something that is a fairly central mechanic. Which brings me:

2. Testing...

Ah yes, that part that always brings my games down. I always tend to focus on developing my games, but never let someone else test them. Partly because I'm too busy making the game in the first place, but also because I'm reluctant to do so since the Compo stipulates you must work alone. I don't know to what extent it would be okay to let someone else playtest the game, but I'd certainly think about allocating some time to get someone else try the game during development, so that I can iron out any design cues like I've pointed out in 1.

And with that said, I think that's gonna be a wrap! See you next LD.