Quality Or Quantity - A Brief Post-Mortem
Going It Alone
This was my first solo jam of this length and scale, and I definitely learned a few things the hard way about scoping out a solo project, even with a deadline as seemingly forgiving as 72 hours.
As such, I figured I'd write down a sort of 'post-mortem' of what I think I did right and wrong based off the feedback I've received so far from the people I've watched play it.
Content Over Systems
One of the bigger mistakes I think I made was prioritising developing 'elegant' systems for the game as if I was building something bigger and with more longevity. Sometimes you really have to remember this is a jam game, not a commercial product - its okay to code things with shortcuts that make it work, even if the code would make you shudder to revisit it.
Unfortunately, I do not listen to my own advice and spent a lot of time working on elegant systems for spawning, a scripted boss fight, health / enemy systems etc. I think if I really focused on just making stuff work without any bells and whistles, I could have saved hours here.
The result of which is I think the game's core gameplay and loop is solid and satisfying, and the polish feels very good - but there's just not enough of it. I have a generation system that spawns a procedural loop made up of different rooms, but I didn't have enough time to make enough rooms to make them feel varied and interesting, or to add cool secret rooms to the pool to add replayability.
I think in gamejams of this length, its important to focus on content and solid gamefeel above all else. Well structured code is for your day job!
Some ranged enemies launching their fiery spit at the player. Gross.
Similarly to the generation, I spent a lot of time making 2 enemy types that are on the surface quite basic, but spent a lot of time making their background workings more elegant. The player doesn't care about how well your enemy's code is structured - they just want more enemies! I wish I had instead tried to fit 1 or 2 more distinctive enemy types in instead.
Especially as this is a Jam game and not a Compo entry, content takes precedence over code quality 100% of the time in my mind, and I'll try and force myself to adhere to that principle in future solo jams.
Cheers!
Ouroboros is available here to try out if you fancy, would love to hear your feedback if you have any. I intend to release a follow-up patch to add a lot of extra content post-LDJam, so feel free to follow me on Itch or Twitter if you want to be updated.