My 2nd game jam is complete. While this was my 2nd jam it was still a jam of 1sts. 1st time using a moveable character, physics, audio, enemy ai, and a camera. I can't wait to see all the other games, the previews in the feed looks promising!

Do you think you can beat my high score of 33.13?

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/lucky-lefty-loves-loops

I hit a personal best of 30.90s: but not nearly as good as @arthurds high score!

I would love to do an online leaderboard for another jam since that sounds like it would be rather fun!

Here's my low tech version of a updated leader board:

1. 28.63 @ausstein
2. 28.86 @arthurds
3. 30.90 @thebooksnail
4. 33.83 @dkdwrek
5. 34.00 @netmute
6. 34.04 @rossmoff
7. 38.56 @elysiagriffin
8. 38.70 @nethead
9. 39.93 @wendel-scardua
10. 43.58 @jenny-bourke
11. 45.00 @dvdfu

Play here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/lucky-lefty-loves-loops

There are many different ways to look at game jams and the "right" way to do them. For me, I've used them as motivation to try new things I wouldn't normally find the time for. Nothing like an impending deadline to get you going! I also want something more complete and finished at the end of the jam than other jammers might be looking for. The following is my postmortem on my team's game. Maybe you might find something useful out of it? I know I did.

When thinking about what was a success and what could have been done better, I realized that for every topic where I got something right there was also something I got wrong for that same very topic. Here's a list of areas in my game that have both a success followed by its failure.

High Score

My previous game jam included a hastily thrown in high score but the game was so basic and was to see how long you can survive (or how long you can stave off boredom) that it didn't really have much of an appeal to get a high score. I recognized that having a high score tracker is often worth taking the time to add and in this game it fits the need for it much better. It's great to see people post their high scores and come back to the game to beat others' high scores.

While I did include a high score and I feel like it was a hit, I can't help but think that having a local and online leaderboard would have made it notably more completive. Seeing other games with an online leaderboard definitely showed me I missed out. This is something I will keep in mind for future jams.

Button feedback

My previous game didn't have any clickable buttons but it did have some user input feedback. For this jam I made sure to make my buttons have mouseover and click images. Little things like button feedback really helps give your game that polish that people might not actively notice but can affect their overall opinion of the game. Just ask @elysiagriffin :smiley:

My buttons were very basic, I could have spent just a tad bit longer on them. Including visibly pressed buttons and a mouse over that really popped would have been even better. Audio clicks would have been a nice touch at hardly any extra dev time.

Audio

I considered audio as a stretch goal for my first jam but I made sure to add sfx and music for this game, no matter how basic. Much like button feedback, a little bit goes a long way but in this case people will notice if your game doesn't have audio. I find no audio often gives a game a bit of a hollow feeling. This was my first time doing sfx and music and I'm pretty happy with it.

My one regret was not spending more time on the music. I was extremely intimidated and came up with a silly and small 7 second tune to add in. I added some instrument variation when completing each loop but it was still way too short and therefore repetitive. I should have tried for at least 15 seconds of music if not longer.

Volume Control

I've seen streamers play countless LD games with audio that was too loud. Having adjustable volume control is a valued attribute to streamers so I'm glad I took the time to add it.

I should have had volume control accessible while in game, not just in the title screen. Players often don't realize they want to make adjustments until they are in game. My volume control settings also don't save which would be great if you want people to come back and play your game multiple times.

Title screen movement

My game's movement is intentionally a little...slippery. I wanted to give players a chance to test out movement on the title screen and make the screen a little more interesting.

I didn't do enough to message that Lucky is moveable in the title screen. I would guess the majority of people who played didn't even know. I should have had an in game prompt telling them to try instead of just adding some auto movement on the title in hopes players would notice and try to press some movement keys.

Getting help

My first jam I had no experience and I did everything myself. I don't regret it but it makes sense tackling new areas in smaller bites. For this jam I was lucky enough to get @elysiagriffin to help with the art and animation. While I would love to get better at game art assets, it was a huge relief to have time to work on other aspects of the game.

I could have used more help. I use jams to try out new things and having so many other things on my plate means I can't play around in depth with new interesting areas. I feel like a 3 or 4 person team split among disciplines would be ideal. That said, I find it likely I will continue to be on a 1 to 2 person team in the future.

Mood

I was aiming for a simple, fun, and a little silly game. I feel like I delivered. The music, sfx, player movement, art (from @elysiagriffin), ending loop mechanic all fit what I was going for.

My goofy AI movement fits the mood but only accidently, when playing around with getting Righty movement in it was completely broken but at the same time I kind of liked it so I kept it. That isn't something I should count on and who knows, if I did it correctly maybe the game would be better.

Small scope

I have excelled in both my jams at setting a realistic scope and being able to finish a game. It might not be award winning in content but it's very satisfying to finish a project and be happy with the results.

Having an overly small scope means you don't challenge yourself as much. Playing it safe meant I didn't even try audio in my first jam and while I went further in this jam there were still areas I skirted around due to keeping my scope small. I wanted to have a slime trail but I was worried about it being too complex to tackle with my current knowledge and have it turn out good so I barely even tried and gave up early.

In conclusion, I've learned just as much in this jam as my first and can't wait to use what I've gained in the next LD!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/lucky-lefty-loves-loops

I started out with some embarrassing placeholder art to get a feel for if my idea made sense and if I was able to do the movement correctly.

Then @elysiagriffin gave me a draft of the art and animation for Lucky Lefty (which I thought was good enough to be final) and I was able to play around with using animation for the first time.

And then in all came together for the submission.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/lucky-lefty-loves-loops

It's a great feeling to see people play your game multiple times for high scores. I wanted to give a shoutout to all the speedrunners of Lucky Lefty Loves Loops. Here's to @arthurds who was the first to get a notable global high score (beating my high score by several seconds) and the first person that I saw use the sneaky backwards start tactic.

But @ausstein got it down to an art form. Here's @ausstein's video of one of the extremely impressive speedruns. I believe the current record is 27.83. Only the foolish or extremely talented would even try breaking that! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnOIyzbqzyk

What is a developer to do when players beat their high score? Cheat!

beat that score!

Play here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/lucky-lefty-loves-loops

Lucky Lefty has a left handed shell. What does that mean? It means their shell spirals outward in a counter clockwise direction or to the left (sinistral chirality if you want to get all fancy). In many species of snails, the vast majority of snails are right handed and only a rare few are left handed. If you don't spend a lot of time gazing at snails you still might have no clue to what I'm babbling about. It's important to realize that the shell isn't symmetrical, as the shell grows it spirals right (or left) AND out. So the other side of a snail shell that doesn't have the spiral is just the rounded curve of the last spiral. If you are looking at a snail that is facing to the right and you can see the spiral, that means that you will be seeing a clockwise spiral and that snail will have a right-handed shell.

If you could see the other side of Lucky, it would look something like this:

You will notice righties are facing the same direction as above but you can see their spiral in game.

To get a better idea of what I'm talking about, you can play here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/lucky-lefty-loves-loops

We now have a page for the HTML5 patch version along with the original LD47 HTML5 submission.

Really good news! Your local high score record will be on the patched version too!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/lucky-lefty-loves-loops

Patch Notes of latest version: - Can now use full screen on itch - Now quit game with Q key instead of Esc - Audio settings now save when exiting - Fix to snail draw order so Righties are consistent - Fixed a high score rounding error - Always shows 2 decimal places - Can now reset (R) or quit (Q) during zoom transition - Better messaging to player they can move on title screen

Shout out to all the jam teammates out there. This is my 2nd jam and my 1st jam with a teammate. @elysiagriffin is the heart and soul behind bringing Lucky Lefty to life with art and animation. Thank you so much for lending your time and talent to making our game.

Here's Elysia playing our game:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/761666705?t=46m23s

Play Lucky Lefty Loves Loops here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/lucky-lefty-loves-loops

The key to a great game is "juice".

All jokes aside, @dummydojo gave me some great advice for my game. I was only thinking about new features to make it a better game where they said it already does what it set out to do and the only thing really left is to add some "game feel" or "juice". They were also nice enough to explain what "game feel" was after I admitted ignorance :laughing: I am thinking about how I can fill my game with love and tiny details and will take this knowledge with me to future jams.

Watch @dummydojo play my game here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/769829354?t=2h8m20s

Play their game here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/undead-carnival-carnage

Play Lucky Lefty Loves Loops here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/lucky-lefty-loves-loops

How It Started

How It's Going

Play Lucky Lefty Loves Loops here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/lucky-lefty-loves-loops

Limited time Halloween skins in post jam version of the game!

Play Lucky Lefty Loves Loops here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/lucky-lefty-loves-loops

You can now race against your high score ghost! This only works on the post jam version and only on high scores achieved since the patched version.

Play Lucky Lefty Loves Loops here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/lucky-lefty-loves-loops

Am I doing it right?

Either something is wrong with everyone else or something is wrong with me based on how different my vote distribution is from others. The simplest explanation is that something is wrong with me.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/lucky-lefty-loves-landslides

I start every ~~day~~ jam with a big bowl of [placeholder]. If it's been a rough ~~day~~ jam, sometimes you also end your ~~day~~ jam with a bowl of [placeholder].

What are people's suggestions for getting helpful feedback? I was thinking it might help if I put my own self feedback so users will know what I already know (yes, include music, I got it) as well as listing out specific areas I'm interested in getting feedback on. Though I don't always know what kind of feedback is useful until I hear it. I worry people won't read what I write though, maybe it would be more visible if I put it as the first comment for the game? Seeing video of someone playing my game is always great because it allows me to see all the areas where I've made bad assumptions and the user often doesn't even know something went wrong in those cases.

What about giving good feedback? Should I be recording videos?! Just write "great game" for the karma (joke)? What kind of feedback are you looking for in your games?

You will wake up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat. You somehow already know you are going to hate the chosen theme and even though it doesn't make sense, you know in your heart of hearts it's my fault. If it wasn't for me, a good theme would have been picked and you would have made the best game that won first place and everyone would finally know how awesome you really are. If only...

Sweet dreams my jammers.

Lucky Lefty suggests not being too greedy.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/lucky-lefty-loves-late-night-literature

One of my goals for this jam was to make a game that can be played on a phone. I still have a lot to learn about best practices but I succeeded!

If you want to check out a puzzle game that can be played on your phone, check out:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/lucky-lefty-lost-in-a-labyrinth

Thanks to @ElysiaGriffin for the great title image and other art.