The Hot Dog Stand - Postmortem

Hello all, 

It has been a while since I last made a post mortem but I am aiming to make one for each project going forward. I made this game as an entry for the Game Dev.tv 2024 game jam with the theme of the event being last stand. I originally wanted to do this game jam with some of my friends but due to a lack of notice and short length of the jam; it turned into mostly a solo project. Hopefully writing this document will help me reflect on and build upon my skills when it comes to game development. Same as always, let's dive into what went well, what went wrong, and what my future plans are.

Starting off with what went well is the fact that I was able to submit a fully working game that didn’t have any major problems rendering it unplayable after the first day. I was also happy with the homegrown sound effects for the game that I made by warbling into my microphone. Everything was thematically congruent art wise even though I was using a bunch of pre-made free assets. I did write up a design document which did help quite a bit. It’s funny how making a list eliminates the fog of war surrounding you when there are so many different objectives and tasks needing to be completed. I placed 264th overall out of 1116 entries which is in the upper 25 percent so that's super neat. I really do wish that we were given a lot more time to play and rate the other entries for the game jam. I do have quite a bit to improve on but that can wait until the next section. I am also satisfied with the variety of guns I was able to implement that all feel unique. I do plan on attending this jam every year as both a benchmark to see how far I have come and to celebrate it as my first game jam that I attended back in 2023.

Next I’ll go over what didn’t go so well starting with my ability to not properly plan for the event. It may have mostly been my fault when communicating the scope, scale and length of the game jam when attempting to partner up with some friends. Hopefully I will be able to choose a jam that has a much longer work period than a week, especially when working with people who have not participated in a game jam before. I also started the jam late due to more waffling around with the indecision to even participate due to lack of participation from my would be team members. I did eventually steel my resolve and get to work but not after wasting a few days worth of time. I did create a GDC(Game Design Document) that was quite helpful for the game but I didn’t stick to the goals that I had set, like when I ignored all of the goals I had set to be completed on Thursday to play games with friends instead.(Curse you Elden ring co-op!) I still have to update the game’s entry page so it's not the bare bones basics and fits the game. Most of the art for the game was from pre-existing assets which was fine but I planned on adding my own custom animation for the player walking and the start screen that had to be scrapped to make the deadline. I also missed implementing an intro theme, creating a reloading sound, missing a bug that causes the game to crash when a new gun is spawned and adjusting the hitbox on the start button. This game wasn’t as polished as I would have liked it to be and I should have done more play testing with others even if I didn’t leave much time for it. 

Lastly, we will go over my future plans about the game and what I plan to do in general. Game jams always leave me conflicted about the project after they end. I know that developers are free to continue updating and improving on their games after the event ends, but in doing so they overwrite the original submission. I like to use my game jam entries as a benchmark of how I have improved over time and updating it too much feels like masking the results of my work. I have a different mindset when developing a game specifically for a jam and when creating a project just for fun. When developing for a jam I am always thinking in the short term. I usually try to find an idea that is safely executable within the jam’s time frame. I like to try a new genre or playstyle but I view them as a practice experience rather than creating a professionally crafted and well polished product. For the next jam I participate in I plan on trying to break this mindset into tiny pieces and focus on creating something I would like to publish on steam.  I plan on participating in the next Pirate Software Game Jam 15 (https://itch.io/jam/pirate) which starts in about a month’s time. This should give me plenty of time to work on developing and learning software for better sound effects, game music and practicing my pixel art. I also want to update my profile homepage and create different sections for game jam entries and personal projects. Specifically related to this project, I plan to clean up the code and modify the game to match the feedback that I was given.

As I get to the end of this document, I would like to set myself a goal for the next game that I create. The goal I hope to achieve when I complete another game is to have it contain only sound effects and music that I or my team (I’ll have to find one first :) ) have personally created. I was rewarded with a course on SFX and audio essentials from this jam so I have a place to start. I have also been attempting to make a new piece of pixel art each day for this year to improve my skills. In conclusion, I have quite a bit to work on but I have a clear list of what needs to be improved by the time the next Jam starts. 

Hopefully I’ll have a spicy meatball of  a game to show off in about a month’s time. 

The Birderer