Post-Mortem

The most salient lesson from this project probably lies in the fact that my Devlog skips straight from "Planning Phase" to "Post-Mortem." What worked the least about this game is probably that I didn't do enough design work before diving into Unity and slapping things together. I'm happy with the way some of the interface and atmosphere turned out, but building those was incredibly time consuming. Meanwhile, the actual content of the game suffered. I remember being stuck on how to implement the encounters in a way that would make it easy to add more... for about 5 days.

Time Management

I think if I had put more time into turning my broader vision from the first post into actionable tasks, I would have used my time much better. It's hard to work on something when you don't know what needs done next! It probably didn't help that I was only able to put 12 - 15 hours into the game over the past two weeks. But I could have planned for that, and cut my scope down to size accordingly.

UI / UX

Most of what was implemented ended up feeling very rough. The interface could use some fine-tuning. Resources should probably be given space in the top header with symbols instead of words. They could have mouseover tooltips with the name written out. There could be more explanation given to how certain things work in the game... but I would almost maintain that in an unfolding game, part of the fun is discovering systems yourself. As long as they behave predictably when experimented with, no explanation should be strictly necessary. There's plenty of wiggle room to ignore thirst for quite a while and still catch it in time.

Endings

The endings definitely feel very abrupt, but I knew that I wasn't going to have time for any more encounters after the third one went in, so I designed it to be the end of the chapter. I liked the idea of the ghastly ending being kind of ambiguous about the nature of the thief. Is he a literal vengeful spirit? I'd like to keep that encounter as the chapter end and put more before it, possibly with more foreshadowing and a chance to redeem yourself if you didn't mercy the thief from the beginning.

Atmosphere

I think having some static art on each panel would help fill the negative space and improve the atmosphere of the game, but I never found anything I was happy with. Nothing didn't feel like clip art or stock photos. Then again, the game is intentionally agraphical, so maybe I could fill those panels with something else. I also wanted to add the water trickling back into the main game scene, and make it louder or quieter the closer or farther you got from The Spring tab. So it'd be quietest on The Dusty Path. Didn't have time for that, but it'd be an easy add.

Gameplay

There's a whole lot of scope that I want to cram back into this game when I have time to expand it. If I try to tackle the second and third chapters, I'm going to need a lot more planning. As for what's currently in, I feel like there's just about enough tension between trying to expand your operation and look after your own thirst. Digging clay increases thirst more than being passive. In fact, I think every action could have a thirst cost that needs to be considered. That's another thing I'm not sure I would telegraph directly - just let the player try to keep track of how much different actions cost. The game needs to leave the player with some cognitive load or else it's just an idle clicker, not a true management game. Unfortunately, as the game is now, there's not enough time or reason to try to take a lot of actions. Encounters come by too quickly, and there aren't any upgrades to really work towards when nobody's around.

Conclusion

I can't wait to keep working on this game. I think there's a nugget of success under all the issues. But for now, I rest and enjoy all the other jam submissions. Thank you for reading and playing!