So, I thought I would make a brief post-mortem about my narrative parser game, Ask Her. I don’t want to bore people, so I’ll keep it simple so you can read it and maybe relate to it or even improve a bit your own jam pipeline.
Overall, I would say I’m happy with the game although it is not nearly as polished as my initial plan, but it’s a compo entry and I couldn’t even start early, so that works for me!
Here’s the link to the game in case you wanna try it first: ASK HER
What went right:
- The concept: I always loved the “Aisle” and “Her Story” approach on text adventures (Her Story is kind of a text adventure, arguably), so I thought I would do my own. While I am no Sam Barlow, I’m happy with the approach I followed, at least for a game with a 30-35h scope (since I skipped the first hours of development).
- The “art” pipeline: It is no secret that I am no illustrator, and although the game is not visually good enough to me, it took me just like 5% of the development, which is what I was aiming for. I was even thinking about going full text adventure, but then I thought the mood would suffer a lot from it. So, I asked a friend of mine to take some pics in very specific situations (Thanks a lot Claudia!), used a smooth transition animation and… this was the result. Not amazing, but for a game designer and programmer which had only a couple hours to put into it, more than enough!
- I took it easy: That’s it. I finished a game from a concept I liked by myself (except music, had no time for that at all :/), and could eat and sleep well, and even play some games with a friend. That’s new to me! I guess I had a decent scope this time, and also I had no need to make a hit of a game.
The “so-so”:
- The narrative design: Although not as rounded up as I was aiming for, I think it is deep enough to make people at least wonder about the plot, and maybe even keep people engaged (although the “ludum target” doesn’t usually spend that much time in games) for enough time to delve into the deeper narrative layer. People can also enjoy asking for the first and simpler layer, but unfortunately there is probably not enough content for them to have much fun with regular questions. That is the lacking part of it I guess, but since I had time for only one layer, I chose to develop the “plot one” a bit more.
What went wrong:
- The post-publishing. That is: putting it into the streamers list, play lots of games, show it to people, make a postmortem (at least I got to do that), spread the word in social media… This was mainly because I ended up a bit tired and because of the lack of free time. Also, it’s the part of the development I like the least.
- Not enough testing. For a game like this, you should send this game to many friends and ask them about what they would ask, but I went full hikkikomori on the development and showed it to like 2 people, and that was it.
- The “look”. I think it has a slighter amateurish look than I was expecting, and I think it comes from the lack of time I could put into the art assets. Next time I’ll put more time into the polishing and less into the narrative design, although I guess it’s the strong point of the game.
Things learnt for my next ludum:
- Keep choosing well-scoped games and cool concepts over super-duper-awesome games.
- Improve my post-publishing involvement by A LOT, and also show the development to friends.
- Find some time for the music or find a musician and do the Jam one instead of the Compo.
- Put a bit more time into the looks, don’t call it done when it is looking “decent enough”.
Hope you enjoy the game if you play it, and see you in the next ludum!
Im out of the audio category anyway), I’m pretty proud of my game: Testosterone Man!