DEVTOBER 31 [retrospective]

This is the second year I’ve participated in Devtober! Game dev every day for a month can be tough, but it’s a great way to build up some incredible momentum.

Right now, I’m definitely feeling about like I did back in ProtoDungeon: Episode II, mired in the menu and saving systems. It’s a lot of gritty, technical work with loads of mysterious bugs, so I don’t necessarily feel like I have momentum. Even looking back over my progress didn’t inspire much enthusiasm until I remembered: almost nothing worked at the end of September. And reading through September’s devlog… well, gosh darn it, maybe I’m doing alright.

My goal for Devtober was to have Episode III playable from start to end. Well… the results are in:

Is it pretty? No!

Is it feature complete? No!

Is it bug-free? Definitely not!

Is it playable? You betcha!

So we made it! It was kind of in a super rickety jalopy that’s constantly backfiring, with wheels that keep slipping off and a floor rusted through, and there are a hundred angry cats in the backseat (for some reason), but we made it!

In our retrospectives at my day job, we always go over a few basic questions. What went well? What didn’t go well? What can we do better next time? So I’d like to ask those here:

What went well?

• I actually achieved my goal: the game is end-to-end playable.
• Mid-month vacation–stepping back, only working with pen and paper–was a great change of pace.
• I made a lot of progress considering the type of thing I’m working on.

What didn’t go well?

• Z-height bugs hounded me at every step.
• I never even started work on the boss or the secret challenge room.
• Most enemies and obstacles are not in the game.
• Pretty discouraging dev overall.

What can we do better next time? (Referring here to Episode IV)

Limit scope, limit scope, limit scope. Episode III would have been pretty okay if I hadn’t decided to completely rework z-height. Once I saw how big a task that was, I should have been much more ruthless on the cutting floor. As they are now, Episodes IV-VI are pretty lightweight on new features, so they could’ve taken more of the load.

Also, Episode III is big. It’s nowhere near as big as The Waking Cloak, of course, but it’s definitely much bigger than it needed to be for a prototype dungeon. That’s more time filling it out, more time decorating, more rooms in general.

Also with that in mind, I have decided to cut the boss for Episode III. I had plans, but nothing implemented. Instead, I’ll wrap up the episode similarly to the ends of Episodes I and II: something simple.