Hand Cramped LD42: A Postmortem

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I've never done one of these fancy schmancy postmortems so lets give one a shot. Here we go.

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Intro

Event Thoughts/Overview

The theme for Ludum Dare 42 was "Running out of space" which was on my list of acceptable theme ideas but definitely not my first choice. I always attempt to submit my entries into the compo, but for this event I was nowhere near finished going into the end of the compo so I decided to give myself the extra day. By the end of the jam I was exhausted having been up for over 36 hours by the time I actually submitted my entry and cleaned up.

Game Thoughts/Overview

In the past four LDs I made 2D side scrolling games with a controllable character and going into this one I wanted to do something different. So within the first few minutes of theme announcement I decided to go with a card game, and the original plan to fit the theme was running out of hand space. However that is not what I ended up with. 

After getting core mechanics of card drawing and playing implemented, I experimented with a few ideas messing with hand space. Originally a single card would be drawn every x seconds and if your hand filled the left most card would be discarded. Discarded cards had a negative effect against the player and the upgrade system was vastly different. After a few play tests though there was zero strategy to the game. It all boiled down to playing cards as fast as possible with no thought to what was being played.

After some more thought and testing I ended up changing the game to drawing a whole hand and the "space" that was running out was the play field space.

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What went well

Art:

If anyone takes a look at my previous jam games, art is in no way my strong suit. But for this jam I am very happy with most of the art assets. It doesn't compare to what an actual artist could create but if I can maintain this level of assets in my jam games I will be happy.

Strategy:

Considering I almost gutted my original idea because it had no strategy, I'm happy with the strategic planning available when playing my end result. It is still possible to play just spamming out cards as fast as you can, but there is some depth to be achieved if you try. Things like timing block cards back to back to keep the shield from degrading or landing the killing blow just before an attack goes off to avoid the damage.

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What went poorly

Time Management:

I think I could have pulled the end result off for the compo if not for poor time management. I spent way to much time messing with and working on things that just didn't go anywhere. But after most of the second day being reworking things to the new plan I just didn't have the time to finish for the compo.

Game Balance:

The game balance is way off in my opinion. There is just so many levers and dials to mess with that getting it to feel right is hard. Each card has multiple levels which each level has a base power level, cast time and upgrade time. Add on that the monster level and abilities, and how quickly a new hand draws. Balance is a fine line and was one of my main problems the whole weekend. Tune things to be too quick and its spammy tune things to slow and there is no challenge and no "Running out of space". It's just not in a place where I am really happy with the flow of the game.

Readability:

The game is very wordy. There's too much to read in the tutorial, and card text and level could be more clear. It's just hard to read the game quickly while playing to get a good lay of the land and plan your next moves.

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Overall

Overall I am pleased with my game. Knowing some of the art I have produced in the past, I knocked the art out of the park in my eyes this time. The game is fun to play for a while but due to balance issues doesn't have much staying power. And I don't personally believe it exactly fits the theme. But the theme was the road that started the journey. 

Thanks to anyone who gave this a read, and anyone who played the game.