post mortem - first game

My first game jam finished. so as my first game. 

I've spent 2 weeks on this game, around 2 hours a day, roughly 20~30 hours in total. Here are some good & bad part of the game, what I've learned, and how to make it better next.

Good:

I finished a game! It has a original gameplay, full game circle with 2 endings, music and sfx(not made by me), art, built on browser. As my first game, I'm pretty proud I finished all this and this is what I expected from this game.

I just got ONE comment on my game when I thought I would get no one comments. YEAHHH! Thanks Olaf The Game Master.

Bad:

The biggest problem, the game is not fun. I'm not sure how many people would finish it but I can understand if they get board or tired after 3 or 4 levels. There are several improvement I can make, which I'll explain later.

I haven't finish all the functions I've expected.  Part of the reason is I don't have enough time, part is because I feel it is not fun so I get lazy and don't want to. Dream big but accomplish small. 

Learning for next time:

Game pitch. I should test my design with at least one person, sometimes the game sounds fun when it is in my brain, but not when I start to explain to someone. I should stop it from this time, not when the game is almost finished.

Story is not important. I don't mean it is not important at all, but since I'm not an expert artist or author, even not a native speaker, it is hard for me to tell a good story. I should focus on the gameplay instead of the story.

Time control. I should have a detailed plan for each part of the game next. For a two week(14 days) game jam, lets say 4 days for core gameplay, 4 days for art, sound and story, 2 days for level or detail game play, 4 days for testing, debugging and juice it. I'll use this timeline next time and see how it goes.

Test earlier. This is related to the previous one. I start my gameplay too late so it is too late when I start to make a buildable game and test it, myself and by others. Should focus on core game first to avoid this.

More accumulation. In several things: game ideas( I just noticed a game and has an idea to make a change to it for this game jam), code(I spent 0.5 on save/load system since I implemented it before, but 1 hour on how to do tile map, 'cause I've never done it..), art and music.

Juice the game. Also related to time control. Add particle effects, tween, screen shaking, sfx to make the game more attractive.

Let's see how my next game would go!