postmortem for Sprout!

This game is almost the best game I've done so far, at least the graphic. We got 2nd in 1000+ game which is impossible but amazing. The image is a collection of all the pictures our artist drew during this jam.

The lesson I've learned from the jam:

• Lower the difficulty of the game. I've made this mistake several times but might still make it several times... Because I'm the developer of the game, I know all the tricks to pass the game, but don't expect all players to have the same ability. So either remove the difficult part or move it to some "extra credit" part, so the player can always finish the game. The difficulty curve is another thing to think about but I think that's too much to consider for a jam game.
• FMod does not work well on the web. I haven't found a good way to solve this yet...
• Think about bundle size. I haven't taken time to investigate but the huge image size might be one of the reasons. Maybe build an EXE file at first to test bundle size.
• Try to reduce narrative words. No one wants to read in-game - unless they want. So make narrative words optional, and if possible use image to do narrative.
• order of the sprite would be random if they are the same. It might cause some random visual issues so take care next time.

The good thing about the jam:

• I actually tried some new genre other than topdown. It's not perfect, Players complain about jumping but it's a start!
• Cut the function if needed. The best decision I made during the development is to cut the birds function at the end of the second day because I realized I don't have that much time since I only have 1 day more. And that's true.
• Trust your teammate. I thought it is an impossible task to finish all art in 3 days but turns out I was wrong. If your teammate told you he can do it, trust him.