Game Jam Postmortem

As much I would like to be harsh on myself on the things I didn't get done for the project, I have to pat myself on the back for this being my first ever completed game during a game jam. I learned a lot during this process, and I have to say I've finally managed to find a workflow that lets me complete these projects in time.

With that being said,  I'm happy that I was able to complete these things during this game:

• Zelda-like top down adventure: Although it doesn't have the charm of the classics, I'd say I did a decent job of emulating that feeling.
• Enemies and AI: I've never made any sort of AI or NPCs in games, so this was a good learning experience. Although I wish I could do more in terms of patterns and variations, I think they work well.
• Puzzles and levels: My goal for this jam was to make 3 "levels" all focusing on some specific curse. I quickly realized I didn't have time for this, and so decide to quickly make up so levels with Godot 4.0s new Tilemap system (which is pretty good imo). I ended making 2 levels both with decent puzzles too. I tried to be more vague with the hints for the puzzle without using any sort of dialogue, which I hope doesn't stop people from being able to solve these puzzles.
• Boss: I'm really happy I managed to make a boss in the timeframe I had.  I had finished all the levels and I really wanted to make a boss with patterns and different moves than just chasing you around. I super happy I was able to do this within 1 day and although it's far from perfect, I learned a lot about making one and having one does make this feel like a old 2d Zelda game.
• Story and CG: The kobold character and dragon CGs are basically the only art assets I managed to create during this jam. I literally made the CGs last minute, so I decided to go with a old school Gameboy aesthetic, which was how I was able to produce something in that time. This is one aspect I wish I could work more on.

What I wish I could've done:

• More Art: Like I said, I only made the kobold and dragon sprites, CGs, and portraits. I'm not an artist, but I feel like I can still develop better skills so that I can make more original content. I know this comes with time, but it's frustrating nonetheless.
• Music and SFX: Last minute added all of this from the asset pack I used. The music is good, just wish I could've selected something myself that fit the game more imo. Also didn't really have time to add options to change the volume of any tracks, which is a big downside.
• VFX: There is no special lighting or any sort of visual effects that I wish I could've added. I want to add things like clouds when rolling, attack effects, torch lighting, and flashier animations.
• Spaghetti Code: I spent a large chunk of time optimizing and cleaning up my already working character and enemy controllers than most of the other chunks of code I made for the project (puzzles, dialogue scripting, etc.). This resulted in way too many files being made because I just didn't have the time to properly code objects. Hopefully this doesn't result in too many bugs.
• Gameplay depth: I glad I scoped this project properly, but there's so much more I wanted to add. I wanted the kobold to spit fireballs, stamina, and other mechanics that would be unlocked progressively like a traditional Zelda game, but again, not enough time.

I'm writing this all down as a way to remind myself of the things I need to work on and the mistakes I made to ensure I don't make them again. Also, I found a lot of bugs and worked around them in Godot 4.0rc2, so it would've wise for me to just stick with 3.5 since I wasn't really using anything fancy from 4.0 other than the new Tilemap and navigation features.