Hei,

First, if you haven’t checked my game Twisted Firestarter yet, please do so now because this post will be about the development of it. Please feel free to leave a vote for me on the indie jam page as well :)

http://gamejolt.com/games/arcade/twisted-firestarter/38874/

So now that I have finally slept and stepped back to take a look at this whole thing I realised that could have been done differently.

1. I made my entry in the game jam late. I was still at work when I decided I want to participate in the jam. I had no team set up or anything. Now I look how much more exposure the firstly submitted games received I think I messed up by adding my entry 12 hours late.

2. Spending first 6 hours on a detailed concept art, redrawing it in vector and then making the logo and all the early promotional material instead of working on a playable prototype. My reasoning was that an attractive banner image would attract more views and followers early on and would help me build a following. welp.. should have worked on a playable prototype first… I could have avoided some nasty programming issues and the early following wasn’t that huge. 70% of the programming was done in the past 7 hours of the contest. so yea… that speaks for itself.

3. Not getting a webcam while streaming. So since I decided so spontaneously join the jam, I didn’t prepare enough. Streaming was fun and cool, but the viewer amount rarely went above 10. People like face cams, they feel more connected to the streamer that way. I also didn’t use mic for 90% of the time which was a minus.

4. Not saving up money to buy construct 2 and spriter. Man… how I wish I had full versions of those programs during the jam. They are such great tools which allow inexperienced devs like me do simple games at ease. Using these tools really lowers the entry barrier for being a game dev. Some may argue that that using construct 2 is bad and that the result has chances of having a bad performance… they may also say that no self respecting game dev would use that tool and so on… they may be right… But I will never deny how easy and fast is to work with those tools!

5. Using a fresh twitter account with 0 followers to promote the game. Yeah… I got into this twitter thing wayyy too late.

6. Not making the game fit the criteria too well. It may be fun to play but I doubt it is fun to watch. Well let’s compare with “Where is my hammer” - that game is so fun to play and almost zen like to watch someone else do it. It may not have a narrative or be much of a game to be true BUT it fit the jams criteria perfectly! And maybe I should have focussed less on developing a slightly challenging arcade and more on fun to play and fun to watch.

Now that I had some time to think I realised I did this more for myself than for the jam. I did this game to prove myself that if I try - I can make a game. And as flawed as it may be It is my first and it will always have a place in my heart. The milestone I shall remember.

Cheers,

Beer Cake

Please vote for Twisted Firestarter here: http://jams.gamejolt.io/indiesvspewdiepie/games/twisted-firestarter/38874