Another game development competition, another success. The theme of the competition was “Sharks”, and I came up with the idea almost immediately. Also had two more ideas, which I scrapped, because this idea fit very well with the HTML5 platform, which I’ve been meaning to learn to use properly.

Now, even if it was a success, it was not a complete one. Mistakes I’ve made:

• Once again went with a library I wasn’t familiar with, which ended up taking a bunch of time. Not avoidable since I planned on a platform that I haven’t used much.

• Spent a lot of time figuring out the platform. Once again, not avoidable in this case.

• Had to scrap a lot of features at the end, because I hadn’t planned on them being so complicated. Highscore tables are surprisingly hard to do right in Javascript/HTML5.

A good deal fewer than I made starting out with game development, but still too many and too severe.

On the upside, things I enjoyed:

• Art came together beautifully, and I’m still surprised I managed to draw things that look quite good.

• Click-and-run platform. Such a wonder.

• Gameplay that is mildly fun, which is a lot more than I can say for some projects of mine.

Anyway, this was a success, as an experiment. Looking forward to more game jams.