Now that the game is officially published, it's time to reflect on the process, conclude and think about the next steps. 

The Idea

As I was looking for ideas, a voice inside my head kept reminding me all those YouTube videos saying "Keep it simple" and "Less is more".  So I tried to keep it simple and even came up with the idea pretty quickly. I had some doubts at first, but I sticked to the idea, trying not to judge myself too much and reminding myself simple is good and that no matter what happens, it's going to be a great learning experience . 

The Planning

From the moment the idea popped into my head, I began planning the structure of the project. Starting with the tasks I will need to complete, the specific days and hours I will be working on them, and the estimated duration each task will take. So I broke everything down to small tasks and started estimating the effort as best as I could while  placing the items on my calendar.

Conclusions

What worked?

• The Idea - Right at the beginning of the process I realized that although my idea is pretty simple, I added elements that are not critical for the main mechanic of the game. So rather quickly, I decided to get rid of elements I initially planned to work on(like the shield, super blast pickups) so I can put my entire focus on the MVP. Although I thought the ideas were cool, I felt like this was a good choice and it actually did end up giving me extra time to work on other things.
• The Planning - Wow I felt like the planning was so important! From the start and until the end, I was very happy that I had everything mapped out. Even though I couldn't predict everything that needed to happen in the project, I did feel like it gave me a sense of direction, and it really helped me stay focused on what I needed to do instead of getting distracted with random ideas of things I could add. 

What didn't work?

• Time Management - So yes I planned a lot of stuff in advance and I knew exactly what I needed to do each day, but I think I kind of messed up managing my own time anyway. Very often, whenever I came across a challenging task, I would end up spending more time than I should trying to finish it. Which basically meant, I stayed extra hours on some stuff, overworking myself and going to sleep very late. This made me very tired and exhausted towards the end and it's something I definitely need to work on for next time, knowing when to stop and letting my body rest.
• Resources - Since this was my first game jam, I wanted to try doing everything myself, including sound art and the development. I'm familiar with development but when it came to making design/sound assets I really struggled since I had to learn basically everything on the go. I remember spending a whole hour, just trying to figure out how to record something in a certain music studio app. I eventually had to give it up and felt like I completely wasted my time. For future jams, I might bring more people to work with me on the stuff I'm less familiar with, but just in case I end up doing it all on my own again, I decided to start working on my game sound/design skills, just enough to make my life a bit easier next time.

Next Steps

After publishing the game I couldn't help but feeling that while everything was ready, the game wasn't really as challenging and fun as I had hoped for it to be. That's why I decided to work on the game a bit more after the jam, just enough to make it a bit more enjoyable and appealing for the player. So during this coming month I will be working on modifying the game with the aim to publish a new version. I will mostly focus on:

• Changes following jam community feedbacks(which was super helpful!)
• Update a few extra stuff I didn't have time for during the jam.
• Add a few more mechanics. 

That's it, hope it wasn't too long of a read :)

Btw, this this post is taken from a devlog I wrote on "My First Game Jam: Summer 2022" community forum. If you're interested, you're more than welcome to checkout the full devlog. In the logs I share the things I did as well as the process I've gone through  each day during the jam.

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