Postmortem "Shift Gears"

Bottled Sea Grapes' Postmortem

After wrapping up a major post jam patch for "Bottled Sea Grapes", I am done with working on it, in it's current form at least! Though the initial version that I released for the jam is not as spectacular as I wanted it be,  "Bottled Sea Grapes" was one of the first games I've completed in a while for a game jam. And I'm still proud of what I was able to cobble together in a couple of days! 

It was the first time where I had been able to craft and design a nice looking protagonist for my story. That protagonist being a cute jellyfish person named Neyza. While with the game's aesthetic, I feel like I was able to make a really nice, pretty/surreal graphical style which is a big plus for me, as in the past I always found myself making rooms and areas that looked to mimic realism. And,  in the patch at least, I also ended up making the entirety of the game's sound effects and tracks, which feels really good, as it felt like I had more control on how I wanted the game to sound. It was also a fantastic learning experience as well, with me learning a pretty important lesson that I'll try to keep in my mind the next time I jam. That lesson being "shift gears".

Half way through the jam, I was pumped on adrenaline. Mildly sleep deprived. I had my eyes set on making sure that I could stick with my originally vision for the game, which was to essentially have three areas. With the last two areas retaining two big puzzles before you reached them. I had finished the 2nd area for the game, and I had some great ideas for "Bottled Sea Grapes", come to me. I thought about how, I could make it where the last area was actually about you, a sea creature, having to survive above water for a while, with the idea being it would be a twist on how a majority of games use oxygen as a mechanic. On top of that I also thought about adding multiple endings to the game, with it being tied to interactions that I had yet coded into the game. Maybe it was because of the adrenaline or lack of sleep, but I felt like I had enough time to finish those goals. In all honesty, that's fine if you feel like you can do that. But, it's also good to remember that I was making this game all on my own, the writing, the art, the sound effects, the music, I was doing it all. So since I didn't account for all the time that it would take to do that stuff I ended up finishing the game only by the skin of my teeth, and since I didn't have ample time to playtest, the features that I decided to add half way through the jam came out half baked. 

When you're making a game for a game jam, or on a deadline period, and the clock is running out it's integral for us as developers to know our own limits, and to be able to bounce back by shifting gears, and refocus the development of your game. If you have to cut out things, change what the main objective is, shorten scenes, or leave something that is tertiary to the core of what you want your game to be about out of it, then do it. I can't always guarantee it will be a choice that you will instantly be satisfied with, but being able to experiment, and test out your creative muscles by completing and posting something for a game jam is a special kind of reward all on its own.