Since the demo is done and production will halt for a couple of moth I’d figured I write a short portmortem. Just some thoughts on what went well and what didn’t go as well and some future plans for the game.

What went wrong:

Deadline
Well this is only half true, the deadline didn’t really go wrong it’s somewhere in between (betwixt if you will). I originally wanted to include more stuff in the demo, mainly story elements. I wanted to get an intro in there to show how you end up in the strange place, also had planned to have an npc (the dog thing) to flesh out the lore of the place a bit more. Would also have liked some more time to tweak and polish systems.

Story/Lore
Mostly due to the previous point not much of the story is worked out. Right now all I have for story/lore is just loose ideas. It will need to be worked out and tied together with everything I’ve built so far.

What went right:

Remake
The game is a spiritual remake of sorts from my parts of a community game (chapter 2 and 6 of this to be specific). I liked the basis of the gameplay in those and wanted to continue developing. I also liked the mystery of the place you explored.
The chapters where a good base for this and gave me an idea of what works and what doesn’t.

Graphical style
The graphics is really what started this whole project. I was just randomly doodling which resulted in the Planar Creeps. A bit later on I made the tileset for the first area as a place for them to inhabit.
The positive response to them motivated to start this project with them.

Deadline
The tight deadline really pushed me to finish this demo, without it would have gotten as much done as I have the last few weeks. It would probably been another week, two, three, five or never before I got something released.

Future plans:
I’m going on a vacation thing for a couple of month, once I’m back in early fall I will resume development on this and Space Devil.
My plan is to keep this game short, I’m aiming for max an hours play time. I want to continue developing on the obstacles/puzzles that’s been used so far, mix them up a bit and have them crossover with each other. Also want to get some more “puzzles puzzles” in there.

Also any feedback on the demo is welcome!