Now that the voting period of Mech Jam II has closed, I want to look over how successful my entry was compared to my own expectations and how it was received by commenters.

I'm super proud of my wee game (though it ended up more tech demo than game)! Here are some reflections now that the jam is over and there have been plenty of comments :)

Reflections:

The first thing I noticed was a bit of false expectations going in, I scoped really wide for the jam which meant it ended up being really shallow in return. It was only a two week jam after all!
In response to some early comments I rewrote a lot of the game information and instructions to clarify it as a tech demo, which seemed to help a lot with later players.
Along with this I was also missing instructions for how to play! This wasn’t in the game nor even on the itch page, which led to people being very confused. This was due to my focus on getting more content in the build and not having energy to write the submission up properly. I wrote a lot of info up after the first few plays and again this helped a ton.
I’m quite happy with my in game controls display which work on keyboard/gamepad though - especially since the feature was bodged together in the last hour or two of development! Though in my speed I missed out a few very vital controls (such as how to undock from mechs!! pretty integral to the gameplay!)

I also made some quick fixes and tweaks to the gameplay itself based on early feedback. Mostly bug fixes (such as fixing the boat respawn not falling out of the world..) but I also changed the order of mechs encountered in game as people didn’t understand the Crawler controls. In hindsight it was way more convoluted than it needed to be and than any of the other mechs in the game (it was my first piece of code for the jam too, so could have done with some more iteration). For a quick fix I simply replaced that with a Hopper mech instead, which gave a much better initial impression of the game.

Cut content:

• Story/intro cutscenes. Just didn't have time to do these, the majority of my work focused way on the mech controls, movements, & procedural animations. This was a minor thing but I felt it could really set the scene and give the game a more rounded and directed feel.
• Heli-cockpit max range - This might have helped give the demo the feel of an actual game, as some players were simply flying directly to each new zone. The initial idea was have the helis limited in range from the last mech they docked with, for the puzzle aspect of the game. However again I just ran out of time on this, and didn't want to add constraints at the last minute in case it made the game impossible for players
• Mech fueling - This is semi implemented with the tree picking and sticking in engine procedural animations, but was never tied to an actual fuel system with actions draining the mech's power until it finally dies. The goal was to have newly discovered mechs have to be fueled before use too, which could have led to more interesting gameplay!
• Deeper puzzle mechanics - Another biproduct of overscoping with the amount of areas and broadstroke ideas; The areas themselves lacked any real puzzles other than clearing paths. My original goals included more interesting mechanics like pressure pads, carring objects around in the mech hands, & jumping for more mobility options

Social:

I shared my development progress throughout the jam on Twitter, in the Mech Jam Discord, and in the Biome Collective weekly sharings. This was great for getting early feedback & keeping me motivated with kind feedback.
After the jam finished I also started posting my older dev videos on Reddit, with great reception! Specifically in r/Unity3D, showing off my early procedural animation works.
I tried to play and rate every entry, but in the end I only made it through about 3/4 of them! There were 78 in total and I had a lot of fun playing them.
Finally, the jam had a great community on the Discord server which really helped keep motivation high throughout development with feedback and seeing other works in progress!