Thoughts about this game's development

(this is a very ramble-y post written back when i first published the game, even though i only made this visible now. you're probably not interested in reading all this!)

Slash Chord 2: Unforeseen Failure is a short project made for my annual April Fools joke. The idea was "Plagiarize Yourself". The game was intended to have an arcade-y feel, where the player tries to reach the highest score which, in this case, is obtained by saving passengers on the UFO (and not yourself for no bonus points).

All of the art, code, music and SFX were made in less than a day, the same day I got the idea for the game. This was partly intentional; I was hoping to finish the main mechanics first. Any other progress I could cram in would be a bonus. However, I went a biiiiiiiiiiiiiit overboard. This means that what you're playing, seeing and hearing is the result of a few hours of work. Also this is my first time making music for one of my games! Thank you, Bosca Ceoil, for existing <3

The game is, at it's core, a game about rescuing some dudes from dying in an UFO crash. It is undeniably a pretty gruesome topic.  I briefly considered having human characters in the game, but something didn't sit right with me. It didn't feel right to have people dying in an UFO crash in my game. I didn't subvert that by having alien characters, which I think was the exact same as having people die.

After I uploaded the first build (now lost to time...), a kind person on Twitter pointed out some perceived flaws with the game. Most of them weren't valid, and I didn't fix them. However one idea, letting the player save themselves, was very good in hindsight.

This idea, to me, feels like it complimented the game's... vision? It isn't that big of a deal really, but I feel it changes the game's mood in a noticeable way. In the first build, you could save yourself, and didn't have to wait the timer out, which was boring and felt, well, like a failure. In hindsight, I should have implemented that. I'd like to also mention that this was the only idea based on an actual fix or improvement rather than "wouldn't it be cool if...", which I think shows.

In conclusion, Slash Chord 2: Unforeseen Failure is the result of rushing through the creative process, and letting crunch time start too early. I am very happy with this game, and believe it is a fun experience, but this isn't the ideal way to make a game, even for April Fools. Ideally, you'd space all the tasks required to make the game (brainstorming, programming, etc.) across the time you have. With this game, it was all crammed in a few hours and while the end result's good, it may have benefited from some more development time. Also I was going to add screenshake and I forgot WHOOPS