MIRA: Postmortem!

Genre, Genre, Genre...

Our game has some appealing attributes: It is a relatively dark game, with rogue-like elements, and is endlessly configurable- or at least it would be given more dev time, and players picked up on that. These qualities are popular on marketplaces like Steam. MIRA wears it's influences on it's sleeve, which immediately appeals to fans of Vampire Survivors style games (although our influence was actually "20 Minutes Till Dawn"). Players tend to understand the game relatively quickly, and are excited by a new take on a familiar genre, but we were not able to deliver enough new content in time to satisfy.

Being part of a familiar and popular genre is a double edged sword: Players often commented, "Ah, so it's just VS". There are aspects of Vampire Survivors that I would not want to put into our game, and we were not able to differentiate ourselves mechanically from it. We would have wanted players to say something like, "It's VS, but with a twist!". In essence we were standing in the shadow of another game. By being so inspired to make a genre title, we limited ourselves to not invent new styles of gameplay! VS-like games saturate the market, as well as this game jam, and some of those other titles were more fleshed out mechanically than ours, even if our artistic style was more developed.

Your Day Of Judgement Has Come...

The Pirate Software Game Jam had almost 1400 game submissions, and 10 only judges. Our game received two reviews, but the average reviews per game was 1.1, so we were only guaranteed to have one review on our game. One of the reviewers was a game streamer who was soliciting jammers to submit their games, so I threw my hat into the ring. Unfortunately this reviewer particularly disliked the sort of game we had made and probably judged a bit more critically than the average reviewer, as was their prerogative. Those are just my beliefs, but I think that it was so. It was also unfortunate that our game was streamed immediately after another vamp-like game, which took some of the wind out of our sails. Our second reviewer was a bit more generous with our review score, giving us 5 stars for artistic direction! We probably would have been tied for first in the artistic direction category if I hadn't submitted my game to the streamer. I think the lesson here is that there can be times when interactions that seem to benefit you can have a negative backfire effect that you didn't consider at the time. I did receive valuable feedback from the streamer, but I must admit I regret taking that action.

The fact that our game didn't adhere to the theme of "it's spreading" all too much was also a huge disservice to our overall rating and chances of winning. The theme did apply to our game, but not as immediately, mechanically, or effectively as other games. In fact, users would remark with really good ideas on how to add more "spreadiness" to our game design, but we just ran out of time, and the jam was over before we could get to it! I personally prefer jams that use themes as a mere jumping off point, but this was the first rated jam I have taken place in, so it was a good lesson learned. We should have followed the jam rating criteria a lot closer!

Lastly, I'll mention that when I develop for hobby games, I tend to chase my bliss. This meant that I didn't always focus on a task that would necessarily impact the playablity score of our game, or increase the amount of content! Focusing so heavily on lighting, writing clean code, exporting game icons, controller support, credits screen, story crawl, main menu polish and itch.io page polish probably didn't have as positive of an effect on our score than if I buckled down and solved more of the critical path problems! On the last day of the jam I rushed to complete the level-up feature, and shipped with some major bugs and flaws. Our game didn't have a true ending, just a intrusive text box saying that the we have no more content! The final wave of enemies was  tuned so poorly that the game was guaranteed to cause major lag on anyone's device if they stuck around long enough. We probably would have gotten away with whisking the user to a "The End" screen instead of doing that! These are tough lessons to learn, but I'm glad we focused on gathering user feedback, which helped us learn from our mistakes. One thing our game did do right was get a lot of eyes on it, and positive praise in the form of "I wish there was more" which makes me think we struck a chord on what makes an appealing game.

The Seasoned Beginner Problem...

Thor (of Pirate Software) typically tells users to create a game design before selecting their game engine. It's probably good advice, but I also think that picking up a game engine that interests you intellectually is good too! I recently decided that investing time in Godot would be good for me. I wanted to get more experience using a Component-based game engine like Godot or Unity, and I knew that Godot was having a surge in popularity due to the recent kerfuffle over Unity's business practices. Once I picked up Godot I also realized I quite liked the workflow and the community, so I was more or less sold. I definitely didn't want to use Game Maker anymore, so this felt like a natural replacement for hobbyist development! 

In my professional GameDev career I've mostly been exposed to typescript and C++ custom made game engines utilizing open source technology, so although part of me feels like a seasoned veteran, there is another part of me that feels like an absolute scrub. This became a big problem when developing the game in 2 weeks. I had finished 2 tutorial projects before the game jam began so I felt somewhat confident, but during development I was not always fixating on work that would immediately progress the quality of the game. I was often wrestling with beginner level problems that I'm sure most Godot developers have struggled with at some point in time. In particular, a lot of time was spent on the lighting system, collision system, optimization, configuring the project renderer to display high resolution fonts alongside low resolution pixel art, wave based game design logic... the list goes on, honestly! The point being, I was learning how to make a game at the same time I was learning how to use a game engine. This severely limited me from seriously competing with anyone who was already a confident and competent programmer in their chosen environment. I'm sure that a lot of game jammers can relate to this problem, but it's still worth saying. There is a level of productivity that cannot be reached when you are still learning. The concept of "10x" programmers sort of alludes to this phenomenon. For the first 4 days of the jam, our productivity and hype was very high, as the game was already starting to look and feel good (and maybe better than the competition!) But as the days went on, I was bogged down with problems! There are aspects of my architecture that are probably not optimal. Our game isn't able to have as many enemy characters on the web as a VS-like game typically has, and our game stutters during load, as we only relied on a naive as-you-need approach to loading in assets. I'm pretty sure aspects of our sprite rendering, use of shaders, and the physics engine are not optimal either!

I don't regret working in an environment that wasn't comfortable. If I had to make this game in Game Maker, I feel the joy of creation would not be there, as I do not like using those systems, even if I am more confident in them. It's always good to pick up a new skill and try best to make something special with it, but you may not want to shoot for the moon on the first try. When I started the project, I purposefully picked a design I thought would be trivially easy for me to develop because of my experience in game engineering, but I soon found out that there were hidden complexities that I could not conceive until I learned more. I will most certainly run into this same problem again when I pick up Unreal Engine in the future, but maybe I will lower my scope even more!

The Fat Old Man Problem...

This year I turn 35. I've been programming, and programming games since high school, but I haven't taken good care of my body. My eating disorder makes it difficult for me to make the right choices when eating, and this is exacerbated when I am stressed. Last year my mother died after a 2 year long battle with pancreatic, lung, and brain cancer, which has had a significant effect on my mental and physical health, and I've recently gained weight. I've been diagnosed with high blood pressure, prediabetes, and possibly a fatty liver. Before that, I've been struggling with joint issues in my foot, my hip, and both my hands. I recently quit my job to focus on improving my health and as of writing this devlog, I've managed to lose about 15 pounds, significantly lower my blood pressure, and am starting to feel a bit better. My number one focus in life right now is to get healthy, which means I didn't and wasn't able to focus as much time and energy toward this game jam as my competitors. I do not want to go down the same road as my mom, when faced with scary news from a doctor, to lean back into the same choices that started it, causing a positive feedback loop. I know what it feels like to be depressed, addicted to food, and morbidly obese, but I also know what it feels like to be healthy, and in love with my own body. I aim to return to that life, and I hope you wish me luck on my journey. For now, all I can say is please please take good care of your body, and find ways to reduce stress in healthy ways. I know you can and will stay strong and make good games!

The Good Stuff...

I've taken part in numerous game jams over the years, and I have to admit that MIRA is probably the jam prototype that I am most proud of and excited to talk about. Ignoring the problems and missing features that would have made it a banger, there is a lot to love. The audio of attacks feels juicy and crunchy. The collaboration with Rose and Lee made for an artistically impressive experience that has immediate appeal; The character design, graphics, and game audio are just great! The control of the game feels quite nice, I especially like the knockback effect and the projectile upgrade. Users often are skeptical of the game because of it's lack of button input, but are won over when they realize the intrigue comes from strategic placement and timing (as found in the game Vampire Survivors). The game made a bit of a splash, and got a ton of downloads and a few followers. I was getting messages of support and interest from strangers. I'm pretty sure if I had a big enough budget to cover my bills, this game could be a relative success on a platform like Steam, and many folks have asked me to do something like that. I don't think that's in the cards for me, but I'm really proud that I made something that had that kind of appeal!

Working alongside the Pirate Software community was a thrilling experience and one I'll remember for the rest of my life. The amount of positive support and critical feedback from the community was amazing, and I've made a few friends along the way. I had sort of fallen out of love of game jams, but I think a 2-week game jam is a fabulous format! It's just the right amount of time to get a serious prototype out there.

I've jumpstarted my creative spark! In the past 7 years, I honestly haven't been as creative as I now wish I had been. Life is short and precious, and you should do what you want to love, and I'm doing that now! I'm excited to continue learning Godot, to pickup new game projects, to contribute to MIRA and other prototypes, and in general, just excited to make things. The other day I jolted out of bed to write a poem that came to me. It was a particularly meaningful song actually, and I was bawling while writing it. I cannot imagine the person I was just a few years ago doing something like that, and I'm proud of the changes I've made to actualize and work toward becoming the future person I want to be!

Conclusion...

If this is the last word you hear from me on the subject of MIRA, let me just say thank you for being involved in this wonderful process of creation. Thank you to everyone who commented praise and criticism. Thank you to everyone who helped unblock me on problems! Thank you to Lee and Rose for being amazing team members. Thanks to Boyad and Scott for chipping in alongside your busy schedule. Thank you to Mom and Dad for making me (Major W). Thank you to my brother Cody for giving his feedback and ideas, even though I ignored all of them! Thanks to WizardofWestmarch for being a huge help for me and everyone else in the #Godot group in the Pirate Software group. Thank you to Thor and the judges for making this happen, and thank you to the Pirate Software community for making me feel welcome in the Discord.

Final Words...

Just for fun, here are some other entries to the game jam that I felt were really spectacular. Please consider giving them a try!

Wonscotanach - This game has excellent art and narrative design, and tells an important lesson in the history of Canadian colonialism!

Cobra Effect - Cobra Effect is a genuinely hilarious concept of a game, that reminds me of a particular episode of The Simpsons!

Idle Shrooms - An Idle game that has unique idle mechanics that I found engaging, and addicting. Clean and simple UI too!

Mosslord - A fun VS-like game with a nice art style, that achieved most of the goals that we weren't able to reach!

Dancing Mania - I'm a sucker for comedic games, and this had me smiling and laughing the whole time. Keep Dancing!