Idea: I think this came to me when I was taking a shower last week. The door to the box has this pattern of falling leaves, so for some reason I imagined a fly trying to dodge its way through this endless shower of leaves. I wanted to prove dodging is fun, cause everybody loves to feel like a ninja from time to time!
What Went Well: Well, I actually managed to come up with a game that really resembles my sketches of the concept, so I guess that's a good thing! All of the fly mechanics worked just fine as so did the different kinds of leave behaviors (though I had to change the behavior of the third one, as it was too similar to the second). The scaling difficulty is also a nice touch IMHO and I even managed to implement a rise in water level that wasn't planned at first! Yay!
What Went Wrong: Lots of stuff. First of all, this game is not about fun, quick, ninja-like dodging. Not at all. It's more about struggling to get through a crowd without that much risk of touching the water at the bottom. The dash and the slash worked fine but they're not really that necessary. It seems like one would use them out of boredom or annoyance; not danger or awesomeness as I first envisioned. Didn't have the time to place enviromental hazzards like the famished frog, the biting bud or the dumb dragonflies (as you can see in the sketches above). The game also doesn't have a victory condition, or at least a clear one; I wanted to work more on visual feedback but couldn't; also, the bullet time/zoom mechanic didn't have its chance, but to be fair that didn't really go wrong cause I knew it would be impossible for me to achieve that in a satisfactory way in just a week. Gonna leave it on paper by now!
What I Learned: That I really don't know a thing about game design! Great, huh! It's ok cause even aknowledging that; I still managed to come up with this interactive thing, with rules, mechanics and dynamics of its own. I learned that visual feedback is something that will make even the most dull, boring game stand out some way. Also learned how to spawn random objects at random locations! Hooray! Stop laughing Mr. Professional Game Designer!
