Devtober 2020 Post-Mortem

Now this has been fun.

Devtober 2020 was my first time participating in any sort of game jam, and I intended to continue working on a platformer game I had started over the summer. My goals for this jam were simple: just make some notable progress on my game and learn more about Unity and designing different parts of a game in the process. Did I meet these goals coming out of Devtober?

Improvements that could have been made/what I could have done better

I will admit that I was not as focused on Devtober as I could have been, and even ended up not working on my game sometimes due to schoolwork and exams (read: I'm not efficient with my time). As a result, I did not get to working on certain parts or mechanics of my game by the time Devtober had ended (i.e working on music/SFX, a wall jump mechanic). In addition, when I did work on my game, I definitely could have spent more time each day working on it, as I would usually only spend an hour or so. The lax commitment I had toward this jam resulted in what I consider a subpar effort for what could have been accomplished in a month

What I think I did well/learned

As I developed this game by myself, I had to split my time evenly between different aspects of the game. Aside from sound, I feel that I've learned more about creating different assets for my game through Devtober, particularly in art (which I'm not so good at). I made sure to try and at least work on art every day (as it contributed to the game's setting), and can safely say that I've gotten better at creating basic sprite tiles to use in a game, even if it was only a minor improvement. Working on my game has also gotten me more familiar with Unity. Slimland is my first non-tutorial work with the software, and I'm glad to be able to use it better in future projects. Lastly, I think being in this game jam helped tremendously with my motivation towards gamemaking. Had I not tried Devtober, progress on Slimland would likely have stagnated, so working on it throughout the month has been immensely helpful with keeping my passion for gamemaking alight. 

Overall, although my progress during this game jam was certainly nothing to write home about, I'm happy that I participated in this jam for the learning and motivation its brought me, and hope to continue in future jams.