At Season's End, in review

Overall, I’m really happy with how it turned out! It’s definitely the game of mine that is the least riddled by inexplicable bugs, not least because I learned a TON of new code for it and actually managed to implement it in a not-unreasonable amount of time, and I know a lot more now. I could probably reuse most of the underlying systems for other stuff and just put some new shit on top, which is nice because coding for top-down and realising you have to account for at least two new dimensions of movement is a mild nightmare.

A lot of this was experimental and that kind of impeded some of my plans for the game. Some of it was scrapped as the game’s story changed, but some of it was stuff I would have liked to put in but wasn’t able to get to in time (i still mourn the loss of the topdown shooter-style segment, where you're chasing Spring to play with them, but I wasn't able to figure out how to implement that and make it be like..fun...in such al imited amount of time when i'd never done it before and it wasn't a genre i was familiar with.)

All that said, a lot of these pieces of code are things that I originally wanted to implement in my previous games, but didn't really understand how to. Being able to use cutscenes and textboxes at will in a way that doesn't absolutely shatter the game's kneecaps or fuck up the camera feels like a huge achievement! Room transitions...pausing...even a menu screen that doesn't break! Next time...in-game cutscenes and maybe even an action system..?? I've got some high ambitions!!

Like other games I made, At Season's End hints at a larger world with a lot of questions. I do generally like to leave it this way, but the game does feel a little more...open to questions mostly because the protagonist themselves is able to talk and respond and take action throughout the world. It makes me want to make the game a bit bigger, but I think as it is, it tells the story it wants to tell quite well. It's meant to feel like one small segment of a larger world, and I think it succeeds quite well in that.

I'm getting better at leaping from concept to game and preserving that concept pretty successfully. It's been a pretty tough journey so far in teaching myself how to program, but I still really like it.

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed this game, and I hope you enjoy the others I've made.