Where I did well - Humour and Fun

Not really surprised my highest category was humour - I put a lot of jokes into the writing of the game. I'm glad people caught on to it though, and I wasn't expecting to break top 50!

Fun is more surprising, since I wasn't sure how basic platforming and a fairly generic bossfight would stand out against games which are more focused on their core game loop.

Where I didn't do so well - Graphics and Innovation

No surprises given my track record for graphics. I had planned to learn Inkscape and make vector grapics this time to hopefully improve my graphics score, but I gave up very quickly and went back to drawing with a trackball in Gimp.

Innovation is likely low because the gameplay itself wasn't particularly interesting. As I said above - basic platforming and a bossfight.

Compared to last time

I had hoped to improve on graphics, but didn't.

Audio is basically the same, and I used the exact same software to produce it, so that makes sense.

I'm glad my Fun and Humour have increased, since that tends to be my main focus.

My plan to ignore story and come up with a gameplay loop instead had crumbled within the first few minutes. I think that's just how my brain works. I was on the right track with the association with metroidvania games and the theme, but ultimately I went with a funny story over a more complicated gameplay loop.

What Next?

I will try again to fit the theme to a game rather than a story. It's not as easy as it sounds (at least for me).

I may also try to limit the scope of the gameplay in order to limit the amount of art I have to create, allowing me to not wimp-out of using Inkscape next time.

If I find the time and drive, I would also like to have a look at learning to use LMMS to create some background music. Chrome Music Lab is cool for a free tool, but I have no idea what I'm really doing with it and it has limited soundclips, so a lot of my background music ends up sounding samey.