PyWeek - Post Mortem

So, PyWeek 4 is over, I've tested almost all of the other people's entries and released two updated versions of my game after the competition. It seems like we have a record number of entries, and most of you have done a very good job - or at least learned a lesson for next time. I guess it's time to look back and analyze my doings a little. Overall I like what I did over this PyWeek, and gained a lot of confidence by doing everything myself.

Stuff that I did right this time:

  • Got the core gameplay ready early. Nothing is probably more important than this. It makes one able to balance the game elements more carefully as the project progresses. Might even make the game fun to play.
  • Gave some time for polish. Menus, oh yeah. I love 'em. Game over screens, even better. Pretty important for the overall experience.
  • Did lots of testing. Watching friends play really gave me a better clue about what was right and wrong with the game, and I was able to make it play a lot more smoothly as a result.

Stuff that I didn't do right:

  • Wrote quick and dirty solutions instead of proper ones. Well, some of my quick and dirty solutions proved working OK, and I was even able to rewrite some of them before the deadline. Others just gave me loads of trouble, and I had to spend some time after the competition just cleaning up the mess I had made. In the end, I have cut the performance requirements of the game by about 50% after the competition.

And then one final note - to achieve better cross-compatibility, I used a function for fetching the user's home directory in Trip on the Funny Boat as a point of reference for writing my code. The rules state that using "existing personal codebases" is forbidden - if you think this should be counted as such, disqualify me if you will. I didn't actually write the code in question, but as I was a member in the project, I had a good idea what it did. Should've probably asked about this, but, well, I didn't.

— Hectigo on 2007/04/14 15:53 of Hectic Game Development

Comments: (log in to comment)

By Tee on 2007/04/15 02:43:

I think referring to Trip on the Funny Boat is fine, considering it was released much more than a month before the challenge.