"Even Robots have Bad Dreams" Postmortem

Tee on 2008/04/20 01:02 of Even Robots have Bad Dreams

Well, I was away for two weeks so I wasn't able to judge any of your games, but later I'll look at whatever looks interesting to me. There are some that really look nice.

A very short postmortem for my game. I had said that my three goals were simplicity, planning, and having fun. I failed on the first two due to enthusiasm, but I had fun, even though I almost gave up on the game. :P That week in particular was a mess regarding my free time for Pyweek, so, coupled with my slow game coding (slowly improving though), I ended up with a game that was very rushed and quite buggy. But I'm happy I ended up with a game, and even more happy that some people liked it. :) Ratings-wise I fell quite a lot, but I expected that.

This is actually the first Pyweek game I kinda want to rewrite, since I feel the idea has some potential and this version is way too rushed (ugh, I did some things in the code that hurt to type :P). It's not too likely, though, but I'll let you know if I do.

Thanks to Richard for hosting Pyweek once more, and see you all next Pyweek! Congratulations to the winners!

Reply to comments below, as usual.

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I didn't get the concept.

Due to rushing, the game ended a bit unpolished and without enough help. Sorry.

Nice idea, but it should have been developed a little further. The user interface is kind of messy.

I couldn't agree more. :)

Good puzzler, solid construction. I got stuck, which is always a good sign with a puzzle game. :)

Thanks. :) I have no clue how hard the game is, I rushed the levels too.

Nicely done with the game! I'm impressed at the behavior and the puzzle design - it's very very good!

Thanks! The level design was a bit rushed actually, but I'm glad you liked it.

Very nice concept, loved the wifi idea! Some cool sound and music, and maybe bonus points or something for alternate solutions, and of course more levels, would make this game shine. Oh and add a tutorial :) Bug: can place more than one item on a square, if that is done it can't be erased.

Thanks, yeah, sound/music and extra features would be great, especially a tutorial. Would have put them if I had the time. Thanks for the bug report too.

Hmmm

Hmmm.

Seemed like a great concept, but the bugs were a bit much.

I'm glad you like the concept. If I had the time I would've fixed the bugs.

Nice little puzzle game - an interesting change from the usual PyWeek fare. Sadly, it ends just as it's getting interesting. Some more levels, and a little more polish and you'd have a real winner here.

Yay, someone who wants more. :)

Nice challenging puzzles! The last (real) level had me stumped for quite a while!

Thanks.

The idea is nice, and the robot is cute. The puzzles/levels get a bit repetitve, so the scor in fun is lower than it could be. But nice work

Yes, if I ever remake the game, I'll definitely add more features to make the levels more interesting.

I don't understund the game

Yeah, a tutorial would have been nice.

Cool concept

Thanks.

Bad.

Sorry.

nice idea, somewhat buggy gameplay, as you said yourself. one bug to fix: placing an item (kitty) on other (zappers), makes the other item disappear.

Thanks for the bug report.

It was great! Good gameplay and fun concept. I didn't run into any bugs (I avoided doubling things up, as suggested) and played it for a lot longer than I expected. Great work.

Thanks. :)

This game needs some spice!

I agree with that. Maybe in a future version.

Nice puzzle mechanic, good-looking implementation.

Good-looking implementation? Um, you won't want to look at the code. :P

I like it. Too bad you couldn't quit finish it. :)

Yeah, too bad. :)

I couldn't beat the first level. I did it exactly as you said in the readme, and he would never fall in love with the boot. Interesting idea, although seems very unrobotish.

That's odd. Maybe the level at that point was a bit bugged, the solution would have been to restart the level.