![]() Rolling my own dialogue engine was a double edged sword. ![]() The increased art budget really helped towards the end of Bell Master and could have been bigger if started earlier. My refusal to open a Patreon earlier was misguided. This is a limitation I must take account of while designing the next game. My current art budget still only allows for a small amount of art each month. With the commission audition system proving itself in terms of cost, time and benefit. On the good side I did get finding new artists down to a science. Two artists flamed out during the project leaving me to find new ones mid version, the lesson being never to rely on just one artist for a project. I still prefer it to using 3D art software so it'll have to do until I get a permanent artist on anything resembling a viable wage. Setting up scenes, finding visual references and communicating what I want drawn is a time consuming process. Working with artists on commission is hard. The two month release cycle also worked well, with no version feeling rushed or low on content. All tasks were created, tracked and executed in a consistent manner. The Excel based task management system I developed during working on this game works really well. Project management and working with artists Pacing issues came up a lot in player feedback, more build up before narrative payoffs would have helped. I need to pay more attention to the tags and game descriptions in the future as they are often a players first interaction with the game. The "marketing" material for the game created a false assumption for some players, expecting the game to be a more generic mind control power fantasy. And the Old Man character was both fun to write and fun to read.įinding the wife's "voice" was difficult, and writing dialogues in general is still a struggle, with snarky monologues and scene descriptions coming much more naturally. The story was well received (even if the ending was somewhat divisive). Generally speaking my writing style was validated. On the good side, my decision to add a cheating menu on day one was a massive win, both in helping make development quicker, and in providing quick solutions to players before bugfixes were rolled out. It took a lot of time and effort and did not pay off in any meaningful way. My decision to support mods on day one was extremely optimistic. This also rendered a lot of the engine work done prior useless as the features that required it were cut. This led me to create a game scope that was unrealistic for my available time, which meant I had to take 4 months to rework a lot of the design to reduce the games scope drastically. I also dove head first into making the engine and prototype before fully completing the pre production phase. I didn't spend enough time learning the community before throwing my hat in the ring, and it showed. My programmer art was not passable and even using real porn would have been a better call. I put up a rough and ugly prototype, looking for artists, in the wrong forum, destroying the games initial exposure. Also, I apologize in advance for any corporate speak, it's an occupational hazard. Since the goal is to learn and improve, it's acceptable. This document is going to be painfully honest, which means a lot of negativity. ![]() The goal of this document isn't to list things that could be improved in terms of design or specific features in Bell Master, but rather to focus on processes and decisions that can be adopted or improved going forward into the next game. ![]() A game postmortem is all about figuring out what worked and what didn't during the development of the game. ![]()
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