MOMENTUM JUMP 1.0

Here is the link to the final game.

I've spent so much time today polishing the mechanics, levels and the artwork, I haven't left myself enough time to make or implement and music or sound effects. Listen to the Super Metroid OST whilst playing or something =P

This is only the first week but I feel 10 times as competent in Gamemaker already. This is a fantastic real-world skill as I now feel confident enough to implement any 2D prototype I want to.


Pros:
- The game is mostly bug free as far as I can tell.
- The core mechanics are fun to play around with.
- The artwork looks good (could be better).
- I spent a fairly long time balancing (trying to teach the player specific things in a certain order so they were never completely lost) against (letting the player make their own mistakes and feeling autonomous). I don't know how well I did this though as I didn't have much time to play test.

Cons:
- It should have been longer.
- Ulterior motives and a higher level of risk/reward would have made the game more exiting and interesting.
- The game could just be more fun in general. I tried to decrease how punishing the game was by cutting the game into short levels but I still get the feeling that people will lose the  motivation to carry on if they repeatedly die. This problem could be solved however by doing the previous point well and perhaps including some kind of narrative motivation.
- There isn't much variation on 'collect all the green things' to advance. If I had the time I would've tried to include more variety.

I really wanted to include some kind of timer to add replay value and to create tension in accurately navigating the levels quickly. I didn't have time to program that in unfortunately but you can time yourself if you like =]. I've found it adds a lot of fun to the game.

If I had more time to work on the game I would have definitely explored the wall destroying mechanic more, I'd probably experiment some more on theme and I'd like to have tried it as an arcade style game too. I will probably spend another week sometime making this.

Next week: Card Game (probably)