I write the first postmortem with the idea that all of these things should be returned to others because what I've learned is knowledge that others have taught me after all.

1. Why did I make this game?

Previously, I made a flatformer game called Press Axe. At that time, I remember quickly making and releasing the game with the goal of releasing it on Steam without thinking.

Taking advantage of this launch, I got the opportunity to intern at a small gaming company, and after that period, I was able to grow further as a Unity programmer. The process of finding improvements in my code by looking at other people's code and optimizing it by profiling came to me fresh. Based on what I learned during this period and my philosophy, I decided to try a new genre of game.

The first thing I think about to make the game is "make something different from others". It may sound cliché, but it also affected the Press Axe production I made before.

I decided that the game I made was no different from the 'Getting Over with' genre, and I chose various classical music and 'Adaptive Music' algorithms to differentiate it from other games.

(I'm not here for a technical talk right now, so if I have a chance, I'll write a technical post to introduce how I made the game work soon.)

My development philosophy has the advantage of giving gamers the freshness of the game, but if they can't accept it as the right experience, it loses its value. But I'm a game developer who enjoys these risks and develops games, and I'm participating in this first Jam to try out a new genre through this Acerola Jam.

In Korea, where I live, it is not a big community, but there is a site called "the labyrinth" where you can upload a web page puzzle game. I have the experience of having a good time there playing Discord with my friends, solving problems, and chatting.

Additionally, while the web page puzzle game already had a complete game structure as a puzzle game, it was uncommon for the story of each theme to be structured in a structured manner. It can be said that it is literally a space that only solves problems. I've found a breakthrough in my philosophy in this part, and I decide to mix this story with the 'Analog Horror' genre, which leaves people in doubt with creepipasta and metaphor.

The genre that creates an atmosphere scares people by creating an atmosphere that is not useless jumpscare. And that was one of my favorite game style (for this reason, I prefer the Little Nightmare series more than FNaF series), and I think I'll build my own world based on this.

I can't write it all down here, but I felt like I needed to build a template that would be the foundation for the new game. I spent a lot of time thinking about how to structure the story and UI, and it didn't take much to actually implement.

2. Basic structure of the game

(In this section, I'll only explain the basic structure and post the technical parts separately.)

When I was an intern, I modified and created a lot of code based on UGUI, so I decided to create the implementation itself in a UGUI form. So the basic form of the game becomes a form that works in one large Canvas.

The Hierachy shown above is the structure of the contents operating in the Main Game. The required contents are entered as children of the 'Canvas-Scroll View-Viewport-Content' object according to the current stage information, and the entered objects are positioned in a vertical alignment that allows the correct scrolling due to the components below.

3. What went right and wrong

1. I made and submitted a form at a level that can be implemented within the deadline.

2. I grabbed the storylines of the basic game and created a reusable Hierachy layer.

3. I succeeded in giving people different experiences.

..and things I couldn't do

The biggest mistake is that people didn't presuppose that they didn't know how to play the web puzzle game I played. It's unfortunate that I didn't evaluate other people's genre proficiency based on my memory of having fun playing puzzle-genre games with my friend.

In fact, the most common thing that ran on Comments was "difficult," and it seems that there were many players who left because the trick of the puzzle that actually starts after the start section was difficult.

From the next game, we are considering gradually increasing the difficulty level, as other players say, or proceeding with the game telling us how to solve it.

(Thank you Ian Lindsey for letting me know this!)

4. And...that's it.

It can be said that it is a good experience that a game called a 'demo' has the opportunity to become a more structured game through player's feedback. Based on this, I hope it will have a positive impact on other games to be developed in the future.