Primarily for posterity, here are some thoughts about Boo-oom!
What went right:
- Got it released on time! (Halloween '17) 🎉
- It’s pretty fun.
- It runs pretty well on desktop browsers that support WebGL 2.
What went wrong:
- Not as polished as I’d like…
- Animations are too subdued.
- That fountain thing in the middle is shite.
- No real story/explanation for what’s going on.
- You never actually see the main character from the front.
- It’s not exactly clear what triggers a game over until you play it a time or two.
- “ACE” “COMBO” and other planned bonuses really should affect the score. How did I miss that?
How it could be better:
- Different monsters beyond ghosts.
- Better shader to make ghosts more “ghostly.”
- Better level design… The “temp/testing” level became the only level because of time restraints.
- Ground texture is too low-res – Just blotchy.
What I’d wished I’d done:
- If you shoot the moon, it should shake and spin around a few times, prompting a huge wave of enemies to be spawned.
- When the game is over, if the moon is in view, it should shake and laugh.
- Been nice to sculpt/bake some normal map info for the well.
- Made the water a little more interactive – If a ghost hits it, its death should behave differently and add a splash effect in there too.
Things for next game:
- Loading screen that shows that, yes, the game is loading.
- Title screen and menus w/credits.
- Customize the html template.
- WebGL 1 & 2 support – For better reach. (hopefully some mobile)
- High score tracking. (server for ranking?)
- Don’t make things singletons unless you really need to.
- Have a better restart mechanism than literally reloading the level.
Here’s the original Game Design Doc, if you’re interested in looking it over. It contains some simple pre-production art and a level design I didn’t have time to implement: Boo-oom! GDD