The jam has been over for a while now and I thought I’d share my thoughts on how it went.

I think I made three great mistakes with this game:

My “marketing” strategy

My itch.io page for the game just showed the logo and one screenshot – a boring screenshot of the space junk mini-game. The idea was that people would see the game, think “Oh, its just a low effort SHMUP” but when they play it they are surprised with a weird Shenmue-style game (the game is actually heavily inspired by the section in Shenmue where you spend a few weeks living the boring, mundane life of a forklift operator). The problem with this, I think, is that most people actually saw the game and thought, “Oh, its just a low effort SHMUP. PASS!”

No Save feature

It is frankly ridiculous of me to expect anyone to play this game from start to finish in one sitting :)

Scope

My approach to this game was to get the main gameplay loop of the SJI done, put in a 28 day story that plays out as you go to work, then fill the game world with as much side content as possible. I did reach that final stage of building side content during the jam - there are 3 optional mini-games hidden about the world - but I originally intended SO much more. NPCs with full storylines to play out, dozens of mini games, shops selling collectables, a house you can buy etc. There just wasn't time :(

Future

This game was meant to be a quick, throwaway piece of fun to give me a short break from my main project, A Scoundrel in the Underlair, but I have become oddly fond of it, and so, in my spare time, I am currently working on a DX version of the game. This new version will do a few things:

Remove some of the more annoying restrictions imposed by the LowRes jam rules, including slightly higher resolution, better text, scaling, better graphics etc.

A full soundtrack.

TONS more content including storylines, more mini games, beat-em-up combat etc. The aim is to make a game that is somewhat like Shenmue or the Yakuza series if it were made on an ancient system.

As I said, this will be something done in my spare time, as I must press on with A Scoundrel in the Underlair.

Thanks as always to anyone that played the game, especially those nice enough to rate the game and leave a comment :)