My first reaction to finishing was regrets, but let me break down exactly what went right and what went wrong:

Presentation - I scored within the top 15%. That's actually on par, maybe a bit better than what I was expecting. It was my focus. Clearly, I was art first in this game. Where I put my time and effort shone. It's so obvious, but I was blind to the other areas.
In other areas,  I was middle of the road in the remaining scores. Top 50-60%. Tough, but makes sense.


I had conflicting plugins, weak gameplay, and other issues.

Conflicting Plugins : Two vital plugins conflict and cause a crash occasionally. I could not find or make alternatives in time for the game jam.

Weak Gameplay : The gameplay is nothing special or particularly fun. I also had an idea for weapons with variable stats that did not make it into the gamejam. I do not think that would have saved it, however. Gameplay feels slow and weak.

Other Issues: Mainly story, the world of Dragoon March System is pretty opaque and hard to understand, but I need to hammer down the basics, to give players something they do understand to hold onto.



Moreover using a Memory Embryo in the field is kinda weird, context wise...

I wanted story to be less of a focus in this game however... that made what existed have less air to breath and time to be explained.  Apparently, the intro rocked for many, so I am glad!

In that order. Not that other problems don't exist- SFX issues exist, but I don't think anyone cares about as much as I do. That and more fun art, style, polish, stuff can be candy for fixing each of these major issues. 

Crashes : Solved! At the end of April I had a Crash-Test with some Crash-Test dummies. ;D New plugins are working wonders.

Gameplay: Fixes are coming. I currently have a Combo system so regular attacking is more fun. I do need to carefully math out what needs to be done, however.

I won't go into huge details, but I have always loved timed attack systems, and making each weapon type feel unique. My favorite game of all time is Phantasy Star Online. SO. Stealing some dna from that, but I will wisely try and mistrust the process.

Story: This is a weird one.
I need testers outside of my usual pond for this kind of thing.  People who don't know the lore.  See; this is my first game being made with STRONG preexisting lore. Sure, Sweet Deal is set in the same world as Scarlet Dream (See what I did there?)

This is different. This is... from my RP stories. Oh no. Oh boy. Oh yes.

But basically that means it's way harder to make my normal friend circles critique  as if they don't know what is going to happen. It's why I highly recommend trying to make a game with new characters on your first rodeo.