Cursed Dungeon - Dev Log #2 (0.9 Release)

Intro

The beta release for Cursed Dungeon is finally out🥳🥳. This beta release has most of the core gameplay mechanics that the full game release is planned to have with the exception of saving the game between instances of gameplay and a few smaller features. This devlog is intended as a glimpse into my creative process and a reflection for me as an aspiring developer. I am going to talk about a few things that went wrong during development, some things that went right, and discuss future plans for the development of Cursed Dungeon.

What Went Wrong?

Cursed Dungeon was intended to be created as a submission into the Boss Rush Game Jam with the theme "spin".  However, one thing I failed to recognize when designing this game is that the Boss Rush Game Jam actually requires the usage of boss mechanics on top of the theme of spin. Oops. I admittedly could've done at least a little more looking into the event to discover this, or I could've just, read the name of the jam 😅.  I think I have this tendency of writing off any hope of actually trying to participate in events like this and purely just use them as an excuse to run with an idea that I like, which is probably why after watching the video for this event I instantly started designing the game and didn't look into it any further.  While it is a silly mistake on my part I don't regret making the game at all and I never really intended to win anything from the jam so it's not that big of a deal for me. Making on a game with a strict deadline was already extremly valuable to me and not qualifying for the event doesn't take that away.

Another thing that could've gone better is that I couldn't release the full game on the due date of the Game Jam. Making a game in less than two weeks with a minimum to moderate level of Unity experience ended up being a bigger challenge then I initially believed. In spite of that I still released a moderately polished product in that amount of time in my opinion. 

What Went Right?

Despite the big time constraints, I did manage to implement just about every idea I had in my head for the initial release of this game.  Doing all of the spiriting for the game gave me a new found appreciation for how much work art and design is.  Additionally, I learned a lot about script communication and design to make sure this game would be as scalable as I could make it. Building Cursed Dungeon has given me new found confidence in my ability to figure out the architecture of games in general. Additionally, this game ended up being far more complicated then I originally thought and there were several times where I had to take my hands off of the keyboard and just look at the broader layout of the scripts in general. In fact, the script communication in this version was so much more complicated then the last that I don't think I can create a script communication diagram like that because of the sheer number of scripts. 

The Future of Cursed Dungeon

I do plan to have at least one more update of this game where I will add saving between instances of the game, more in-game events, and further polishes to enhance the overall experience. If you have read all the way to here then thank you so much for playing my game and reading about my journey in game development! Please stay tuned for more updates!