Evaluation

My aim for this project was to take Mythology, the theme that we were tasked to work with and see how far I could take it without it being entirely incoherent. I want whoever is looking over my work, whether it be a teacher or a higher-up, to be at least somewhat amused at my approach.
I chose the greek underworld as I am most familiar with Hades and their different depictions in media (e.g. Disney Hercules), and I wanted to do my own spin on it. 

As for the game itself, I wanted something that focused more on the first-time experience rather than replayability. I anticipated the game would not last very long, so I wanted to leave a lasting impression on those who play it.
Gameplay-wise, I chose tower defence on the assumption that it would be incredibly simple to code and doesn't require complex sprites or animations to function. I was half-correct in my assumption.

Despite doing everything I could to work around my inability to do art, I still needed to improve on it as I wanted my sprites to at least look passable. I also felt like I needed to develop my skills in Construct more, as I was almost certain that my code/events were messy and unclean. Generally speaking, I felt like I needed to improve in every aspect, but these two points are the most important.

Looking back at my reflective journal, I think the use of my project time was effective enough despite having some major slowdowns when it came to the sprite work and cutscene creation. Besides adding SFX/Music much earlier than I did, I'm not sure what I could've done differently.

Throughout the project, the general concept of it hasn't changed/evolved too much--if at all.
You are a soul, you get Hades' attention, and Hades forces you to play a terrible game as punishment.
On the other hand, the ending was changed almost entirely because the game's length was majorly cut. Originally, Hades was meant to admit that she made you play the game because she couldn't herself and lets you off the hook for being incredibly skilled.
Now, the game breaks pre-maturely due to her tampering, and she admits that the soul didn't do anything majorly wrong and just wanted to have some fun. This was an attempt to give an in-universe reason for the game's short length.

The hardest trials I ran into when using Construct 3 were actually no fault of the engine and more my lack of knowledge. I had to consult the forums multiple times to find answers to questions that other people had also asked in the past and figure out which solutions still worked and if they were the best approach.
On top of C3, I decided to utilize my limited knowledge in Blender to create scenes to make my game just a bit more interesting. Blender has an incredibly steep learning curve and is generally not simple to use. It's probably overkill to use it in Yr 1, but that made me more determined.

The biggest obstacle I ran into was actually because of my choice of game genre. I had assumed developing a tower defence would be simple. It's not. Any small change I made would drastically affect the game's balancing, which meant I had to effectively QA/playtest the game every time that I did. Testing only 1 level wouldn't do, as I had to see how it affected the others.

While I think I heavily improved my practical skills--I don't think I improved my organizational skills that much. I'm unsure if it is due to pure incompetence or something else, but I struggle with it. If a GDD wasn't required, I'm almost certain I would've skipped making one. I seem to get into a flow easier if I'm winging things.

The game's balance and mechanics are notably flawed, and the art is not the greatest, but I think I did the best I could in both aspects. I love how the cutscenes came out, but I know it will be hit-or-miss. Subjectively, either you like them or immediately respond with "ew, weeb". Objectively though, I think they came out pretty nicely.

Honestly, I'm unsure how well I conveyed the mythology theme due to my unconventional approach to it. My aim was to thoroughly explore and understand the theme to then use that knowledge to challenge the limitations of what could be considered "within the context" of the theme. It really depends on what you consider to be "conveying the theme". As for my ideas, I think I conveyed them as well as I could. I had a silly concept, and the game's title bluntly reflects that concept.

As a whole, I am thrilled with the final outcome. I accomplished almost everything I set out to do.

My audience feedback has been mixed to generally positive.
Starting with the positive feedback: Everyone seemed to like the game's warped interpretation of Hades and her mid-round comments. People found them to be both funny and informative--which was exactly what it's meant to be. Others also found the game's balanced simplicity to be a plus.
As for the negatives: The game is simply way too short. Almost everyone said that the game was too short and that they'd like to see the game expanded on. Few others found the game's difficulty to be a little too much on the harder side.
Overall, I agree with all of the constructive feedback that I received. I think all feedback and/or opinions are valid in their own right--as long as it's actually constructive.

Going forward, the thing I learned that I think will be most valuable to me moving forward is that I need to consider my choice of the game genre more thoroughly before moving forward in development. One of the major reasons I picked Tower Defence was because I had assumed it was a simple type of game to balance/code, and I quickly learned how wrong I was once I noticed the major repercussions of changing certain values even slightly.