Improve My Game Jam #5

I took part in the Improve My Game Jam #5 and wrote about my goals fort his jam in a previous post. Here I'm going to reflect about all the features I implemented.

1. Instruction on the Gamepad

One core feature of the game is, that you can use your smartphone as a controller. I added descriptive text to let players know how to access this feature.

2. Winner/Game finished screen with all players and points

The next feature I implemented is the "winning" screen. Before, there was none, only a text saying "game finished". Additionally, players get sorted by the number of points - before the player order never changed.

3. Show keys for added keyboard controls

If you click on an input device panel, you add a new keyboard control. Now you can see which keys are assigned to the controller.

General Learnings

UI development was cumbersome. It took me some while to get the text working as I wanted it to. I'm using Phaser 3 for development and to this point I rather focused on the game itself - cool logic and stuff. However, the user experience around that game is still work in progress. Nonetheless, I am satisfied with the progress.

For the next time, when building a game with Phaser 3 I'll definitely go with some kind of HTML interface or framework (like VueJS). Because HTML has lots of power for a good looking and good working user interface.

The jam helped me as I can share my progress now :) Happy to get some feedback.

Cheers