Hey guys, it's Matt. Deathly Descent is my first proper project, and it's been released for a little over a week now, I'm working on a minor update that I'll release soon, but otherwise the game is basically done. I want to take a few minutes to write about some skills I think I improved on while developing Deathly Descent, as well as some of the mistakes I feel I made and how I want to learn from those moving forward.

For one thing, I got some practice at pixel art and I think I'm a lot better at that now than I was when I started the project! I started including a drop shadow behind tiles/objects that render over the background tiles to help add some more depth to the levels, which looks very nice! I think I also learned more about the importance of color palettes. I re-watched my first devlog on YouTube recently and I think the tiles look like they're made of chocolate there honestly. I toned down the brick color and I also added a vine-covered variant tinted kind of a teal color to help add some contrast to the levels, especially with the blue lighting I think it looks very nice. 

I can actually remember how had to modify several of the sprites/tiles when I switched the setting from being below the desert to being below the jungle. When I first started Deathly Descent I didn't have an actual plan in mind for what I wanted the game to be. I knew I wanted to make a fast-paced 2D platformer that relies on quick thinking and surviving a dangerous environment, so I started out by creating a prototype tile-set and basic version of the player script that moves quickly and very precisely to go with the fast-paced gameplay I wanted. I think the biggest mistake I made was not spending enough time pre-planning Deathly Descent. I started the project with enthusiasm, some experience in the Unity engine, and a basic idea of what I was trying to create. I think I should have spent a few days thinking through the story behind Deathly Descent, the setting, and the protagonists motives before making the Unity project.
 
I didn't stay very organized when developing the game either. Deathly Descent's code base and assets folder are an absolute mess. I got what was coming to me for this about halfway through, I can remember having to fight with my code for HOURS sometimes. For some reason when I had first started Deathly Descent, I had been writing extra lines to my functions doing extra things I didn't need them to be doing, and I guess at the time I had a plan for what that extra functionality was for, but as the project changed it just became redundant. There were several times where things would inexplicably break after I changed some script I didn't think was related and I ended up having to sift through the tangled mess of code that is Deathly Descent's code base to find what the error is and fix it, and many times fixing it would cause OTHER errors and it became a big frustrating spiral of errors that I'd have to ride down before I could actually test the change I was trying to make.

Developers, please take the time to clean and organize your code! The half hour you save by not doing that isn't worth fighting with your code for 3 hours later down the road. This is coming from my experience building Deathly Descent.

I also think I expected too much out of Deathly Descent when I released it on itch. I had an unrealistic expectation that a lot of people would notice Deathly Descent and download it, but in all actuality that wasn't going to happen. It is a bit disappointing that I haven't gotten many views or downloads yet, I will admit. I think for my next project I'll think smaller and try to get it done quicker. I'm definitely going to continue to polish Deathly Descent, and I'm also going to keep making games because I legitimately enjoy it. Mistakes are how we learn and grow as people, so the more mistakes you make early, the better. If you're interested in downloading Deathly Descent and giving me your feedback, please do!