Autogame Deluxe is a personal project that has taught me a lot about the way I make games. It's been in the making on and off for about eight years while I never made it clear for myself what the final game should look like. The core hasn't even changed that much during this time; the gameplay loop has been solid from the start and it's even ready for events with large, custom buttons.

From the beginning, I knew Autogame Deluxe should be:

• Easy to play
• Enjoyable to watch as well
• multiplayer, with computer-controlled players

Because there was no pressure on this project, the game has gone through many phases. Autogame Deluxe started as a microgame and has been rebuilt (at least) three times where things like control schemes, items and a tournament mode have been implemented, and removed.

Looking back, my biggest challenges were:

Maintaining the feel of the game, adding elements that fit the theme while being recognizable.

Polishing the UX to make sure scoring and ranks are clear, even for first time players.

Deciding when to stop changing things!

For this final iteration, where I finally decided on a content lock, there are still a couple of things I want to add because I value the experience. These are:

• Single player challenges. Handling the same system to decide on a win or loss with different game rules and how to incorporate progress, unlocks and high scores.
• Localization. Automatically reading available languages, handling different fonts and changing to a right-to-left script.
• Accessibility. Making sure that as much of the game can be enjoyed by as many people as possible.

It was exciting to build this in the short time that I had. Very early on I shared the work-in-progress in secret with family and friends who provided feedback and a lot of enthusiasm.

As I started my design, I thought the game should be:

• Easily accessible through a webpage
• Designed for portrait orientation on smartphones
• Appealing to a small child
• Done in a week, to present it as a gift to the parents when I would meet my nephew for the first time.

From there, I developed the pieces one by one, creating a first vertical slice with the shark. My main tasks were:

• Designing fun and vibrant interactions, based on existing paintings
• Editing pictures of paintings, isolating the creatures and separating moving parts as assets
• Coding cute creatures with distinct behaviours
• Ensuring a vibrant game feel in any moment, with or without interaction
• Scaling the environment, making sure elements stayed on-screen when dealing with different screen sizes
• Maintaining a balance between fast iteration using GM:S's desktop testing and testing stability in the HTML5 module