A pre-mortem for my poorly drawn game

Hi all! 

Thanks for checking out my post. I recently launched Shape Dungeon - the project was meant to be a more complex game than my last release (9! The Game), which came out only two weeks prior. For the 3-5 of you who read my last blog post, I am learning Unity and game development with no prior experience or particularly helpful skillset. I don't know how to make sprites, work in blender or aseprite, or program (at least, prior to this summer).  I learned a lot making this game. Candidly, towards the end of this week, I was more interested in getting the game released, so I could start work on a new project, as I found my passion and interest for this one to dwindle over the last few days, as the bulk of my work was bug-fixing. 

I'll start by outlining my goals, then I'll talk about unexpected learnings. 

• Create a tightly scoped game: I did not want the environment/stage to change. Like 9! The Game, I wanted the game-stage and background to be static. 
• Learn to navigate grids: I played a handful of GMTK games that relied on grid-based movement. It felt tight and snappy - so I wanted to do something similar. I'll note that as the idea became further fleshed out, I ended up learning more about inventory system development, rather than grid-based movement. However, earlier game ideas I had were more grid focused. 
• Use more complex code and rely less on UI elements: 9! The Game was made entirely using buttons and textmeshpro. 

Unexpected learnings. 

• Coming up with an idea is hard: I went through a handful of different ideas and created a number of different prototypes prior to settling on Shape Dungeon. However, I found myself uninspired with those prototypes as I got further into development. I believe this to be a normal part of the development process - however, as a hobbyist who is more interested in learning new things, rather than creating the next commercial hit, I was surprised to see myself caught with the same habits. 
• Create new functions: I found my code to be quite redundant in many places. In some instances, I created functions that I could call to reduce said redundancy. However, I wasn't consistent with this, and I found myself making edits in numerous places. 
• Artwork is really, really hard. As mentioned above, I don't have any experience working in aseprite or other programs. I ended up using my laptop's built-in stylus to draw some crude placeholders. What I didn't expect was to like those crude drawings, much more than the sharper, albeit uncharacterized, shapes I used earlier. So, even though artwork was a time sink, the end effect was well worth it. 
• Knowing when to stop. There are things about this game that I do not like. You can have an unplayable hand and the game-over screen will not trigger. Alternatively, there is no end goal. You play until you get bored. Furthermore, I didn't realize how confusing shape combining would be. A square is made up of two triangles - that makes conceptual sense. However, as a player, when I add two threes, I expect to get a six (which would be a hexagon), not a square (which is a square). This is because I chose to put numbers in each shape, to help distinguish them. While I could have redrawn the artwork to make it clearer, I was running out of steam with this game and felt that it was better to push out a semi-polished product, rather than let it sit in my files indefinitely. Ultimately, for me, this process is about learning, not creating a masterpiece (at least, as of now). 

Thanks for reading! If anyone else is going through or has gone through a similar learning journey, please share any advice you might have!