Hello people. You might know me as different things, but today I am the person who made Pancake Maker.
About a year ago, I posted a post mortem for Pancake Maker on r/idlegamemaker. Today for the up coming third anniversary, I decided to revise or rewrite some of it and update it to feature some of the stuff that happened after the orignal post mortem was released. Let's get started.
Where It Starts
During the Fall of 2019, after a summer's and 2 months worth of throwing concepts and seeing what would stick, nothing has really worked in the long term. Although one game did get released (A[n] Ice Cream Clicker), it was removed shortly. A few concepts were tried, such as rpgs (one with a focus on mining), a fan guide for IGM, and a game about cooking pancakes. All of these were worked on at some point, but eventually, the last idea, cooking pancakes, ended up taking the main focus.
This was before the non-idle games (Forez's Dream and Get a Glass of Milk Because You Have To) started being a concept on IGM that had some notable games. Almost everything on IGM at the time were Idle Games, which is cool and all, but I wanted to do something a little more unique. After my months of experience working on IGM games that never went anywhere, it was about time I tried to make something that I could stick with. That's how it started.
Pancakes!
During development of the project, I had a time slot during my day in which I would develop. Usually from 15:00 to 18:00 every weekday, and some more time on weekends if I felt like it (I don't remember the details for the weekends). The system of where the player would make the pancakes took a bit of time to make, with a lot of coping and changing numbers. While I knew there would be bugs with what I was doing, I continued on with some testing to make sure things work (This will be important later).
The cooking system was made in order of the process. The cooking part was somewhat easy since it's just a few values with if statements. The next section is the 2nd section where the player’s pancakes are shown. Originally, only 12 were possible to make at a time and they were all upgrades, which was prone to bugs. The final is the stack and toppings. This was probably the easiest to do since they were only really earned and removed. As I said, there were bugs (Pancakes disappearing, multiple pancakes appearing if the player clicked fast, broken removal system, etc. probably), however, I didn't really try to fix half of them until V3 Pt.1's less than 48 hours of development time.
The side bar's content was originally like how it was in other IGM games. Two sections with content. I noticed early that it would have gotten cluttered as more content was added, so I later switched to a menu system by V1. A mobile version was considered early and done, since I thought the game would have been difficult for those devices otherwise.
During this time I was also still thinking and testing out concepts for games. This is where the RPG game with a focus on mining comes in. Named Miner X, it was meant to be a spiritual successor to an old IGM game called Legendary Super Miner with added RPG mechanics and story. This didn't go anywhere since I had no idea how to combine the traditional idle game part with the RPG part (And to this day, I still have no idea how) and also the story didn't go anywhere either. However, Pancake Maker did indeed work, and it was... ready?
Version 0
Development was going pretty well, but the game wasn't really ready in terms of being bug free. Regardless (and I don't remember why), the game launched on January 10th 2020 with both the Regular & Mobile Versions of the game. Some issues came up though considering that it was released two months into development, including...
- Spelling/Grammar Issues (Fixed some the next day and some more throughout it's development lifespans)
- Ingredients can be lost and if the player had no cash to buy more, they were hard locked unless they wiped their save or imported an old one (An item was added on January 22nd that helped, but free ingredient generation was possible until February 14th where that was prevented. Ingredients price were dropped to 5 (from 10) and Pancake sell price was increased by 4 (I don't remember original price) on April 4th (Thanks to ʐ̈ MANNNNNNN#8513). It remained unchanged for a year until August 4th, 2021 were I made it less than 1 ingredient instead of the original 0 (Thanks to DragonSlayr15001#9923))
- Some images didn't work (Fixed on the 22nd along with the item from above)
- Trash Button... in general. V3 Pt.1 basically stripped it off of all use except for removing brunt or overcooked pancakes.
- Pancakes can be duplicated if the player clicked fast (Fixed on November 21st)
- Original cooking system was flawed until V3 Pt.1 where it was reworked, which came out on March 7th, 2021
However, that was it. Despite later versions adding new content, the base of the game remained the same. It ended up being my 2nd released game (After A[n] Ice Cream Clicker). The goal of a unique game was completed.
Versions 1 and 2
There's not much to explain about this. The ideas from these versions just came up, and I added them. However, this would also show a sign of being worn out from it. I had the most energy to work on it for a 48 hour period before I either lost all of it or I had to start doing homework since school was the next day, and then release it. Outside of the 48 hour periods, I didn't really work on the game (The new icons from V2 were started during V1's development cycle).
Canceled Christmas Update
This was the peak of being worn out. It started right after V2 was released. I was planning to make an advent calendar event where you could earn candy canes and exchange them for items. There was also a series of tasks exclusive to this event. Originally it was 25 days long, but later reduced to 12 because the development wasn't going fast enough. This was also sided with school, which made things more difficult. Eventually I dropped it, and quickly forgot about the game for the following months because of other interests and school. After a year and 9 months of working on games that nobody would really see, I needed a break.
When I did the feedback form a while back, the Christmas Update was a potential idea to bring back and actually finish. However, I decided to not do it despite what the votes say as I wanted to move on to other projects.
Version 3 Pt.1
After 2 months of not doing any IGM related things (For those curious, I was planning out stories that never went anywhere, just like the IGM games from before), I discovered that r/idlegamemaker released a discord server. I thought that now would be a good time to fix up Pancake Maker so I could show it to subreddit and its discord server without it looking stupid. So I did it within less than 48 hours. In that time, I...
- Revamped the cooking process. It was prone to bugs, so I just fixed it up to use resources/includes in the 2nd section instead of upgrades.
- Made a Save Fixer, since the above change broke the game for some saves. (This save fixer is not present where the game was posted after this update)
- Dropped ingredient price by 1 (Currently 4) and modified challenge mode pancake sell price because of this.
- Added the long overdue blueberry pancakes and a way to switch types. This revamp has made it easier to do so, so I decided to do so.
- Added skills.
- Removed inside jokes from DashNet for the new communities.
- As well as other small changes.
Because of these changes, the game is now less stupid and more presentable (Though the game is still stupid in a few places). After that, I went to work on Seven and later Get a Glass of Milk Because You Have To.
Version 3 Pt.1.5 and Ready To Steal Edition
The game was basically left to collect dust after it's last update in August 2021, which added links to the Beans Street Supermarket Discord server. Despite some promises to return to the game for more updates, I never regained full interest in Pancake Maker as it is.
Then, on one dark Christmas Eve Eve (basically just a regular 23rd of December), not wanting to work on Get a Glass of Milk Because You Have To, I decided to clean up Pancake Maker for the first time in more than a year. This update, called the "Legacy" update, made some text corrections or changes. The changes were mainly done to prevent people into thinking the game is still being supported. Once I completed and released, I moved quickly into making a version intended to be looked at by aspiring IGM developers. This didn't take too much time, but I did enough to it to warrant a seperate link.
V3 Pt.1.5 features one achievement for completing almost everything in the game which has a final goodbye message and credits. I don't recommend playing the entirety of the game just to see it since it mainly contains information found elsewhere, but if you have played it before and made "big" progress, this is something you might want to see.
Pros/Cons of the End Product
Pancake Maker helped me step into the hobby of game developing. However, it has aged somewhat poorly compared to my later works, in terms of writing and development. It ended up being a learning experience, and helped shaped how I went on with later works like Milk Game.
Pros
- It showed that IGM could be used for non-idle games. This was the goal from the start. Something unique to stand out. A[n] Ice Cream Clicker had the fusion and evolution mechanics, but it was otherwise a normal idle game. Though Forez's Dream and my own Milk Game would surpass Pancake Maker with this when they were released, it was still cool that I accomplished this when attempts weren't as common.
- I actually finished something and haven't regretted it! I have yet to do this outside of IGM (unless I count the site).
- It exists! I've run out of pros.
Cons
- It wasn't really a game I would play myself often. This probably explains why the game had a lot of bugs and spelling mistakes. Now let me explain this: The game was inspired by the Papa Louie games (I think. I know it was used as a reference while making the game for sure.) which I don't play often, but when I do, I play a lot in a short period of time. Kind of explains the weird development times when I have sudden urges to do something for this game. Pancake Maker was a great learning experience, but that was really it. Milk Game was more enjoyable in the sense that I would actually see myself playing it from time to time. Plus, I love my characters. PM had no named characters.
- NOT ENOUGH PLAYTESTING! Like the above said. It didn't really make me want to playtest the game which later came back to bite me months after the game's launch. I've learned my lesson, and now playtest a lot more (even got playtesters for Literally Watch Paint Dry).
- Spelling and grammar. It sucked. I've gotten a little better over the years, but Pancake Maker still had this issue to an extent.
What's Next?
This game was finally discontiued once I released version 3 Pt.1.5 for several reasons. These reasons include loss of interest and the lack of story/lore. Pancake Maker wasn't a game I wanted to play from time to time, an issue that my other games don't have. Even my first game, A[n] Ice Cream Clicker, was something I wanted to play from time to time, which is why I decided to remake it recently. It might of been a different story if I had the interest to actually play it.
Now, there's the possibility that I might make a remake of it in the future. Not sure when, but it is something I want to do at some point. The reason is so I can finally implement lore into the game as well as take advantage of a better engine. When I discontinued A[n] Ice Cream Clicker, I didn't really expect to come back to it in a few years for a remake. When I wanted it back (because I deleted most of it's files), I made a new version of the game instead using my better knowledge of IGM and game developing. I hope to do the for Pancake Maker at some point as well.
As for The Blue Pancake, let's just assume the new owner ended up with a nice business for the foreseeable future.
And that's it. Pancake Maker was a good learning experience, but with how things ended up being, I decided it's no longer worth it to continue. It will stay in memory though, as my first "sucessful" game.
If you want to play the game now, here's the link to it. https://orteil.dashnet.org/igm/?g=rdekpqbD.
Edit (3/26/2023): I only now realized that I accidentaly said 2022 instead of 2020 on the first paragraph of Version 0. I have no clue how I missed that.