Yup great thread Will have to go through all the posts in more detail, but this kind of stuff is really good.

I’ve half written a full post mortem of the neon games, but as its not finished ill do a brief run down of each of my games (can't be bothered getting links).

Lumination
This was our first game as varstudios. The concept was great (I still want to make another one based on the same idea), but the major weakness of it was its overly simple, yet overly difficult gameplay. It also lacked in depth and didn’t progress much. If I do get round to doing another one it would be far more in depth with a good difficulty curve and improved gameplay.

Pixel Monsters
This was a weird one. I loved the concept, but hated the finished game. I still don't know how I even managed to finish it. After reluctantly releasing it on newgrounds expecting a terrible score, I was surprised to find that it did ok, and even generated a small fan base. Again I would really like to remake this, as I still think the concept was great. I probably never will though. Again, its main weakness was lack of depth and lack of gameplay. Its basis however was good, and it was the idea which caused it not to totally flop.

Viroidz
Our first shooter. Based off asteroids, but with some unique twists. This was the first game which I still liked after finishing it. The idea was pretty good, the gameplay was good, the difficulty was just right and there was enough to it to stop it getting boring quickly. The only thing I would have done differently now, is to make it faster and to add more enemy types.

Neon
This marked a change in the way I thought about making games. Instead of keeping to a boring formula and producing a average game, I just let myself build the game exactly how I wanted to play it while still sticking to a set goal in order to avoid going off the track. The outcome was a shooter which I enjoyed far more than viroidz and I felt like I had created something fun and creative. The only thing I wanted to do to it, was make a bigger better one.

Neon 2
...which is exactly what I did (well at least in my mind, many people disagree). I spent much more time on this one, fine tuning it and making it as good as it was going to get without me spending years on it. Got a bit carried away at one point and almost ruined the game through speed issues, but fortunately you guys helped resolve that and the game was a success. Some of the feedback I received however (mainly from newgrounds) was a bit discouraging, not because it was negative (most of it was very positive), but simply because people didn’t seem to get into it as they did with the first one. This left me unsure where to go next with my games and so I am now exploring some other shooter styles as well as some other ideas that i have had lurking around for a while.

Ali