72 Hours, 1 Game: A First-Timer’s Guide to Game Jams
My Experience And Tips from 72 hours of game development
Ah, the exhilarating world of game development! As a lifelong gamer and aspiring game designer, I always knew that one day I would participate in a game jam. For the uninitiated, a game jam is like a 72-hour creative marathon where participants come together to design, build, and release a game within a strict timeframe. It’s essentially a pressure cooker of ideas, raw talent, and sleepless nights. Recently, I mustered up the courage and joined my very first game jam.
· Choosing the right game jam
∘ Time Constraints
∘ Community
∘ What Did I choose?
· Setting realistic goals for my first game jam
∘ Community
∘ Priorities
∘ Tools
· My Game Idea
· Overcoming challenges and learning from mistakes
∘ Time Management
∘ Perfectionism
∘ Tutorials
· Submitting
∘ Finishing the game
∘ Submitting
· Afterthoughts and Results
∘ Develop Your Game For Browser
∘ Logo is Your First Impression
∘ Team Up With Artists
· Try the Game Yourself
· Conclusion
Choosing the right game jam
Game jams are a fantastic way to not only test your skills and creativity but also to network with other like-minded individuals and learn from their experiences. With so many different game jams out there, it can be quite overwhelming to choose the right one for beginners. Many game jams exist that last between 24 to 48 hours, but others up to a whole month. I had to consider the time I could allocate to the project as well as the stress that comes with long hours of game development and sitting in front of the computer.
Time Constraints
The thing to look out for is the theme or constraints of the game jam. Some game jams provide meticulous themes or specific restrictions that must be incorporated into your game. While these can be exciting challenges, I think, it’s best to choose a jam with a broader theme or some flexibility. The more open-ended the theme, the more creativity and experimentation I could bring to my project.
Community
I considered the community surrounding the game jam as well. A supportive and inclusive community can make a world of difference, especially for someone trying to start their career. I looked for game jams that explicitly mention fostering collaboration and sharing knowledge. The whole purpose of participating in a jam is not just to create a game but also to connect with fellow aspiring game developers.
What Did I choose?
I had quite a few options within the timeframe I planned to join. Only looking at itch.io, I was provided with about 20 different options, some even featuring prizes for the top position.
My eyes finally caught a glimpse of a 3-day recurring Game Jam simply titled “Mini Jam”. It was the 149th round of the competition. It takes place within a 72-hour window and always includes a different theme and restriction.
Setting realistic goals for my first game jam
To have a headstart I started brainstorming some ideas, that I could potentially implement. I worked with the “Ancient” theme listed in this round of the Game Jam and tried to be as broad as possible so that the special restriction didn’t catch me off guard.
After some time I have come up with these points:
- It would be 2D (Never written a 3D game, and wasn’t planning to change that)
- There would be some kind of an ancient treasure you would have to get (to satisfy the theme of the game)
- There would be something that guarded the treasure
Community
After that, I looked at the Game Jam discord. I have found a friendly community and even some people who were looking for a team member for the competition. Unfortunately, most of these developers worked in Unity (I use Godot) and there wasn’t quite enough time before the start to get to know the other developers well. I have decided to stay alone this time
Priorities
With limited time and resources, it’s important to prioritize your goals. Setting priorities helps you stay on track and ensures that you have a complete and coherent game by the end of the jam. I have decided to focus 80% of my effort on making the game functional and a bit fun to play. Remember, it’s better to have a strong core gameplay mechanic with simple visuals and sound, rather than spreading yourself thin trying to achieve everything at once.
Tools
Lastly, I have looked around to find tools to fill the gaps in my game dev “tech stack” with tools from fields other than programming. Here are the tools I decided to work with.
- Game Engine: Godot — an open-source game engine that empowers developers to create interactive and cross-platform games with a visual scripting system.
- System Design and Flow Charts: Lucid Charts — a collaborative diagramming tool that simplifies the creation of system design and flowcharts, enabling clear communication and visualization of complex processes.
- SFX and Background Music: Epidemic Sound - a royalty-free music and sound effects platform, provides creators with a vast library of high-quality audio assets for enhancing their projects.
- Sprites: GameIcons.net — a resource hub offering a diverse collection of free and customizable icons for game development, facilitating the creation of visually appealing game sprites.
- Background Images: Stable Diffusion — a platform providing high-quality and diverse background images suitable for various creative projects, including game development, to enhance visual aesthetics.
My Game Idea
Immediately after the organizers disclosed the restriction I reviewed my initial game idea and started brainstorming in Lucid Charts to decide how to implement it in my game. The restriction was “written in an ancient language”. After half an hour I compiled a list of features and aspects that I could compose into a submitable project. In a nutshell:
- It would be played on a 2D grid
- You would try to capture an ancient treasure (to satisfy the theme of the game)
- There would be guards you will have to overcome
- You would have your units, but they wouldn’t speak your language
- Each time you give them commands, they might do something else with some chance
- You would have to spend some valuable time learning their language in the middle of the battle
- I gave it the working name “Space Caper”
Overcoming challenges and learning from mistakes
Taking on my first game jam was an exhilarating yet nerve-wracking experience. As a budding game developer, I decided to dive into this intense event headfirst, eager to test my skills and learn from those more seasoned in the industry.
Time Management
Learning from the experience of others, I have decided to create a timetable.
- Day 1: Layout of game mechanics, implementation
- Day 2: Polishing code, fixing bugs
- Day 3: SFX, Background Music, Start Screen, Tutorial and similar
As the clock ticked, I realized that even the humble plan I had created was overly ambitious, and decided to cut out features and simplify game mechanics to stay on track.
After narrowing down the scope of the project I had quite a different but still promising experience.
- The guards are blind
- They use an alien language to tell each other where they are going
- You must sneak around them
- You can learn their language from the result of their actions
- You do not have friendly units anymore
This valuable lesson taught me that quality triumphs over quantity and that even a plan that seems humble at the beginning might be overly ambitious. You just can’t have everything in your game if you don’t want to spend 2 years on it.
Perfectionism
As a perfectionist by nature, I often found myself stuck in a loop of endless revisions and tweaks, constantly realigning the layout of buttons and the size of the sprites. This tendency hindered my progress during the game jam as I wasted crucial time perfecting minute details that had little impact on the overall experience.
By acknowledging this flaw in my approach, I was able to embrace the concept of quick iterations and feedback loops. This enabled me to make quick improvements and move past setbacks more swiftly.
Tutorials
One important thing to keep in mind is, that the player must know what to do to have the right experience from your game. I realized this about 15 hours before the deadline (which was like 7 hours because the jam ended at 5 a.m.), that the player probably won’t know what to do even when thrown into the game.
This meant I had to sacrifice some polishing to sweat out an explanation to help the player understand the game. I have ended up with a screen at the beginning that tries to explain the core game mechanics.
Submitting
Finishing the game
After countless hours of development, I had finally a working product. There was some time left, but I am not the kind of person to put in extra hours at midnight so I worked with a shorter timeframe. The last things to add were the icon and description. Do not underestimate them! If you have a boring logo, the only guy to play your game is some poor organizer who has to go through tens of half-baked games.
Submitting
Submitting the game was a straightforward process. The organizers had set up a dedicated page on itch.io where participants could upload their game files and provide a brief description. I made sure, that the game file was compiled properly, and that it was possible to run on other machines. Now the only thing I had to wait for was the response of the organizers and wondered whether my was that bad or would stand out in over a hundred submissions posted.
Afterthoughts and Results
Reflecting on the experience, it’s not every day that you dive into something new and instantly outshine the competition. The journey is often filled with uncertainties that steer you off course. The recent game jam mirrored this reality as my game secured the 102nd spot out of 164 entries. While not the groundbreaking result I aimed for, it’s a valuable learning experience with identifiable areas for improvement that could significantly boost Cosmic Caper’s standing on the leaderboards.
Make Your Game Browser-Friendly
If you want more players to engage with your game, consider making it playable directly in the browser. I made the mistake of compiling the game as a downloadable, potentially turning away those who just wanted a quick peek at game jam entries. Downloadable files often trigger security concerns and require a wait time for downloading and setup, diminishing players’ interest.
Collaborate with Artists
While solid game mechanics are essential, the addition of top-notch SFX, sprites, and music acts as a multiplier for your game’s overall appeal. Recognizing this, I plan to put more effort into collaborating with artists in future projects to elevate the overall quality and presentation of my games.
Try the Game Yourself
You might be interested in the game this article covers, so here is the link to my video game.
Conclusion
In conclusion, my experience participating in my first game jam was enriching! From battling my nerves to diving headfirst into the world of game development, I learned a lot and had a ton of fun along the way. I hope that it will give me some experience in my future projects and help me avoid the mistakes I have made last time.
