5 Things I learned in my first Game Jam, v1.2
January 2017 was the first time I get to participate in a Game Jam. For those who do not know, Game Jams are events that exist for the purpose of creating games. These events can be online or presencial. The goal is really to encourage developers, programmers and artists to create their own game. And also to provide a good place to meet new people with the same focus.
The Game Jam I went was just the most popular in the world. The name could not be other. “Global Game Jam” as it is called, or just GGJ, is a presencial Game Jam that takes place around the world in many cities. The participants are asked to create a game in about 48 hours.
GGJ happens once a year, always on January. In my city, Curitiba — Brazil, we have the second largest site in the world, in number of participants. The largest one happens in Egypt. You can see the list in this link
As it was my first Game Jam I was starting to learn new things and to know new people. These are the 5 most important things I learned on GGJ 2017.
1. Learn by doing
You can read a lot about creating games and watch many video tutorials. But you’ll learn a lot more about how to develop a game when you really need to create one. In this Game Jam I realized something everybody says: you really know something when you can do it. When I needed to put into practice what I studied before I could notice how much I knew and also how much I didn’t. It’s easy to forget what we study if we don’t put into practice. However, the problems I faced to developed a game led me to work on solutions and those solutions I’ll hardly forget.
2. Measure well the size of the project
A good defined scope is 50% of the project. (Today I think it could be even more). Really. Going to a GameJam thinking that you can implement all the nice ideas you have is a bad start. You’ll have just a few hours to come up with a working game. Time is short, so narrow your great ideas to one or two, tops. Try to refine and polish the main idea. It could be just one main gameplay mechanic. It it works and plays well it’s just an awesome thing to create in so short period of time.
3. Working in a team works better than alone
Making a game is not a one-person project. Altought you can develop the entire game alone, Game Jams work better if you work in a team. If you have time against you it is essential to have a balanced and well-divided team. If you can have the team defined before the Game Jam starts, it’s better.
Once you have the scope of the game decided by the team, try splitting the tasks of each team member before everyone begin to work. Each person needs to know his part in the final game.
A good idea is to separate tasks by affinity and knowledge. So do not leave the programming to someone who has never programmed, or the visuals to someone who has never done it. It seems obvious but in a rush it may go unnoticed. Let team members with less experience help the more experienced.
It is also not a good idea to deliver a lot of tasks one person alone. E.g. If in your team you only have 1 artist, make the art as simple as possible. Likewise if you have only 1 programmer, think about game mechanics that are fast to implement.
4. Planning time is essential
Before you start developing your game in Game Jam, plan ahead the time your team have. What is very common in GGJ is to use the Friday night (the first Game Jam hours) to define the scope of the game. The second day is used for development and Sunday (the last day) is used for gametest and bugs fixes.
Learn to manage the scarce time you have. It’s ok to spend some hours planning everything before start developing. If your team is large (more than 3 people), it is a good idea to have someone responsible for asking others about their tasks and keeping an eye on deadlines. It’s better if it’s someone that did some Game Jams before.
5. Community is well disposed
Jammers are people willing to help others. Everyone who signs up to a Game Jam is aiming to learn something new and to improve. It’s not a competition. Altought some Game Jams are focused on dispute, that’s rarely the case. So do not treat others as competitors but rather as members of the same community. Post your questions on forums and social networks and help others. Everyone always has something new to learn. Arrogance is not well seen in Game Jams. And in life, btw.
In GGJ 2017 our team was made up of 6 people. It was our first Game Jam together and we were fortunate to win 2 awards. Best game made on Unreal Engine 4 and Best Game of the Jam by Jammes Vote.
We created the game Nami, which you can see more in this link
After the Game Jam we spent another 3 weeks working om some fixes, just for fun, and released the version 1.02.
I hope those 5 tips can help you in some way.
Remember that Game Jams are a great place for learning and for meeting some folks. Good luck on your Game Jam and have fun!
