Hey guys! SwAAn here. I wanted to drop in here and give some of my thoughts after participating in my first game jam (and incidentally publishing my first game). There is a LOT of ground to cover here, so bear with me!

Background

Since I've never posted here before, I feel like I should introduce myself and GamePond a bit. I'm a programmer by trade, and I've been interested in breaking into game dev since I started coding. I've made a few demos for myself here and there, but I always lacked direction and never really fleshed out any ideas completely.

Then, a few months ago, I made a few mods for a game called Lethal Company, and one of them ended up getting a few hundred thousand downloads. This was really exciting for me, and it got me interested in pursuing game dev full-time.

So this Summer, I sought out to make my own game, knowing virtually nothing about what it takes to create a game from the ground up. I teamed up with Builderman (whom I know personally) and we got to work on... well it's a project that isn't in a state that I'm ready to share quite yet. Using my background in programming, I more or less self-taught Godot as we worked on this initial project.

But that project suffered from scope creep and a lack of experience from both of us. Still, it was a great learning experience, and it prepared us for what was next to come.

Pirate Software Game Jam 15

I came across Thor's YouTube when I realized I didn't have enough context for how to start in game dev and looked outward for help. His content was very motivational, and generally informative as to how the process works. At this point, I was starting to build an image of what it means to make a game. I felt like I could go from implementing random features for fun to managing a project with goals.

I wanted to channel this energy into something new, and as fate would have it, this game jam was starting right as I was having this awakening. Builderman and I decided to go ahead with this, so we got to work on the game right away.

I won't lie, I think the theme was kind of a flop. Shadows and Alchemy sounds pretty cool, but it's kind of complicated to combine those ideas. I played a lot of games from the jam, and maybe 2 of them actually incorporate the theme completely. In reality, the theme is kind of generic, and it's hard to come up with a unique idea from it. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, and from the start I wanted the theme to be incorporated into everything: gameplay, design, theme, etc. But both of these themes can be so deep on their own, I felt a bit boxed in. That being said, I am a big fan of what we came up with (even if the Shadows theme was more or less tacked on in the end).

Game Jams Are Exciting

Perhaps the first thing I noticed when the jam was starting was how excited I was, even before the theme announcement. I was eager to get started on a fresh project, and just do something I haven't done before. I was primed and ready with my newfound knowledge of Godot, and the created juices were flowing.

This is a feeling that continued throughout the jam too. Sharing my work with others and seeing what others were doing was a blast; at first it came with a sense of competition and rivalry, but later on I learned to just appreciate everyone's games for what they were.

Finding Alainfigue and Ecksecksecks and collaborating with them was a blast too! Everyone's minds are just racing with possibilities as you're assembling your dream team. We had a really great time working together.

Game Jams Are Fun

Seriously, they're tons of fun. We chose an idea that all of us loved and we were all just so hyped to work on it. Every time I got a new asset from Builderman or Ecks, or a new song from Alain, I became filled with joy that the game was one step closer to being complete. I hope they felt the same way when I sent them gameplay demos and feature updates.

Interacting with the community might have been the best part. There were a lot of people in the Discord that I learned to recognize over time, and I became recognized myself. After the jam was over, people knew about my game and had played it, and gave me feedback on it - for the first time ever. I can't tell you how thrilling this was. And to top it off, people loved it. I still get chills from looking at the comments. Regardless of the outcome, I always knew that I was proud of what we had accomplished here.

Game Jams Are Insanely Hard

Believe it or not, brining an idea to fruition in a matter of days is insanely challenging when balancing your personal life and full-time job at the same time. It also didn't help that I was the only coder on the team, and at least in the beginning, the only member with Godot experience. I was constantly comparing my work to the work of others, and that took a serious toll. At one point early on, we even completely overhauled our games systems and changed how the whole thing would work (thank God all I had done before that was prototype the game).

All the while you're writing code that you can't be 100% confident in but commit anyway because you need to move on to the next task FAST. If it works, it works. This drove me crazy. In the end there were several optimizations and balancing changes I would have loved to make, but just didn't have time for. Being aware of those as I clicked submit was hard.

Conclusions

Ultimately, I am extremely happy with how this jam went. Our game ended up consistently one of the top 10 most popular games in the jam, and even if we don't end up as one of the official winners, this is an accomplishment I am wholly proud of. My skills and the skills of everyone on the team improved, and seeing a game go from start to finish is extremely satisfying. I learned how to work with deadlines, stick to a schedule, and manage a project with multiple partners. In the end, this made all of us better developers.

If you read this, thank you so much!! Stay tuned for updates on Blood X Thirsty, we're currently discussing what the next moves are going to be for it long-term. Ultimately, I think at a bare-minimum you can expect a couple balancing and QOL updates down the line.

Until next time!

- SwAAn