Brackeys Game Jam 2023.1

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Brackeys Game Jam 2023.1 community

A Question for the Community

A topic by pipcy created Feb 21, 2023 Views: 344 Replies: 18

Viewing posts 1 to 11

pipcySubmitted1 year ago (5 edits) (+2)

Hi guys! This is my first game jam ever!! I am new to game dev, and it was a blast making a game in a week, it was a little bit stressful but at the end it was a really fun experience!! I made this game with 2 of my friends and we shared a lot of fun time together making this game. We submitted this game 5 minutes before deadline!!

Going into this game jam I prepared myself for criticism knowing that I am a noob myself, but I was surprised by the positivity and supportiveness of this community.

If you are reading this post, I would love to know what's your experience, how many game jam have you participated, any fun story while making this game, and any word of advice to a new game dev! I'd love to hear about your story and build connections!

Lastly, I would really appreciate if you could play our game and gives some feedback!https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-9/rate/1933371

Also, leave your game below! I'll play it! (if your game needs to be downloaded, I'll get to it when I get home)

lkjNsiudy78ay98qmi3p4nskjSubmitted1 year ago(+2)

Congrats on completing your first Game Jam! Loved the creativity of the PC home screen!

I have been a game developer for about 4-5 years now and from that experience, I would say the most valuable advice I can give is to not set overly ambitious games. We like to set the bar very high and want to create the next God of war, GTA, or Souls-like, only to have those ambitions crashing down when we evitably cannot finish it. I would recommend creating simple games along with following a task manager to learn what you can or cannot do in a reasonable amount of time.

This is actually something I struggled with even after this many years but have learned to control it. For this game jam, I was originally going to be very ambitious but after some thought realized I needed to scale down the project. This ended up being a good call as despite the scaled-down project I was barely able to submit it(1 minute 29 seconds left :d). It was very challenging and miserable I would have to spend extremely long hours on the game every game along with having to spend 24 straight working it at one point. Thankfully the positive feedback and genuine fun that my friends and this community had with my game made it all worth it in the end! I hope this advice helps you out a bit!

Here is my game - Play Maeltropolis

pipcySubmitted1 year ago (1 edit)

Wow! Those advice are very insightful and thank you so much for sharing! Submitting it one minute before must felt crazy, I submitted it 5 minutes before and I remembered me almost shaking.

lkjNsiudy78ay98qmi3p4nskjSubmitted1 year ago

It really was, I actually thought I had 10 minutes left but due to anxiety, I double-checked the website and found out I had 2 minutes left so I was panicking. Also if you could play and rate my game that would make my day :)

pipcySubmitted1 year ago

Definitely!

Mop82Submitted1 year ago(+1)

I feel the same way, this is my first game jam and im pretty happy because I managed my time well and thats all I wanted to going in. And I expected a much worse response because im inexperienced but the feedback has been suprisingly constructive and helpful!

pipcySubmitted1 year ago

That's so good that you managed your time well! Shake hands on our first jam! I commented and rated your game and gave some feedback. Thank you for sharing =V=

BerryBush GamesSubmitted1 year ago (1 edit)

"Going into this game jam I prepared myself for criticism knowing that I am a noob myself, but I was surprised by the positivity and supportiveness of this community. "

Stack Overflow took all the toxic ones, the positive ones are what's left on itch.

Nah I jest, this was a great jam to participate in as a first jam, and in fact that's what my team and I did too. We decided after messing around with some design principles for a while we'd finally put something out to the world, and despite it being a little under the radar I'm actually really happy with it. We proved that we could get something out under pressure, and proved it to ourselves more than anyone else. I think we needed the confidence boost of getting something started, made, and done. This jam is a great place to build some development confidence and I'm glad it sounds like you had a really good experience too!

Also very much enjoyed your game- I loved the control swaps and the almost surreal techgore snippets. The soundtrack warping halfway scared the absolute living ghost out of me while playing it in dark at midnight lol.

I think Swagturtle made an excellent point about scope by the way! For example, in our project Vale, we were running out of time pretty badly (working full time jobs on top of development is a rough balancing act). Like you, we were also in the last 5 minute club, and I honestly thought our build wasn't going to make it in time. Thank God it did!

We had a lot of things planned for the final project that never made it in, things that had DAYS of work put towards making that just couldn't reasonably fit in. For example, Vale was originally supposed to have an opening and closing cutscene- for which we took LIVE footage of ourselves as the "actors" and rotoscoped abstract pixel frames over to create short animations for the project. When it came down to implementation- there simply put was no feasible way to incorporate it in the timeframe that felt like it belonged in the game, and we had to scrap it, effectively making the only thing we got out of all that recording and animation the experience we got from doing it (which to be honest, is worth it's weight in gold). Scrapping those parts, which at the time seemed vital, eventually allowed us to actually finish the project in time.

Also, not an experienced developer myself quite yet, but I think I'm starting to realize that just talking about your games, ideas, shortcomings, successes, all of it- keeping the communication open between yourself and other people in the game design field- keeps the ideas fresh in your mind and sets bars for yourself to continue to reach and accomplish. Chatting with other people who also make games will give you fresh perspectives and might even help you think past roadblocks that might come up. Oh- and like Brackey's says- if you ever find yourself working on a problem that seems to defy the very laws of the universe- it might mean it's time to take a break and come back to it refreshed. The answer might be easier than you think.

If you ever feel like chatting on some concepts or anything really feel free to reach out! I quite like the direction your games seem to be going and would love to check out any other works you put out too!

Vale (For anyone interested)

pipcySubmitted1 year ago(+1)

Wow, thank you for taking the time to write such an elaborate comment. I loved your insights about the game developing process and the community. Can't wait to play your game too!

Josh WelliverSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

Glad you had fun - That's what it's about.. and actually finishing! Congrats :)

I'm heading over to check out your game now. When you get a chance, would like to hear what you think about ours. Thanks!

Rate Vines! by jwelliver for Brackeys Game Jam 2023.1 - itch.io

pipcySubmitted1 year ago

Thank you!! Will check out yours!!

SmelJeySubmitted1 year ago (1 edit) (+1)

I've been in many game jams already both solo and with the team. People are almost always positive in game jams, this is what I love about them. The main advice about the game jams is to try something new and have fun! Simple as that. Also, it is important to keep your scope short, because there is not so much time to make a large game with plenty of mechanics. Better focus on polishing your game, so it would be nice to play for other people.

You can try our game here: https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-9/rate/1932578

pipcySubmitted1 year ago

Thank you so much for sharing! I'll keep that in mind. Will check out your game!

SalieriAntonioSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

Oh, it was your first game?! Its soo cool, considering realisation. It was my first jam too, so I had a lot of stress too, but it was helpful for my expirience. Supportivnes and kindness of community at beginning feels good, but at some point I started to appreciate honest reaction with criticism and mentioning of mistakes, instead of just "I liked it".

Who wants play my game and write an honest reaction: https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-9/rate/1932665

Mathieu SchmerberSubmitted1 year ago

I made sure to write your team some feedbacks that I hope will help :)

On my end, I've been participating in game JAMs for years and created more prototypes that I could ever count. However I still remember each JAM, since before beiing, a game it's an experience with all its flaws and fun, whether you do it alone or as a team.

To this day I still remember my first JAM, 7 years ago when I was 15 , I'd stick around with 3 friends of mine eating sugar all day long and not sleeping. That was the entry to the game JAM universe, a drug essentially :D

Looking back at my beginning I made an awfull ton of projects (bunch of unfinished ones as well), I've a google drive full of my shit, on itch I only put some interesting ones. Even tho, I'm still very much at the beginning of my journey !

Time flies especially when you have fun making games, nowadays I create WAYYYY more than I play games.

This community will always be opened and supportive, what we look at is interesting ideas to either support, steal and both hahaha. To me, looking at complete beginners brings me joy as I see others starting their journey and brings me back to a few years ago. I doubt you'll ever see any hateful comment on itch.io, sometimes feedbacks hurt, but that's when they're the most constructive. It hurts since you spent a lot of time working on something you are proud of, but your output will never be perfect so learn to grow with the feedbacks of players. The day you become conceited, is the day you start making terrible games with no flavour.

I work as a software engineer so I'm more of a programmer, and especially in this field, people get conceited with themselves really quickly. The more humble you are, the more likely you'll reflect on yourself and grow way quicker than the others in a way. Of course that's just my own point of view and experience, so take it or leave it :)

Everyone will always keep on learning from JAMs, that's the whole point of it and that's amazing !

By the way here's my game, and just like you guys I'm proud of it and it's not perfect but what matters is that for a few days, I gave it my all to my dearest hobby: https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-9/rate/1932730

FunkyParrot1 year ago(-1)

This is our first attempt to make a new game! We tried our best, but due to the short of time, we couldnt manage to make good SFX and Music. Also some animations and sprites are pretty silly, but overall - we love the results! And a lot of people found this game to be fun, which is very insipring!

Try our HARDCORE pirate rouge-like game! Hope u will enjoy it!
https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-9/rate/1921973

후추세스푼Submitted1 year ago

Hello pipcy!! Congratulations on completing your game development! It's my first game jam too! I'm so exiting and feel thankful to everyone who gave positive feedback to me. That is extremely helpful and I am pleased that someone playing my game.

By the way, I like your game so much!! Molly is the cutest dog and It reminds me of the old days with Window lol.

I hope you to continue developing games. Because, game dev is fun!

+) If you want, you can play my game too. It makes me happy! : https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-9/rate/1932845

pipcySubmitted1 year ago

Thank you for sharing! Shake hands on our first jam!

I'll play your game too!

TofallySubmitted1 year ago

Second time participating in a game jam, first time finishing the game. My first jam was Brackeys 2022.2 (I did not finish). I have made one game before that witch is also available under my profile in itch.io.

My jam game: https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-9/rate/1932569