GMTK Game Jam 2019

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GMTK Game Jam 2019 community

Health Effects of Game Jams!??!??

A topic by VZINC created Aug 09, 2019 Views: 733 Replies: 10

Viewing posts 1 to 7

VZINCSubmitted5 years ago

After reading this article on the health effects of game jams I really got thinking about what they do to our bodies.

This is my first game jam so I have never experienced it before, but it means I experienced everything. Less sleep, coffee, energy drinks, less food, staring at a screen for 18 hours strait, only getting up from my chair a total of 3 or 4 times a day.

Thankfully all this effort went to making an actual good game which I will link at the end. ALSO its not just about me! I want to hear your experiences!

My personal experience was that on the first day I hadn't really worried or stressed, probably because I underestimated how much more work I had to do. What did suck was getting hay fever the day before, so already I'm feeling pretty lethargic and just not good. So a little faster heartbeat and a sickness was all around then. Some pretty worn out eyes too. Thankfully I have good water drinking habit so I was all good on H2O.

The next day was a slap in the face. I literally moved only when necessary, ran when I did have to move, and all my good habits disappeared. I was so focused on getting the game done with lots of content so I completely forgot about everything else. My heart beat went up 10 times and my sickness got even worse. BUT I fought through it till the end. I usually keep really good posture and try to maintain it no mater how hard it is. Unfortunately I completely forgot to and ended up looking like ET for the next few days.

To be honest I thought I had something actually wrong with me because my heart was beating so fast for the next few days after the game jam. I'm also still sick and have 2 school assignments due on Monday which I haven't started.

OK now tell me your story!

Here is my game would be great if you checked it out and gave it a rate!

https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/461619

KoverasSubmitted5 years ago(+3)

I've participated in a number of game jams, and I can only underscore the conclusion at the end of that article: a healthy body can deal with a 48h crunch period without many consequences. Staying hydrated and getting at least 8h of sleep each night helps a lot with that, and one should also avoid stimulants that one doesn't otherwise take (so if you drink a lot of coffee but few energy drinks on regular days, you should stick to coffee only during the jam) to stay healthy. Lastly, the test subjects in that study were an extreme case, since they were organizers in addition to being jammers, meaning that they have about double the workload of a regular jam participant, who has it slightly easier.

I would also like to point out that game jams have a huge psychosomatic health benefit: making your own game from scratch satisfies your intrinsic need for autonomy and competence for weeks, if not months after the jam. And if you are working with a team, or alone but at a jam site with other people, it also covers your relatedness need, leaving you feeling psychologically uplifted for a long time, with all the health benefits that brings.

VZINCSubmitted5 years ago

Very true. Nice points

AumarkaSubmitted5 years ago

I'm right in the middle of exams and assignments in my final year school but i really wanted to participate in this jam (as it would be my first) and I had miss the last four I wanted to join in. I'm extremely happy with my game but I'm just in an extreme state of exhaustion now. Overall, just about what I thought the experience of a game jam would be.

My game is called One Shot In The Chamber, a wave based survival game where you must fight off hordes of enemies with the catch being, you have only one bullet. Fortunately, the bullet is magic and you can summon it back to you or teleport to it. Using this unique ability, you must survive as long as possible in the chamber. Here is a screenshot of the game and the link to the game page: https://mark-auman.itch.io/one-shot-in-the-chamber

VZINCSubmitted5 years ago

Same, last year of school too

KoverasSubmitted5 years ago

Back at the GGJ 2018, I was actually in the middle of writing my masters thesis, but I was kinda losing steam on that front, so I instead took a weekend off to participate in the jam. This proved to be a great decision, because the feeling of accomplishment I got from making a game renewed my motivation to work on my thesis. :-)

AumarkaSubmitted5 years ago

I must say my productivity in school has gone up since participating in the jam. I'm generally a high achieving student but the lack of care the people at my school have and irrelevance of what I'm learning at school in terms of what I want to do when I leave school has caused me to lose steam. But making games, doing something I love, and talking to like-minded people has really boosted my productivity

PedroleumSubmitted5 years ago

This was my first game jam that I had participated in. I heard of stories of people not being able to get their work oit on time, by being too ambitous or something like that. So I decided to go with something simple. I also happened to be on holidays the weekend of the jam, which meant having less time to make the game. This meant I was going out on walks and stuff for a few hours each day. In total, I think I spent about 12 hours in total on the game. This didn't end up being a detrament towards the game however. Being outside and being active allowed me to clear my head, get more ideas, and when I went back to making, I was super productive.

So maybe we dont need to spend all the time of a jam making the game, but instead keeping ourselves healthy during the jam to make ourselves more productive. I dont know. It worked for me, although my game is quite simple. Im still proud of it.

Theo V.Submitted5 years ago

I'm starting to get a little bit of experience in jams so now I just try to scope things right from the begining, sleep normally (7h for me), eat quick but normal meal (like pasta or sandwiches) and being not afraid to cut features if I know I'm not gonna make it in time. Maybe some coffee to boost me up sometimes but that's all. I'm use to spend time on screen because of my study (Computer Science then Game Design), so I'm not really dead when I finish my jams, like of course you're going to work more than you do normally and it f up your week-end, but it's a good compromise to have something you are proud of at the end!

But when I started, I worked to much, was really stressed out, and the first game was quite bad, and I think quality improves when you are pretty chill.

Team TerribleSubmitted5 years ago

I work in the games industry and have been doing game jams for a few years now - mostly Ludum Dare which is 72 hours.

https://ldjam.com/users/almax

The crunch is certainly real and I now always take a day off work to recover rather than letting my work suffer, but the payoff of experience and the end result of having made a game is amazing. It's also a great opportunity for self reflection on how you spend your time working on projects. Jams reinforce the fact that code doesn't need to be meticulously designed to work and art doesn't need to be well polished to be aesthetically pleasing. It's easy to get lost in bureaucracy of and standard practices in professional game development, so I find game jams wonderfully refreshing :)

Life is ultimately a game of risk/reward and for me personally being fatigued for a few days after a jam is worth it.

That being said, here's a shameless plug of what I sacrificed sleep to make haha

https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/462790

Colin EUMPSubmitted5 years ago

I don't remember anymore if it was my first game jam, but several years ago I participated in The Escapist's "Indie Speedrun" which was a month-long event structured instead around participants receiving an individual randomized theme and element to include, then being timed from the moment they received it. They were also allowed to participate multiple times. I made 6 games that way.

The reason I'm bringing this up is because I think the experience very quickly drove away any desire to crunch for game jams. This one was the first 48 hour jam I've done since, and I even figured I'd probably stretch it, but instead I just worked whenever, got up and took breaks, slept, etc.. Further, since I'm more used to 4-7 day limits nowadays (like the ones Extra Credits have been hosting), I think I scoped for 4 days without realizing it.

I think for me personally, 48 hour jams just don't motivate me enough to crunch.