Welcome to My First Game Jam: Winter 2021! For those of you just joining us, it's been a tradition to kick things off with a little getting-to-know-you questionnaire! For the first-time game developer, things can be pretty intimidating... which is why we want to show you you're not alone! This is not a required activity— it's just meant as a way to break into the community for returning jammers and newbies alike.

We'd love for you to share your influences, passions, and jam goals with the rest of us. Who knows — you might meet a potential team member, or even a new friend!

(These questions are entirely optional; they're just here to warm things up, so feel free to skip them as needed!)

Onto the questions!

1. Hi there! What's your name? Want to introduce yourself?
2. Did you participate in the last jam we held? If so, what do you plan on doing better this time? If not, what's your reason for joining?
3. What games are your favorites? Did any of them inspire you, or made you want to make your own?
4. Do you have experience with game development? What did you do/with what engine?
5. Tell us about something you're passionate about!
6. What are your goals for this game jam?

For returning jammers:

7. Any advice to new participants? 
8. What can the admins do to improve your jam experience? 
9. What are some of the past works you've made for the jam? Show off your favorites! 
10. Bonus: Got any question suggestions? Let us know for next year!

Hello! I'm Jackfiddilydims, you can call me Jack (not my real name). I stream a bit on twitch, do a bit of youtube, and generally just have fun. I make games for the player to enjoy, and my aim is to let people have fun.

No, I didnt do the last jam you held, this is my first gamejam lol. I'm joining for fun and to expand my skillset and make my games more enjoyable.

My favourite game is probably Minecraft because of its freedom and creativity. Sure, the game at its base is very basic, but if you learn how to build, or how to do redstone, you can really unleash your creativity and improve your understanding of basic level design.

I have started a few games before, I liked them and am working on one currently. I work in both 3D and 2D and my main engines are Unity and Unreal (I am so hyped for UE5).

I am passionate about making FUN games. I really want to make people have fun and not just be bored and feel ripped off at every turn, like some other indie games, which is why any games I make are usually free or a very cheap price.

In this jam I plan to become a better game developer and better with community. I need to improve a lot, so this is a good way to do that.

1. Hi there! What's your name? Want to introduce yourself?  I'm Isorfilas! He/him. Musician, recently took up programming as a hobby this past year.

2. Did you participate in the last jam we held? If so, what do you plan on doing better this time? If not, what's your reason for joining?  This is my very first game jam! Stumbled on a link in social media and though: "why the heck not?"

3. What games are your favorites? Did any of them inspire you, or made you want to make your own?  Love 16-bit classics of SNES / Genesis era (especially Chrono Trigger and Link to the Past), and many indie titles drawing inspiration from those games. I also really enjoy sandbox, survival, and colony sim games. I've been playing a lot of Oxygen Not Included and Valheim recently.

4. Do you have experience with game development? What did you do/with what engine?  I have very limited game dev experience, though I always wanted to be a programmer. I started learning during the lock-down this past year, mostly messing around with Scratch and python, following various tutorials online. On my own, I managed to program a hang-man game in python, a very clunky Asteroids clone with Scratch, and a solitaire game that was unbelievable laggy in Godot.

5. Tell us about something you're passionate about! I'm really enjoying learning about programming. It's something I've always wanted to do, but never thought I was cut out for. I've had a blast diving into it this past year though, and would definitely call it a growing passion of mine.

6. What are your goals for this game jam? I'm looking forward to designing my own game (instead of recreating simple existing games) and hope to have a working prototype of something at the end of the jam. I'm also hoping to learn more about the process of game design from others during the game jam.

1. What’s your name? Want to introduce yourself? I’m “yam655” or “Steven”, he/they. Most of the places where I am online I go by “yam655”. This includes other time-limited contests, such as February Album Writing Month and National Novel Writing Month. I’m old (Gen-X). I’m a parent. I’m the “A” in LGBT+. I like LGBT+ games that my LGBT+ kids can play, so expect some of that from me for this jam.

2. Did you participate in the last jam we held? If so, what do you plan on doing better this time? If not, what’s your reason for joining? No. I only recently started making games. (I’ve been thinking about making games for decades. Finishing and releasing anything? Only did that the first time yesterday.)

3. What games are your favorites? Did any of them inspire you, or made you want to make your own? I was watching some anime and visual novels played a small part. I self-describe as a “mad artist” though I normally add that they’re “wordy arts.” I engage in songwriting as well as dabble in fiction writing, but I’ve been wanting to stretch my visual art skills. When I looked at it, it seemed making visual novels was a good overlap of my creative hobbies. I particularly enjoy cute LGBT+ visual novels and dating sims that are family friendly. Itch.io is a great place to look for cute LGBT+ visual novels!

4. Do you have experience with game development? What did you do/with what engine? When I was young, I was a fan of roguelike games. (It’s a genre that predates cursor keys on keyboards.) I dabbled with that for years, but without a challenge to push me to do something small enough to finish, I only ever really dabbled. The languages included C, Java, and Python, but either it was directly using “curses” or (for the Java) it emulated the “curses” API. Since the past week, though, I’ve made a visual novel with Ren’Py.

5. Tell us about something you’re passionate about! I engage in a type of improvised acapella that was almost shamed out of existence. Back before radio and recorded music, the air was filled with the sounds of people singing to themselves. Once “good singers” became readily available for folks to listen to, this disappeared. Back when there were only two genres of music, the sacred and the vulgar, it was vulgar. These days, I call it “folk acapella.”

6. What are your goals for this game jam? I used a Ren’Py template for the last one, because I thought it would make things easier, but I don’t know that it did, so I’m doing this one without. I’m using Ren’Py Sprite Creator for my sprites. Last time I used Mannequin, which has a bit of a cleaner style (and was easy to use), but is a lot more limited in what it can do. I want to use my music skills to make some music I’ve not released before, and I want 14 new tracks that are all used in the game.

For returning jammers:

I’ve done a jam before, but not this jam. It was The Unspeakable Jam that ended recently. I showed up with just four days left with a goal of making something both unspeakable as well as entirely lacking inappropriate language and graphics. At least in the eyes of my children, I succeeded as they want nothing to do with it at all. It’s about attending your boss’s party while trying not to poop yourself. It’s called “A Crappy Game.”

I’m happy with how it turned out. It’s my best work so far!

Howdy! I'm Kirk. I like tall blonde...wait, what forum am I on again? Oh yes! I'm 40 years old, and only dabbled a little bit here and there with game development. When I was very pre-teen, my parents bought us a Commodore 64. My older brother bought one of these commodore magazine type things, and when I flipped through it looking at all the cool games I would never have, I realized they had code you can type into your computer to write your own game! It was only a simple little game of blackjack, but I used the knowledge gained from that to write a very simple room escape game.

I had absolutely no idea what those pokes and peeks were at the time, and what the heck those endless streams of seemingly random numbers it forced me to type in were all about, but I was able to ascertain the meaning of the line numbering, goto, input, and simple things like that. Unfortunately, that magazine was nothing but "hey! type this in for a game!" without teaching you anything about it at all so I had to learn from doing. I desperately wanted to make an epic text adventure as I was absolutely hooked on this game called Lancelot on the Commodore. I didn't even know I could save my program though, so I would just make a simple game of a character locked in a room and had to find the key to escape. I didn't even know Room Escape was a type of game at the time :-D maybe it even wasn't? who knows. Probably was I'm sure.

ANYWAY!!!! I didn't even know about the existence of this game jam until yesterday. I think it was when I was randomly watching a HeartBeast video on YouTube and it either directed me to something on itch.io or he mentioned it in some way...don't recall exactly. In any case, I came to itch.io and first thing I noticed on the top left was the Jams tab, and I remember a while back watching some Imphezia videos of his Ludum Dare jam entries, so I was intrigued and clicked. What? My First Game Jam? Hmm, maybe I should do that! I've been wanting to actually make games FOREVER but haven't done much more than maybe having a ship fly around in empty space zapping at asteroids...

Oh yeah! I remember the last time I tried getting back into game dev now. For the longest I can remember, I've always wanted to do some game that's kinda I guess sorta maybe perhaps but not really something around the effect to the semblance of the tiniest glimmer of a mix between Kerbal Space Program and Elite: Dangerous...but in 2D or 2.5D and with story. The first time I thought about that was, I dunno, maybe 15ish give or take a year or 2. There was this DOS game that I can for the friggin life of me not recall the name of... Ok, ignore that, I NEEDED to know so I unsheathed my Googletana and swung a mighty attack at the internet. Critical roll! The internet falls to its knees clutching at its neck, trying to stop the life blood from pouring out of it. It's a worthless attempt however, and only delays the inevitable by mere moments. Now prone on the ground, lifeless, the murky red essence spills to my feet. As I look down at the crimson pool spewing forth, it starts to shift. A word slowly forms! Solar Winds. (yeah sorry for the dramatic reveal of the name. I haven't really wrote anything besides bs facebook and twitter posts since my teens, so I'm just practicing lol)

Speaking of things I haven't done since my teens, I miss music. I don't mean listening to music. I do that all the time. ALL the time. I can't stand not having it in my ears. I don't care what music. I mean I have my preferences of course, but I mostly like anything. Ok I lied, not ALL the time, I don't mind it when there's no music in TV shows or Movies. Mostly. Depends. You know what I mean. Ambiance. Or creative lack thereof. You get my drift I hope. Even at work (I'm a cook at a pizzaria...yay...that life story beyond the scope of this one) I yell at my boss when Alexa decides to randomly stop playing music and he goes more than 2 minutes without commanding our digital servant to entertain us. Losing track!

So in 4th grade I was taking my usual nap. I randomly wake up to seeing maybe 10 or so kids with their hands raised with some other teacher inside our class I've never seen counting hands. I had no idea what was going on, so I raised my hand too. Gutsy move! Turns out the teacher was in there asking who wants to be part of the orchestra. So she takes our names and comes back again a day or so later to collect as all and take us to the music room. Again I'm zoned out when she asked us all a question and called us one by one with everyone saying yes or no. When she came to me I said "no". She said "are you sure?" What? uh..."yes." Well I picked the wrong answer. This question was "do you need us to provide you with an instrument?" lol. So I picked Viola, and when I got home I told my mom about it. Told her that I said I don't need one from the school. It was too late as the allotment was already set. I think so anyway, I don't recall exactly. All I know is my mom had to rent a viola for me. Turns out I was pretty good! Or so I was told.

My teacher told me I was the fastest learner she ever had, and placed me in the orchestra already. Not many from my grade were in it. Usually the first year you just learn, then second year you're in the orchestra. Unless of course your parents had you take private lessons previously. I never touched an instrument before then, and the others from my grade that made the orchestra had previous training. So anyway, fast forward to the end of the year and on the last day the music teacher comes to my class, kisses me on the cheek, and tells me to keep playing. This is her final year. Well my mom was already stretched thin with cash and asked me if I'm gonna keep playing next year. I just shrugged. I think so anyway, I mean I'm always zoned out, inside my own mind. She told me later in life that's how it went down. So because of that, she returned the viola. The next year the new music teacher came to my class to get me. Asked me where my viola was, told him I don't have it anymore. He seemed annoyed, but handed me one. Ok, so being I haven't practiced in months, it came out a horrible screech. I laughed and said "ok, wait". same thing. My classmate looked at me and said "what are you doing?" She knew I was good. We sat next to each other in orchestra the year before. I said "I don't know." and that's when the teacher took the viola back and sent me back to class...

I was about to probably do a few or 12 more paragraphs on my music background, but this post is already MUCH too long. Anyway, I like music. I've played viola a year, had a couple years of private piano lessons as a kid, an uncle gave me a guitar in my teens that I taught myself and played for maybe close to a decade before a "friend" of mine decided to destroy it. A drummer friend of mine gave me a couple lessons. Only played drums those 2 times. I've written a lot of music when I was younger on varying different DAWs, free and otherwise. Reason was my largest purchase. Back in the day of Reason 3.0. I lost all of my music plus a crap ton of short stories and poems and an attempt at a novel when my HDD died. Backup your crap, kids. I haven't done anything creative since my mid 20's because of that. Just work sleep eat repeat. 15 years of that. I need a change. I hope I stick with it this time using this Jam.

Hey! Thanks if you actually read all of this! I'm so so sorry it's so long and if I rambled on till a quarter century past the end of time!

1. Hi  I am josephi(Not my real name) and I started learning c++ about 4 years ago then stopped, then started again during lockdown. I learned how to use an obscure graphics library for c++ that didn't really work, but then I discovered Raylib and I made a simple little game. after that, I followed a Unity tutorial series by Brackeys and tried to make a first-person shooter, as you can expect that didn't go well so then I started using Gbdk to make game boy games, and then I started making games without a library in c++ and made games that ran in the command line/console.

2.no

3.I mainly like NES games, The modern-ish games I like are pool panic and osu.

4. I kind of explained this in question 1.

5.I like programming, Making cool stuff (like Arduino stuff) and collecting 1980/1990 handheld consoles(Game Gear and GameBoy)

6. to make a game(that is good).

1. Hi there! What's your name? Want to introduce yourself?

I am Max. I Like the GB, GBA, AND AAA GAMES.

No, because i am new.

6. What are your goals for this game jam?

Reach the top 100. I don't expect much from my weaknesses

1.   hi you can call me ashhe or ash im just an 11 yearold 

2.   no, I want to be a game developer

3.   i want to make a game like fnf

4.   I never completed anything, my engine is scratch

6.   create a working game

1. Hi there! What's your name? Want to introduce yourself?

I go by Cork Top on most games and sites, so I'll stick with that. I'm attempting to use this Jam to make me creatively productive again!

I haven't ever participated in a Jam, so a no on that one. I've been out of Art School for a while, and I've had a hard time getting myself to draw or create on my own, so hopefully jumping into a Jam will help!

I'm a big fan of platformers, action or otherwise. I also gravitate towards story games, playing through a lot of visual novels recently, as well as story based platformers. The inspiration from my favorites might have to wait for later, as I feel like I need more experience in the basics before implementing more complex stuff.

4. Do you have experience with game development? What did you do/with what engine?

Kind of? I helped with the art for an infinite runner game early in college, but it was almost only art. The closest "game" related thing was making sure the tile system worked well with itself. It was a game maker system, so It was drag and drop for almost everything. I was proud of what it turned into though!

5. Tell us about something you're passionate about!

My passions drift a lot, but I am into Virtual Reality right now. Other assorted interests that jump up include: 3D printing, sculpture, audio production, writing, painting (paintings and miniatures), and blacksmithing.

6. What are your goals for this game jam?

I want to complete a game. The finishing it is the important part for me, because I have a tendency to start things strong and then drift. So I want to start simple, thinking a platformer. And I hope to see a lot of games from the others participating for the first time! 

A fun Jam to everyone!