These two videos, both from Tim Cain (creator of Fallout), are a large part of what inspired this jam. The first one basically amounts to 'make a game', the second one talks about showing off specific skills with your demos. Not necessarily full games, but a demo to show you can design combat, or inventory management, or whatever it is.
How to Get a Job in the Game Industry
I've been studying game design, programming, art, photography, music... And I don't feel like I have much to show for it so far. I'm also aware that while big projects take a large amount of time and resources, there's also a lot you can get done in a short amount of time if you work consistently and effectively!
I often see creators I'd like to work with, but I don't feel confident with what I can show if I put myself forward. So I thought, why not commit to producing something every week, something I can actually show people and say 'look at what I can do!'.
I'm aware that what might be a good goal for the week, e.g. trying a new engine and making a 'walk around an empty room' type demo, might not be something you want to release publicly on your itch.io page. It might still be a good portfolio piece (or a good step in that direction), and a good achievement for the week. This is something I'm thinking about, and maybe for those cases it would be helpful to have a thread in this forum, so you can upload them to itch as a restricted page and post a link to the forum with a password, rather than submitting to the jam. Thoughts on this are welcome!
If you've struggled to find a good team to work with, or are struggling to land job interviews, I encourage you to join me in creating things and showing off your skills!