A quick tips & tricks guide on how to find team members for your projects, and how to find a team!
This is only advice, you’re not required to do all of this if you don’t want to. However, we highly recommend following some of these tips so you’ll have an easier time.
You can make a thread here, reply to a currently existing one, or look for team members elsewhere. This advice should be useful in any case.
At the end of this thread, I also wrote general tips for participating in a jam! Will probably keep updating it as I remember more.
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I’M AN INDIVIDUAL/TEAM LOOKING FOR COLLABORATORS
We recommend having at least an estimate of how much work you expect from your team members. For example, perhaps someone would be fine composing 5 music tracks, but 20 is not viable. Leave it clear that it’s an early estimate.
When connecting with interested people, be open on what your expectations regarding deadlines and communication methods are.
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Introduce what your project is about. Just an idea is fine, but we recommend that you try to sell your concept. “A queer found family visual novel set in 1980s America” “A spooky resource management survival road trip game, with PS2-era graphics.” The more detail you have, and the more of a concrete concept you can show, the more likely it is that you’ll find interested team members. Really try to pitch your idea here! What do you think players will like the most about it? That’s probably what’ll attract interested team members too!
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List the available roles. E.g: Looking for 1 music composer, 1 3D modeler, 2 playtesters. We recommend keeping the thread updated on which roles are available and which aren’t anymore as team members join you.
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Name who else you have on the team and what roles they have, if applicable
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Detail what you have in mind for each role. How many music tracks? How many 3D models? Do you want a coder who could code a 5 hour long game, or is your idea a shorter, bite-sized project?
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Detail what kind of style/vibe you’re looking for. Do you not want anime style art? Would lofi music fit your project best, but classical wouldn’t? This will help interested folks figure out if this project is a good match for them.
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Creating a shared document (on sites such as google docs) with more details on the roles and what exactly is expected of them is a good idea. You don’t have to make an entire game design document, but the more information you can give, the better.
…In our experience, you can also very quickly find out who is capable of reading and following instructions, both of which are good skills to have when working with someone else, if you have a document outside of the original thread/post.
- Leave a contact method, or ask interested folks to leave a reply on the thread.
- Regarding thread replies, we recommend that you ask for others to leave examples of their work, so that’ll you more easily figure out if they’re a good match for your project without needing tons of back-and-forth.
- Finally, it is possible that team members will ghost you. Make it clear what your expectations are regarding this. For example, I consider that a team member is no longer interested if they don’t respond to my attempts at communicating with them from 5 to 7 days.
- This is less of a recruitment advice and more of a general teamwork advice, but - be kind to your team members. Their mental and physical health are more important than any asset they can make, and they have lives outside the game jam. People get sick, pets die, sudden additional work shifts happen. We can’t predict that.
I’M AN INDIVIDUAL LOOKING FOR A TEAM
- Introduce yourself - what your offered skillset is and how long you’ve been doing it
- Explain what kind of project you’re interested in. You might be very into the idea of working on an FPS, but a visual novel wouldn’t be your cup of tea.
- Link to examples of your work. Musicians, link your music. Artists, link your art. Writers, link your writing. Etc.
- Link to projects you’ve worked on before, if that’s the case. Don’t worry, newcomers are welcome!
- Detail your availability during the jam’s runtime. Will you be able to work on your part during the entirety of the jam, or do you have exam season coming up? Trips, special events where you won’t be reachable? Other jams?
- Leave a way to reach you (this can be Discord, email, Bluesky, etc.), or if you’d rather interested teams respond to your thread.
- Again, this less of a recruitment advice and more of a general teamwork advice, but if you’re dropping out of a project or something came up and your work will be delayed, let your team members/team lead know. It can be stressful and upsetting when a team member disappears or ghosts a project suddenly with no explanation. Of course, sudden events/illnesses can’t be predicted, but if you’re able to, communicate with your team.
General Advice
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Good communication skills are a must for teamwork. When joining a team or recruiting members, try to gauge if they can communicate well.
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BEWARE OF SCOPE CREEP! You probably won’t be able to create the open world RPG of your dreams during this jam, or compose the epic 50-track OST you’ve always wanted to make. It’s okay. This is a game jam!
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Try to stick to your plans. If you and your team set out to make a quick puzzle game, turning it into a turn-based RPG halfway through development is very, very, very unlikely to work out. It can be disappointing for team members who were sold on the initial concept, and a nightmare to organize for team leads.
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Setting up a Discord server for a team, or another place where you can all talk about the project, share progress, goof off, and just enjoy the process of making a game together is highly recommended. This helps keeps team morale up, helps foster a sense of community, and also allows for advice and pointers from others on how the development is going. Maybe the font you picked is actually unreadable. Perhaps the lead artist’s artwork is turning out less colorful than their art tablet promised when looked at in other devices. Or maybe you want to laugh together about a funny bug the coder fixed!
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If it’s getting stressful, if it’s not fun anymore, if you’re feeling burn out - take a break, and consider lowering your game’s scope. Instead of a full game, release a demo. Instead of 5 bosses, lower it to 2. You can always come back to the project later and update it with what you had in mind.
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Have fun!!!!!! Or else…………………
Finally, here’s a list of skills outside of the expected ones (e.g artists can draw well, coders can code) that are very important to look for when joining/building a game jam team….
- Communication skills; providing clear instructions and asking relevant questions. Responding in a timely manner. Transparency when it comes to possible delays and related troubles as they come.
- Attention to detail - keeping characters in-model, following the lore when writing new content, paying attention to instructions of how X and Y asset should look.
- Ability to hear and apply feedback…
- …And to GIVE feedback in a constructive, helpful manner.
- Time management skills - Prioritizing tasks effectively, estimating the time needed for work, and meeting deadlines.
- Flexibility. Being open to possible changes or adjusting work to accommodate unexpected challenges.