Hi everyone! I'm Mochii🎃, one of the hosts for the jam. Just wanted to say hi and wish y'all luck :p Here are also some useful tips for jams in general, to help you succeed in submitting a game!
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🔹Tip 1 - Scope:
Of course the first thing I have to talk about is scope. hollow knight wasn’t made in 48 hours :p keep your scope small, or at least realistic to the length of the jam. Often the best games for a game jam are small, often replayable ones 🎮.
These games keep people typically for about 5-10 minutes, and if you can make that amount of time fun and engaging, then you’ve succeeded 😊! It isn't about making anything massive, and it doesn't even have to be that original! 😮
🔹Tip 2 - Planning an idea:
A good planning tip that some of you might have heard before is, plan how long you think the game idea you have would take to make, then double that amount of time. ⌛
Some things may take a lot longer than you initially predicted, or an event may come up that requires you to halt progress for a while 🛑, and so this will help you make a game which balances scope and quality well ✅. It takes experience to gauge how long a certain feature / mechanic will take to create as well, so if you’re starting out, I recommend sticking with a small concept to just get the feel of jams in general 🎯.
I know that myself and a lot of other developers haven’t submitted to a jam they were participating in just because of scope, and that’s ok 💜 because it works as a learning experience for next time, so naturally the more jams you do, the more you’ll be successful to submitting to, as with any skill! 😁
🔹Tip 3 - Prototyping:
At the beginning of the jam, when they announce the theme, don’t be scared to draft ideas📜!
For the first couple of hours I always like to spend time drafting and sometimes prototyping🔨, because the first idea you get when you receive the prompt might not be the best or most fun thing your brain can think of🧠, and so I’ll sketch or write ideas on a piece of paper, or join a voice call 🎤 with my team and iterate.
That way, When we’re all somewhat in agreement 😜, and begin making the game, we have a clear plan and know what we want the end result to be, which not only acts as motivation 📈, but also means we can refer back to it when someone comes up with another idea later in the process, to see if it fits with our intent for the game. Jam games like all games are flexible during the designing phase. 🍯
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Those are my tips done for the day! Hope it helps with planning and designing, and I'll definitely come back to share some things I learnt about the actual jam process itself 😃, such as workflow and all that good stuff. Bye for now!👋🌊
-Mochii🎃