Hey y’all !

Just wanted to say kudos for everyone finishing the game jam, using the theme and building everything from scratch n 3 days !

I tried to do it all alone, and while I had the rough idea and loop for my game by Friday, it took me waaaaay too much time to build a prototype and to find quality assets…

But that’s all good, as it was my first jame and I learnt a lot for the next one :

-Pick a simple idea. And make it even simpler. Thinking about different levels ? Just make one. Thinking about different ennemies ? How about JUST ONE. Thinking about a range of power-ups and lots of elements ? You know what to do : JUST PICK ONE

-Prepare your assets, pay for some or be ready for your quality to be super shitty (yeah I said it) I mean don’t get me wrong, it is cool to have free assets to experiment or even to ship little games. But art matters A LOT and you should really invest in that…

-Maybe pair up ? I tried to do it all alone, it would have definitely went different with someone else handling the assets or the game logic. That’s one thing I’m trying next time !

-You’ll learn more in a week-end than in weeks of regular work ! And for me, that’s the best part. I did something I would have had to learn maybe in the span of days, just in a few hours :)

Anyway, I’m looking forward to see what you all cooked up, and thanks to the organizer for putting everything together :)

Nice. Great to hear what you've learned. Thanks for sharing your experience.

For game dev and jam beginners I would add:

- Keep your expectations reasonable. You might create something broken and crappy but that is no reason to be ashamed or not submit your game. You'll be surprised about what you can learn from having people playtest your mess and some will like it quite a bit more than you think. ;)

And to add something I learned:

Just because you like an engine and a language does not mean they are good fits for a game jam.
Be ready to give up on a core idea if something else starts to steal the show by accident.  This probably also indicates that your scope was too large. So, think about cutting some features now and keep it in mind for next time.

It seems like game jams are so fruitful whether submissions end up being made or not! I think your observations are absolutely right, narrow scope is key - I think it's better to have a simple core mechanic and then focus on feel.