I started with an inkling of an idea. A family with years of resentment for each other, who get pissed off by the smallest things their family member do. And you try to keep calm before they explode in rage. I was a bit unsure if this would make a fun game, but it was very different from anything I've made before, so I was intrigued. The next day, I spoke to JapeNess about the idea and he got excited about it. We made a plan - who the characters are, what do they do to annoy each other - and what the the gameloop is.
The rest of the week I spent about 8-10 hours a day on the game, I did design, programming and sound design. JapeNess spent 10-14 hours a day on graphics and animations. The idea and the gameloop was super simple, one of the simplest games we've ever done, but to get it all working, we both spent more time on it than we've ever spent on a 1-week jam before.
At the end of the day, we managed to release the game, Bittermiff Family Dinner, though we had to cut corners. Didn't have time for a tutorial, or a family pet that was planned, or touch screen controls, and very little time to improve clarity on which objects were clickable and needed to be clicked.
We were pretty happy with the game, but weren't 100% sure we got the funny, chaotic, stressful feeling we were going for. After seeing a few people play it and receiving lots of positive feedback from other jammers, I think we succeeded after all!
Once the ratings period started, I set myself a goal of going through 10% of all jam games, so 152 games. I reached that goal today. I gave thoughtful, hopefully useful feedback to more than 100 games, but started cutting myself slack on that front yesterday. In a big jam like this, there are obviously games of varying quality, but I've enjoyed going through them. There are lots of different takes on the theme, some of them very unique.
I've been collecting some of the best games here: Best of Brackeys Jam 2024.2
Thanks Rockerzz for making this post! This is a nice place to gather your thoughts.