My first Game Jam

Learning and making small prototypes on your own is all good. But occasionally, it’s a good idea to challenge yourself (Linkedin vibe). And to do so, there’s nothing better than a Game Jam, i.e. creating a game in a short space of time on a specific theme. It’s usually 48 or 72 hours. But at the time I thought it was too short. So, ‘no, no, no’, that’s too much stress for me. Fortunately, some people are ahead of that and think about the beginners.

So I signed up for the Newbies Game Jam, which focuses on welcoming and learning. In particular, you have 10 days to create your game on a theme chosen from a pool already given at the start. So you can plan ahead. In fact, I did plan ahead and I created my Itchio page, got myself a developer nickname (Space Krokett) and designed the logo to go with it. Ready to deliver my game.

Light is your enemy! There was the theme. So what did I do about it? I will not keep you in suspense. I quickly came up with an idea for a puzzle game: protect your beloved vampire by stopping daylight from reaching him, so close the windows!

I’ve made my to-do list to finish my game. I needed light. A sun turning and sending its rays through the windows. Windows that could be open and close. A vampire in the center who received the light (and suffered horribly from it). And finally, a character who could move and close the windows.

The main theme was light, so I started with it. I wanted the sun rays to have a cartoonish look, to give a more distinct visual and clearly indicate where the light was going. To achieve this, I used simple, slightly transparent blocks, each fixed to the base of a window, and rotating in the opposite direction to the sun’s rotation. All that remained was to add a few rules, such as making them visible only when a ray from outside touches them, or reducing their size when they touch a wall, so that they don’t pass through it.

And I did it in one day! I got off to a pretty good start with my Jam, and the same goes for the three days that followed. I improved the rendering of my rays by dividing them up. I added the player and his movements (at the moment, just a capsule was enough). I integrated doors and windows, as well as the vampire that captures light, and a bit of interface. Including the first day I discovered the theme and made my design sheets, I had my first prototype in five days. Good! All I had to do was add the pretty stuff.

So I went into Blender and modeled the player character. I wanted her in the style of the remake of Link’s Awakenings on Switch, and look like Bella in Twilight, because who better to defend a vampire? Then taking into account the animation, the integration into Unity and the sound, it was a good day’s work. So for the rest, I quickly made a bat to represent the vampire (too bad for Edward), and I looked for free assets to decorate my level (the 3D models from Broken Vector and Kenney, and the audio from Pixabay and Lexin_Music).

And from then on, I started to panic… Wasting time… You can guess from the size of the castle above… I imagined it too big, too complicated. I added locked doors. With keys hidden everywhere, of course. A maze too?! That’s it, I went too far, thinking that it would be too easy and the players would get bored. A trap I had to fall into one day. By the way, there’s a very good GMTK video on the subject, which I saw a bit later.

Fortunately, the organizer had extended the event by four days to allow participants to polish their game and avoid too many giving up. Despite the pitfalls I had put myself through, I finished my game. Even though I’d discovered a last-minute export bug that prevented players from restarting the game when they lost without refreshing the page. A real ‘fun-killer’. Despite this, and out of the 80 games submitted, mine finished 35th! Not bad for a first timer. And especially solo!

A very good experience in itself. Now it’s a shame that I got crazy at the end, because the look I had at the beginning in a smaller world (see my first gifs), with the sun visible all the time, I found more effective and there was already some charm. At least I know how I’ll do it again now.

Lucky me, by the end of the Jam I’d reached my 1000 hours of game development! And yes, I was and still am writing down my hours. I’m a bit of a nerd about it, but it makes it easier for me to see how far I’ve come. And honestly, I’m quite happy with where I am!

What’s to be learned?

Have a good Scope. Don’t make it too big. Neither too difficult. Players won’t find the game too easy, don’t worry.