Postmortem

A while ago, I participated in my first game jam - the second Brackeys Game Jam, which had the theme 'Love is Blind'. The theme had near endless possibilities, but I, like many others, went with the obvious cliche interpretation (in my opinion, though I got 4th in Theme for that entry). This time around, the Community Game Jam with the theme "The Game is a Liar" is no different, my use was even more cliche in fact. Let's start with what went badly.

The short answer: quite a bit, honestly.  But let us go in a bit more detail. First off, something completely out of my control. For the first few days of the jam, I was 400 miles away from home, meaning I did have a PC, but not a particularly good one (same with my internet connection).  Using a tiny little laptop was not something I was used to, but in the end I still had all the possibilities I would otherwise so I can't complain too much. I like having streams in the background though, and I couldn't watch any reliably. First world problems.

Secondly, I shot way over what I even knew I was capable of in this time. I went for an FPS with a disgustingly unplanned 'story line'. Going for an FPS for a game jam, at least at my current skill, was a mistake. 3D games, especially FPS ones (if I was going 3D, I should of just done a walking sim!) are ten thousand times harder to make than a simple-ish 2D platformer like I did last time. I swear, adding the 3rd dimension adds a lot more to think about than just the Z axis. Simply put, 2D games are easier, and I'd (in this case) prefer easier. Though I guess game jams aren't about making what you made last time, so I suppose it's bittersweet. Oh, and about the unplanned story: I wrote about two lines about what I wanted to do into a google doc. At least I had one. (Very little of those two lines made it in.) Originally, I was going to have it so that you find out you were killing innocent rats, the ultimate cliche for this theme, but eventually decided I hated it (and wasn't sure how to execute the completely unpredictable, epic twist). Instead, I opted for a simple, border-line theme fitting idea of adding little dialogue pieces before and after the level itself that lied to you. This was much more simpler to implement, but it barely fits with the theme in my mind. What I've learned: in game jams, you should try something new, but at least have an idea that you'll be able to finish it within the jams time frame, and maybe of tried out making the genre before. I've also learned to plan more than this:

Next mistake:  SPAGHETTI CODE. I consider myself fairly confident in C#, and then I write some C#, and then I remember I'm not very good at C#. Though I am good enough to write something occasionally functional.. occasionally. 'Occasionally functional' is in fact a great way to describe this games entire codebase; touch one thing, two things break. I attempted to write somewhat modular code (using scriptable objects, etc). This caused issues in the end however, as I soon realised that the way I had written some of the code wouldn't work under certain conditions - the exact problem I was trying to prevent. This led me to effectively melt down the code and try to mold it into something functional for all required situations. This caused the code, in many cases, to become truly Italian. What I've learned: this is a game jam, don't try to write stuff like a library when you know you have barely enough time to write anything.

The final mistake I made was not trying to join a team or form one of my own. I know there's only one part of game development that I'm any good at - game programming in C# with the Unity API. Quite specific, I know. Luckily, I have some time to learn more skills, but 7 days is no time to do that. My art consisted of paint.net UI textures and flat coloured basic unity materials, my sounds were all generated with BFXR, occasionally slightly edited in audacity. My music was non-existent. My game design was an unused google doc. My game programming, however, was 29 semi-decently written scripts. I love game jams for the opportunity to learn new things and just have the motivation to make something for once. But I'd like to make something that looks and sounds decent sometime. I was so jealous watching Rorius import all the amazing pixel art and music made for his game. What I've learned: look around on teamforge.io.

Should we talk more positively for a second?

So, what went well. Well, there was... uh.... the fact I... I... got to listen to some Gorillaz albums like 10 times? I was pretty happy about that. I got sort of addicted to the point I changed my steam profile name and profile pic to 2-D. Still set to that. It'll stay for a while.

Jokes aside, there was one thing I think went better than first expected: I tried out voxel modelling for both enemies and pickups (weapons, ammo). It didn't look great, but it looked better than it would of if I had just use Unity primitives or something. Apart from the rocket, that looked like a severely deformed bee. It's also the wrong way around in the game, and I forgot to fix it. Can't be arsed now, to be perfectly honest.

Although that's all I can really say about what went well, I'm happy. Game jams aren't for winning. They, for me, aren't even for making an experience for other people to necessarily enjoy. Personally, I did this for myself. I want people to get enjoyment out of playing it, but I value getting enjoyment myself out of making it more. New-ish game developers are very unlikely to make something that fun, and thinking about how people didn't enjoy it instead of how you enjoyed making it is a surefire way to loose your motivation. Despite that one time I almost cried because OnTriggerEnter just wouldn't fecking activate (like seriously I was trying for an hour and it turns out I made a dumb mistake relating to what colliders can trigger what), I'm happy I did it. And when it comes to all those mistakes I mentioned earlier, mistakes aren't really mistakes if you can say "I've learned...".

See you next jam (hopefully), 

Mattie

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