Game Jam Tips - 13 Things To Know For Your First Game Jam

I'm gonna give you 13 tips that will help with joining your first game Jam as well as my framework on how I approach game jams coming up what's up guys my name is Tim Russ week and if you're new here I want you to consider subscribing because we post daily game development content just like this on the channel and while I'm talking why don't you go ahead and leave your top game jam tip down below so all the rest of us can learn from it as well so real quick if you don't know what a game jam is basically it's where developers get together and they make a game in a very short period of time sometimes it's 48 hours sometimes it's a week sometimes it's longer and the goal is to just create a game as quickly as possible and publish it by the end sometimes there's a competition out of it sometimes it was judging but regardless of all that it's always a ton of fun and you end up with a finished game at the end so it's definitely worth it now I've joined the ton of game jams I can't even keep track of how many game jams I've joined so I've had a lot of experiences where my games did not go as planned where the jam just threw something at me that I was not expecting and what I realized was I needed some kind of framework I need some kind of thing to keep myself in check to actually finish games so the way I approach this now is like on a weekend game jam for example it starts on Friday night and it goes Saturday and Sunday and then submission I focused completely on the idea on Friday I try and get a good core idea down on day one in those first couple hours within a couple hours I try and get the core idea done I trying to get the core prototype done I try and get it done as quickly as possible so I can test it so I can show it to people so I can figure out whether or not it's fun and then day two which is usually Saturday on a weekend game jam I will try my best to get the whole thing built I need to have a hundred percent of the game done on Saturday so that on Sunday I can go ahead and start polishing and messing with stuff and tweaking stuff and adding little details that really camp the way that I set this up is usually prevents me from not finishing games it usually prevents me from over scoping it usually prevents me from you know falling into some of the pitfalls that a lot of game developers do so if I have the idea on a Friday I build the whole thing on a Saturday and then I spend Sunday polishing and we're on all this stuff and as well as the publishing materials right because you need like a title image you need like a logo for your game you need to setup the page with all the controls you need to do menu screens you need to do you know like there's a lot of little details like that that you got to work on Sunday so if I can get the core game done on Saturday I know I can do all that on Sunday that's kind of my framework I know Rami from Vlambeer has a similar framework that he calls 444 and basically he says that you should spend 4 hours building your game and 44 hours polishing that didn't work for me because I feel like sometimes I just can't even get my ID out and 40 in four hours but it seems to work for other people and I know that might work better for people that maybe don't know how to scope as well and they may get lost in the idea so keeping it to something that you can get done in four hours might be a better alternative so tip number one is prepare early so a lot of people join game jams and the theme will get announced and then they'll realize oh my god I'm not prepared in the slightest I need this engine I need this framework I'm get down load a bunch of stuff I need to find a team I need to set up discord or Skype or whatever we're to use to communicate with my team we need a Trello board we need all this yo you got to have all that stuff done before the jam even starts you want to spend the jam time on the jam you don't want to worry about all that different stuff so if you're gonna have a team figure out a team if you're gonna communicate with the team figure out how you're gonna do that have all your software setup have all your hardware setup have a folder on your desktop with all the stuff you need to do like get everything ready so that you can actually make a damn game this also includes stuff like food or drinks or anything you're gonna have around lighting internet like everything that you need to exist for the 48 hours you should put into consideration and prepare early so tip number two is take advantage of the rule a lot of people disregard a lot of different rules on different game jams every game GM has its own set of rules and sometimes you're allowed to do things sometimes you're not sometimes you're allowed to use pre-existing assets sometimes you're not sometimes you're allowed to use stuff that's freely available on the internet sometimes you're allowed to use paid stuff and so on and so forth so if you are you don't want to spend a lot of time reinventing that stuff especially if you're a solo developer if you're working alone especially you want to make sure that you use as much stuff as possible right like you don't want to just spend all your time making art if you're not good at art and you're good at programming and you can just find some online and that's what a game game is about it's about the quickest fastest way to make a game that's fun it's not so much about all the different intricacies of all the different skill sets so if you're in a game jam you don't have some of the skills required in the rules that allow you to use other stuff use other stuff there rules that allow you to buy stuff buy stuff you know just go with the flow don't stress about it and just take advantage of whatever rules are there tip number three start microscopic I would say start small but you gotta start microscopic whatever you think is small cut that in half and start with that and the way that I do this is is I will constantly D scope over the time that I have so if I start for example with a game idea and it takes me two or three hours to build and I don't like it I have to either go with that idea and cut it in half or go with a different idea that's even smaller like the the point is to make sure you D scope every time if you're starting with different ideas or you're prototyping different ideas don't sculpt up because then you'll get lost in a in a whirlwind of no finishing games tip number four use what you know well so a lot of people like use game jams as an excuse to try out a different engine or mess with different things or learn different things I don't think game jams are good for that I think while there definitely is that pressure to get stuff done and it can kind of motivate you to work really hard on something I don't think a game jam is the time for you to learn a tool or learn how to make art or learn how to make music these are skills that you want to come into the game jam with ready and now there's not saying you can't practice or hone your skill during in game jam it definitely helps but if you don't know the software you're gonna spend more time trying to figure out how to do something than what to actually do once you figure out what you want to do you want to be able to execute quickly because otherwise it's gonna be really hard for you to finish a game tip number five build quick and dirty so this is a chip that I definitely would say is one of my top tips because for a long time I would stress over the codebase that I was writing I would want to write perfect code I would want to make sure the code was reusable if I made art assets I wanted to make sure that they were perfect and pretty and I would get stuck in that perfectionism loop and I would tweak and I were tweaked and every tweaking before I know it I would be making this whole game and I would spend six hours on one little character when the game was supposed to have ten characters and like yo there's no time for that youyou can't do that you've got to completely dismiss your perfectionism it's not something you can't make high quality stuff but you got to know the time limit that you have for each piece whether it's the coding or the art or the music or whatever you got to have time limits on stuff and there are some points where you just have to say I can't spend any more time on this we have to go with it it's good enough tip number six get feedback early so this is something I started doing on stream kind of by accident and I've realized that it's been a super valuable aspect to my game development in game jams so I would stream on Fridays and if a theme got released for Ludum dare or something like that I would totally start making and then I would let all the people on stream play my my game and then they would give me feedback and I could iterate rapidly and I realized that by showing people and getting feedback really super early it helps you hone your design like there's a lot of stuff you're not thinking about when it comes to other players and this applies to game design in general but like when people play your game you'll learn stuff that you never thought you would learn you you just see things you never thought you would see and it's super super important to kind of find those things if you don't have like a stream audience or anything like that you can join our discord we have plenty of people we have an entire channel dedicated just to feedback and as well as game jam so you can go ahead and post in there and people would be happy to feedback I'm sure tip number seven don't wait on teammates so when I've joined teams in the past a lot of people like to wait for stuff and I don't really know why this is but there's like something about human nature where the the programmer wants to wait for the art assets to program it all and make it all happen or the artist wants to wait for the you know implementation or the specs for the art and while yes you should have general communication between artists and programmers and musicians and all that stuff and your whole team should communicate and everybody should know what they're doing and win but nobody should be waiting around for the other person's to get their work done you want to make sure that you're working if your work if you're programming you want to make sure that you're working with placeholders if you're doing art you want to make sure that you're you know thinking ahead and trying to put stuff in at the proper time if you're making music you want to you know try and watch everybody and get a good sense of what's going on and where the music's gonna fit and how long it needs to be and all that stuff there's no time to wait around so if you're waiting around you're doing it wrong tip number eight don't skimp on the audio so audio is one of those things that like is severely underrated especially in game jams there are so many games from game jams that I've played that do not have any audio and I am definitely guilty of this as well there's so many game jams where I've made and I've completely forgot about the audio which is the music or the sound effects but those things add so much they're so important to the polished process and if the rules allow and you're allowed to use external music or sound files they're not that hard to find you can go to various websites like free sound org or open game art org stuff like that can give you lots of stuff that you can download and use and you should use it if you're if your theme doesn't allow for it then obviously it's gonna be a little bit more difficult but even with a microphone and audacity which is a free software you can make some pretty decent sound effects you can also use software like B FX Arnett and there are plenty of tools out there to help you with audio music is a little bit more difficult but there are definitely programs to do that too right but it is super important and it should not be forgotten because it makes such a big impact on the likeability and the the polish of your game in the end and I don't think it's something you should forget tip number nine focus on what you're good at so if you're a solo developer and you've got to take on all these roles right so you're really good at program but you're not so great at art you want to probably focus on a programming heavy game right if you're a really good artist and you're not that great at programming probably want to focus on a programming light game something that really uses your art skills and showcases the art in the world but does it require a ton of programming if you're a musician you want to do the same thing with music or audio in some way think about what you're good at and try and make a game that is really good at those skill sets that really showcases your what you're best at don't try and even out your the things that you're not good at because that's just gonna end up it's gonna feel mushy and it's gonna feel like it doesn't fit and if you're really good at something you want to make that stand out you want to build the game around that skill because it's gonna make for a better game tip number ten planned for the worst so many things happen during a game jam so many things can go wrong the idea that you thought was perfect was gonna be ten times harder than you thought it was to make you're gonna have to refactor some stuff you're gonna have to change the movement system late and design like things are gonna go crazy right shits gonna happen you got to be prepared for it you got a plan for it that's why I kind of talked about my framework well I like to have the basic idea done first day I like to have the game done second day and polish the third day because it kind of allows for a lot of those things to happen it's so general and so vague where I can kind of adapt where I need to adapt and if you've got the basic prototype down on day one day two is like building and bug fixing right so like you have a lot of time to fix all those different bugs and it's it can really really help when you're trying to push the game out there and get everything ready and complete because there are just so many things that can go wrong and you just want to keep that in mind don't get discouraged don't get stressed don't get overwhelmed things are gonna go wrong they always go wrong but just try and fix them in a timely manner and sometimes bugs can end up as features you know sometimes that happens and if that's the case just roll with it don't get too obsessed about it just keep on moving forward tip number eleven and so this sounds like a weird tip what is this doing in game jam tips well there are plenty people that definitely don't plan on sleeping but a lot of people forget to eat there's been plenty of streams and game jams where I've completely forgotten to eat or sleep there's been plenty of game jams where like I plan to stay up all night and just not sleep at all and it really messes with you especially if when you get a little bit older like it can throw off your whole system if you miss meals or you miss sleep you can get low on creativity you can get low on energy you can get irritable you can get mean you can just stop being productive there are so many things that can go wrong by just missing basic things so it kind of ties into preparation be prepared have stuff around sometimes you can you can pre cook meals sometimes you can have you know your favorite drink ready to go just kind of have stuff around prepare sleeping schedules like the past couple game gems that I've done I've actually had a full night's rest every night because I feel like I'm just more productive in by losing eight hours everyday it still makes me more productive than working through those hours because of the productivity loss from the lack of sleep and the more that I do it the more that I just see that it's so important so don't lose too much sleep don't get too crazy but really you know take care of yourself during this epic crazy time tip number twelve make it easy to play so this is a huge mistake that I see a lot of game developers make especially when it comes to game jams is they will make a game like an Android game or they'll make a game like for Linux or they'll make you download an installer and what you need to understand about game jams right is that like a lot of people are playing your games specifically because you entered the game gem because they did - that's usually what the audience is for game gem games so with that in mind you want to make your game is easy to play as possible the best possible version that you can publish for a game jam is a web version something they can click on and play right there in their browser if you can do that like they're in your game right they're playing your game one click away boom every step that they have to take beyond that reduces the likelihood that they're going to play your game it reduces the amount of time that player game as well if I have to take out my phone and download an Android app or whatever that takes longer than clicking on a web link right if I have to download your game yeah a lot of people still play downloaded games but it's they're less likely to do that then click on a web game if they have to install your game like people even less likely to do that right so when I play games I actually have a rule and I say no snow installers on stream I just can't stand it I don't like to I don't like people installing a bunch of stuff on my computer especially when you could have just published a web game if you're working with uni or something like that so make it easy to play really keep in mind that people are going to be coming to a webpage they're gonna click on your game and then they want to play right there they want to play it quickly you want to get in get them into it quickly or they're gonna lose interest and so making it easy to play is super important and tip number thirteen the last tip don't quit the the finish rates for game jams are really low sometimes and it breaks my heart because like I do not want people to quit game jams I think there's so many great games that are started but never finish and I feel like we need more of those great games in the world if you're discouraged or you start something too big or stuff like that happens like I get it goes wrong crazy things happen but you should always focus on finishing you should always try and publish something you should always push yourself to make it happen even if you get discouraged even if you get overwhelmed even if you bite off more than you could chew you should always focus on that finish line focus on actually putting something up there even if it's like a tech demo even if it doesn't really make sense as a game try and publish something because then the next time if you're focused on the same thing you're gonna get better at it and you get better at what you do a lot so if you finish you're at least psychologically saying that hey I'm a finisher I'm gonna finish things and you're not losing any of that like brain power to just quitting cuz quitting doesn't get you anywhere quitting means that all your effort is wasted quitting means that that file is you're gonna sit on your hard drive and nobody's going to get to see it so no matter what seriously finish your games finish your game Jam games publish them even if you don't think they're finished nobody ever really considers their game finished especially in a game jam ok so you're not alone but just publish anyway that's the real secret to a good game jam game is just finishing just pushing something out there and then you could say hey I finished a game I'm an actual game developer so that's all I got for you I hope you found it useful if you did please leave me a thumbs up and a comment down below if you want more videos like this hit the subscribe button in the Bell to make sure you get notified and if you're doing a Ludum dare or something like that chances are I'm probably doing the two so look out for me streaming the game jam process it'd be awesome to hang out with you so once again my name is Tim Ross week and I'll see you again tomorrow finish your damn games finish up you think I'm joking I'm not joking finish your damn games

Channel: Tim Ruswick | Game Dev Underground

Views: 14,301

Keywords: game jam, game jams, game jam tips, game jam tip, tips for game jams

Id: 2KOEBWFC-1M

Length: 18min 17sec (1097 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 06 2018