How to Survive your First Game Jam
With the Global Game Jam coming up at the end of the month, it got me reminiscing of the game jams I’ve been on and how much I learned from them. I decided to put together a list of hints and tips to share with you that might help if you’re thinking of taking part in GGJ this year!
1. SLEEP IS COOL
Most game jams are a weekend affair, and it can be tempting to pull an all-nighter, fuelled by caffeine and pizza, to get more done in the time limit. My advice? Get some sleep instead! You’ll be tired enough working full-on for the jam, and in my experience mistakes rise to catastrophic levels while sleep-deprived. Not only that, but you’ll end up doing more work in the long-term to fix those errors the next day. Save yourself the trouble, get a good night’s sleep and enjoy the fresh start the second day.
2. Make the scope your friend
The game jam has started. You’ve found a team. The theme has been announced. Everyone is EXCITED. You have LOTS OF IDEAS. This will be the best game in the history of game jams!
Let me stop you right there. Take a look at the idea you’ve come up with. Chop it in half. Then chop it in half again. What you have left is probably doable in the time you’ll have. It’s great to be ambitious, sure, but better to be realistic. Commit to a scope that, at the start of the jam, probably looks dead easy to accomplish (spoiler alert: it probably won’t be). Aim to finish with a playable game, rather than a half-built idea that – no matter what you all say while euphoric from the high of finishing a game jam – you’ll probably never come back to again.
3. Speak little but often
You’re probably going to be in a team for your game jam. You’ll probably all sign up to the team idea, agree who’s doing what, and then disperse to write, design, code, sketch. It sounds obvious, but make sure you keep on talking to one another. The easiest way to do more work than you have to is to not talk. Cue code that means an entire extra day of art needed. Or artists creating backgrounds that won’t work with the game design (guilty) or about 5,000 more words than would ever be needed for a game built in a weekend (also guilty). Checking in with each other with small but frequent updates will keep you all on track and focused on the necessary work.
4. Someone has to do the boring stuff…
Especially at GGJ! You need to fill in team details, write documentation, build and package and submit your game at the end of the weekend. It might be that this isn’t important to your team, and that’s cool, but if it is important then pay attention to it. Don’t leave it until the last minute (it always takes longer than you think it will). And if you’re the one who finishes your tasks first, then get stuck in and do the work for your team rather than waiting for someone else to take the initiative.
5. Have fun!
When you’re deep in the weekend, tired, up to your elbows in broken code or pixel sprites, it can be hard to forget this last point! Work hard, but take time to appreciate what you and your team have achieved! In the space of a weekend, you’ve taken an idea from inception to creation, and that’s awesome! You’ve collaborated, you’ve supported each other, and you’ve probably learned at least one new thing. In my opinion, that’s a pretty cool way to spend a weekend.
Good luck to all GGJammers!
Designing adorably disgusting monsters for the Global Game Jam.