GMTK Jam 25 postmortem, or "how not to come back in the jam development after 7 years of not doing it"

Hello there! 

This last weekend, I entered the GMTK jam 25, and it was very interesting for me for one main reason : I didn't joined a game jam "alone" since 2018. I used to do it quite often when I was a student, at least once a year, mainly the Ludum Dare. But life changes, I've became a real game developer working for several companies, got a baby, less and less free time, and poof, 7 years without any game jam.

But as said, I'm a REAL PROFESSIONAL you know, and I know how jam works, I have some good ideas, I love the theme : nothing can go wrong, right? RIGHT?

Well my friends, let me tell you 2 things : 
- 7 years is long enough to forget every basic jam tips you learnt
- Trusting your experience in professional game development will be useful in a jam is as foolish as thinking as a marathon runner you will be able to beat Usain Bolt in a sprint (good metaphor here, I'm proud of it)

So here are some lessons I just re-learn that you may find interesting if you are new to game jams, or such as me,  an old fart getting back in the game after a long time.

• Consider the time other people will take to play your game.
  Yes, totally obvious for veterans, but I forgot this... During game jams voting period, people play games back to back, very quickly to see as much as they can. Your concept must fit this constraint or people will quit the game before seeing what is interesting in your game.
  In my case, the concept is simple : you progressively exit a loop by unlocking some narration. But the said loop is a 5 to 10min one. And there are 3 loops to reach the end game, so 15 to 30 minutes of gameplay ... NOBODY WILL EVER REACH THE END!
  Making a concept with a catchy and short gameloop is the most important. A deep and long length experience is not the point here, or if you want to do so you have to hook players with a short loop first.
• Make a web browser game at all cost.
  Some people don't play on a windows computer. Some people don't have powerful computers. Some people are afraid of virus. Some anti-viruses are pretty annoying and won't let you play .exe easily (mine is...). People don't take the time to download .exe when they are in a rush. And some people are just lazy. That's why you MUST make a web browser game if you want people to play it.
  And this may have a big impact on your game jam. I'm an Ureal Engine user, I know how it works and I'm comfortable developing with this engine. But it appears that Epic don't give a **** about WebGL (such as many other useful things by the way) and it's nearly impossible to export a game for web browser in latest UE versions. So next time, I think I will have to join the Godot gang, but it will mean learning an engine from scratch and losing so much time to do so.
• Don't overestimate yourself.
  I didn't really forget this one : I know this is probably the most important thing. Make a short game with a scope you can handle, easy. And I did it, or at least I thought I did it. Even if you know your tools, even if you think everything is under-control, there WILL BE some unexpected event and issues. ROOKIE MISTAKE. For example, I was not able to compile the game and build a package 10 minutes before the deadline for some mystical Unreal reason that I never saw....
  Make a game you are 100% sure you can finish in 3/4 of the given time, not the whole jam period. If you finish before? great, you can polish it, add more content, make gifs and communicate about it. But in most case you will just finish on time.
• Prioritize feedback and animations
  This one also applies to professional game dev, not only jams. An interesting gameplay always uses nice visual feedbacks, vfx and animations. When you are communicating about your project, use gifs and videos, it's way more efficient.
  But if you are a stupid game designer like I am, you will want your system to be complete above anything else. And that's a big mistake! We are not in 1980 playing static games in ASCII. People want visually interesting and responsive game. As a result of this mistake, there are NO animation in my game, which make it hard to understand, and hard to communicate about it.

I think I will stop this post here, these are what I think are the MOST IMPORTANT THINGS to remember when entering a game jam.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed joining this jam and I'm looking forward to do so more often. I learnt  a lot of things and I thing this is the point of game jam : get out of your comfort zone, and improve yourself.

Thanks for reading! And take care!