Posted October 17, 2022 by Elm
It's sometime in august and you're considering, toying with the idea, of joining a game jam. You may be considering rounding up a team of talented individuals, or going solo and putting out that idea that's been niggling around in your head. And why not? Jams are for fun.
However, if you're not already familiar with it, Spooktober Visual Novel Jam is a little different. It's longer than most jams. Rather than a week or a weekend, it takes place over a month. This can lead to more ambitious projects, but your game cannot be an earlier idea you wanted to polish off. That means whatever you do has to be something you can plan and deliver well in the time given.
And then there's the added pressure of prizes. Spooktober Visual Novel Jam hosted by Devtalk has the added attraction of offering sponsored and monetary prizes. Fairly exciting ones! But that also adds a little heat and a little more motivation for those wanting to participate.
For Parasite in Love's Postmortem, we really wanted to take a look at some of the takeaways we had whilst participating in this jam. Not only as a means of advice, but also as a way to reflect on ourselves and the team. TLDR; the experience has been pretty great.
So, first things first.
When I started the project I was prepared to make the game alone. I had various game jam team experiences and as exciting as a team can be, a lot of things can go wrong.
However, I noticed when I initially talked about my idea in the Devtalk server, I was getting very positive reactions. I thought that this project was worth it to pursue, no matter the team size I would have.
Thrilled, honestly! When Nia approached me with the concept for Parasite in Love, I was immediately on board. I love biological horror and darker romance, and the premise ticked off so many boxes for me. I was even more enthused when I got to meet the rest of the group; whether they were familiar faces or people I only knew in passing, this team was full of people I respect and admire, and it fired me up to do my absolute best!
Definitely excited! I loved the initial concept of PiL and saw its potential, and I was more than happy to join~ I also knew a few people who were already on board, so I knew I was joining a fantastic team! I felt nothing but good vibes from this one.
This was also my first spooktober jam, and this is the first horror game I’ve gotten to work on! In my opinion, Horror has the most room for whacky programming tricks, so I was pumped to try out some new things.
I was very excited to be brought on as the GUI designer for Parasite in Love! Brainstorming began in early August with the idea of having a "medical" or "corrupted lab" feel to the GUI.
I'd never joined a team for game jams before this project, so I didn't know what to expect. But I was familiar with everyone else's work before I did. I felt pretty comfortable that we'd be able to come up with something as the story had already been mostly figured out within a rough outline. It included some images, real-life inspiration, and concept sketches of Niall. I probably wouldn't have joined with a less prepared team.
Ecstatic, nervous, honored, grateful, and a bit unsure of myself. Emotions and thoughts swimming around my head as the lead director, NiAsobu, invited me to join the project as the person overseeing the musical and most of the audio side of things. I've only done audio projects for independent artists prior to this. And all music and sound design experience mostly for myself, so this was new territory for me. However, most self-doubt and worries left me when Nia began explaining the project and helped guide me through the production process on what exactly I would be doing to help provide to her vision. That was when the only thing I felt for certain was excitement.
Excited! Night Asobu was talking to me about her present team of devs I recognized and regularly talk shop with. Then she let loose the thought of including voice acting but was concerned about how finding the right fit is such a huge time and energy cost. You can put out a casting call on Twitter for voice actors and receive hundreds of demo reels in mere hours, even if the project is unpaid!
After hearing the premise of this parasitic relationship, and knowing the existing professional relationship NiA and I have with each other, I offered to voice MC if she wanted. Half-seriously, I suggested if NiA found someone who was perfect but just a few notes too high, she could do what I did in a previous jam game for a friend and artificially pitch the voice a couple notes lower and it not sound too engineered. I showed her my example: I voiced entirely Snowhaven's Just Beyond the Veil, an Only One of Any Asset (O2A2) Jam visual novel
I wasn't expecting anything of it, but NiA was overall blown away by the emotional range of my performance! So much so that she exclaimed that we needed voice acting, and we needed me as Marlowe, and, well, the rest is history!
I have wanted to voice in a video game literally for as long as I can remember, so saying "this was a dream-come-true" is an understatement! Getting to do the voice for Niall was such a pleasure. Thanks to help from the vocal talents and coach on the team, I was able to bring the character to life and I'm so thankful that I was given this opportunity! May God bless everyone on this passionate team of talented people :) Now, if you will excuse me... I have some humans to infect. <3
Guarded. I was invited by Coda to voice direct PiL because she recognized the team would need one. I was also too old and too busy for any shenanigans that befall a typical jam team. However, I'd worked with her effectively in both "Last Meal at Cafe Mori" and "How We Show Love" and knew that she wouldn't drag me into a room of screaming kindergarteners. The team included a number of regulars from DevTalk which was comforting and helped ease me into their workflow.
I came in with one goal, and one goal only. To find the voice of a parasite boy. Joining to help with casting was an impulsive motivation fuelled mostly by affection, as were most of my encounters with everyone on the team. Nia, our lead, had mentioned how much work it would be to handle casting direction and screening auditions, and I very much wanted to take that off her plate as she would already be handling other things. It was meant to be a maximum of 2 weeks of listening to reels and dipping out. Of course, being the good luck charm that I am, I was quickly made redundant when the actor we wanted immediately said yes! (Thanks Trickle!)
Being made somewhat redundant in the space of a few days before the jam had even started felt good, but also had some lingering feelings. I wanted to stick around if not purely to be support and hype… which became quite a permanent role. My goal quickly shifted to getting the Night Asobu Twitter account to 100 followers, and doubling its original following. (Spoiler: We passed that and achieved a lot more.)
Overall, the team was motivated and excited to join the jam! A good sign, but not an uncommon trait. The key aspect worth highlighting is that nearly everyone went in trusting each other based on how they had conducted or vouched for themselves elsewhere. From the very beginning, the team didn't feel chaotic, or like a grind. Even though Parasite in Love is Nia's vision, we all went in hyped to build off each other's strengths and ideas. We may have gone in not quite knowing what to expect, but I think it's clear the end product and the relationships built during the jam were incredibly positive. <3
In the next part of the postmortem, the team talks about how they approach the game jam process for each of their roles!
Read part two to find how people of varying experience levels approach the (un)known in game jams.