Post Jam Reflection

Another GMTK Jam has come and gone, and just like last year, I'm very happy with how it went!

When the jam theme was announced, at first I was a little confused. I was expecting a video like the previous years, and now I think I can say I prefer that. After all, nothing says GMTK jam like a jam with a GMTK video theme! Regardless, I put on some sunglasses and hit the road to go on an hour long thinking walk. The first idea I had was a game where you control a small squad of characters in an apocalypse where they only have one gun, incorporating gameplay similar to NHL games. I guess I rolled with it.

It was a stroke of luck that my first idea was my best, but the runner ups were pretty interesting too:

• A chess game where you only have one piece (the king piece with the added advantage of some card deck gameplay)
• A sandbox survival game dealing with one screen of resources
• A driving game where you can only turn one direction (probably spin and drift around to build up boost or something, still really like this one)
• A service game where you only have one customer and must keep them engaged so they won't leave

Development went super smooth considering my experience level and lonesomeness. I wasn't a huge fan of the "use any assets you're technically allowed to" rule because I knew I would be making my own for the experience anyways, so I would be at somewhat of a disadvantage. That being said, I was able to make lots of time for breaks anyhow.

I've found a lot of bugs in the game so far, and I'd like to list some of the unforgivable ones:

• Fail text doesn't appear in endless mode (I somehow accidentally explicitly programmed it so this happens)
• In level 3 there are 2 guns (I duplicated the main guy instead of adding another guy, but this seems to have little effect on gameplay)
• Reportedly you can go through the game without encountering the final boss stage, though I haven't been able to recreate this
• Score doesn't reset when exiting story mode and entering endless
• Momentum of basically everything that moves is janky (this is because I didn't do any trigonometry stuff and dealt with x/y velocities as completely separate things, so I guess it isn't a bug)
• Probably a lot more text popup errors because I implemented them in such a horrible way

I think as cool of an idea as it was, I won't be making a post-jam version in the near future. I'll focus on other projects for now, but I can't deny that this might be worth revisiting in a year or two.

Playing other people's games was really fun! I felt bad for some of the entries that required python compiling or simply didn't work, and tried my best to give them a chance. I saw so many good ideas! Alongside some flashy graphics and juicy gameplay, there were some clear intimidating entrants in this jam. Rating was straightforward but the distinct categories were subpar. I think something like "take on theme" would make more sense than "adherence to theme" on a ranging scale. Congratulations to everyone, whether I played their game or not!

As for my own placing, I'm a little mixed with how I feel about it. #112 overall super good, and it's something to write home about, but it's just so close to top 100 that I can't help feel a little disappointed- Especially considering I made it to #83 last year. Even still, I should remember that I'm technically in the top 5%, which I think is great for a 17 year old hobbyist like myself. It fills me with joy and pride!

Mixed feelings aside, reading the comments and reviews as they came in was such a terrific experience! Some of the things people said about something I not only made, but poured hours and hours of effort into felt like the highest compliments I've ever received. Making games is a hearty passion of mine, and seeing that people can already enjoy some 2 day spur-of-the-moment creation of mine makes me think a career in this field is truly worth considering. Thank you to everyone who played my game, and everyone who made this event possible and fun!