Hello everyone!

So the end of the semester has finally come. I hope you all managed to get your work in on time and successfully complete your qualifications! If you didn't that's OK, I am sure you learned some really useful things throughout the course anyway and knowing what you know now you will be able to make some educated decisions in regards to your future endeavours (of which I wish you luck in whatever they may be!).

So now that the pressure of your course work being lifted, this weekend would be a good opportunity to chill out and enjoy yourself before the jam. Kick back and enjoy your free time, do the things that you have wanted to do all semester but have not been able to. If you are really fiending to keep up the game development, bust out a few tutorials and learn some new skills prior to the start of the jam. Or alternatively see if any of your other team members would like to continue planning/pre-production for your jam concepts.

Speaking of which, I hope that everyone has managed to come up with some sort of concept for the jam. Don't worry if you haven't, as most game jams usually will not allow you to eve concept ideas prior to the start of the jam - coming up with an idea quickly under pressure is part of the fun!

To all participants, please make your schedules clear to your team mates to achieve the optimal development cycle. You should definitely not blow off any of your other commitments you may have, but it's important to let your team mates know when you will and will not be available throughout the duration of the game jam. Make sure your team structure is solid, and make sure that you pull your weight! If you are going to bail out make sure you let your team mates know so they can adjust the development cycle and concept scope accordingly.

So everyone have fun this weekend! Enjoy yourselves, chill out, play some games, and come the beginning of the jam at 10:00 AM Monday you will be nice and refreshed and ready to jump into some game dev! The aim of the game isn't to make something pretty, something that you can sell, something that hits any criteria really (aside from the themes) - the aim of the jam is just to make something as complete as you can in terms of gameplay. Use the skills you have learned over the last 6-12 months and apply them as best you can, however you want.