New Thread for everyone to share their experience with the Jam and give a postmortem on their projects!
first day: did a blockout of the level, grab the postprocessing shader and once i was happy with the level layout and how the material interract with the screen filter i added, i call it done and go for a nap
second day: model all the assets of the highest priority, stuff that i will need, aka a office desk and a lampswitch, if it was more, and start the code related to thoses objects while jugglin attention wacthing tennocon
day three: start to work on the first spook, but have a lot of problems with linking my blueprints, and thats nescessary because the hidable desk is a blueprint and the monster is another, thanks to my chad boss i got it to work
days 4 and 5 was mostly workin on the other events, adding simple models as nescessary and makin sure things work properly, in hinsight i fail to check the lights but at least no gameover happen because of a bug(or is yet to be reported)
day 6 almost the last day, so its just add a few touches, make a cool menu, game over screen, add some sfx and substitute the print strings with said sfx and a test cook to make sure game work, and tomorrow add more ,fluuf right......
7 day: took me the night of the 6 day and almost all of the final day to finally figure out why the cook left me..., curse u unnused variables, once nightmare was over i have another problem that i could not build the game because i didnt have visual studio..., so yeah no time for floof
So I just did a course last semester on how professional developers implement techniques to boost their productivity and efficiency. I decided to make a project during my break using Kanban to organize my workflow, and compare it to my experience in 2017 when I had no IT experience and no idea what I was doing.
During the project, I listed out various features I want to implement on the first day and estimate how much effort each one would take, then I put 3 to 4 features to the todo list for the day. I then go onto a cycle of coding for 1 hour, with testing for 30 mins, then take a break doing other stuff. It really made me focus on complete a feature one at a time and solves the problem on me wandering around in my codebase like I did 4 years ago.
As for designing the game, I started in day 1 and 2 out with core gameplay aspect. I made the character, then the fairy, after that it's the light/rendering system. With them all set I then move onto enemies, like goblins and shades so play can fail in a level. On the other hand, the winning logic of reaching the next room was also created as well.
On day 3 and 4, I made a few design for the shadow monster and picked out the most unsettling ones for me. I then code their behaviour and test them out in game, after that I designed the AI director that smartly spawns the shadows into the map. I also spent quite a bit time working on dungeon tiles, which took me 4 hours just to make the basic tiles saw in game.
Day 5 is when I become potato, not much done except some more artwork and redesigning the player character to match the theme of the game.
Day 6 I decided to add more features into the game as the todo list was mostly complete. I added a new shadow monster that gives player hallucinations and created the event where the idol player learn to rely on breaks, creating uneasiness. I also went onto bfxr and pray to rngesus that it gives me usable sound effects (which it did).
Day 7 is the final day where I did level designs. I watched a GDC talk about non-linear level and I wanted to try that out, so I plan out the map layouts and test out possible paths and how I should distribute point of interest (ammo) and obstacles (corpses and goblins). Additionally I added more scripted events that are all slightly different to spice up the player's first playthrough.
Overall I was feeling great with how the game turned out. The Kanban method really helped me focused and it is my first time finishing a personal project this efficiently.
This project was a lot of firsts for me - first game jam, first time working with a team, first 3D game. This is my second game overall, done in a quarter of the time of the first one. With that said,
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
The Good: Working with a team of talented individuals was really great. I felt motivated throughout the jam and it was a nuanced feeling that someone cared about the game as much as I did. Taking vacation time to do this project was an excellent idea, as most of my days were consumed just thinking and planning and searching stuff for the game. We paced ourselves well and had hard deadlines set between phases of the game (Concept -> Prototype -> MVP -> Polish), and kept everything neatly in a Trello board to keep track of stuff. I learned a lot of things about Unity, modelling, texturing, animation and mathematics while making the game. It was an experience like none other for me, and something that did help with the otherwise bland year this has been. Getting feedback was new and very welcome, as it helped deepen my understanding of things I took for granted - level and game design, the impact of sound and consistent style, what people pay attention to.
The Bad: Despite our best wishes, not everything got done on time and we have probably overscoped. What seemed like simple ideas took longer than anticipted and we were working and changing things up to the last hours of the original deadline. Life got in the way a lot, and some critical parts of the project got delayed and didn't receive the polish they would require to be fully implemented - as it turns out, it was par for the course in game jams.
The Ugly: We didn't playtest the game on time. Most of the mechanics were made in a vaccum without feedback, and what seemed obvious to a designer was a total mystery to the player. Some of the work we spent time on didn't even get into the game due to performance reasons, and it was a crying shame. While the vision of what the game was supposed to be was mostly there, we didn't have specifics nailed down and just kept throwing stuff in that soudned cool, but was very hit and miss. From a programming side, I noticed my quality degrade as the deadline drew closer - it was important to ship the feature rather than make it extensible or well documented. I was also very anxious about the project and treated the whole thing way too seriously, a challenge to prove myself that I can make games. Only now that the scores are down I feel certain relief and satisfaction from a job well done.
Takeaways and lessons
- For me, this is a hobby, not a job - don't stress over it.
- Temper expectations - everyone has their own lives to live and a game jam might not have the same priority for others as it does for me.
- Be more firm with timelines - this will come with experience, but plans should be created flexible, not bent and broken later on.
- When planning, create 3 groups of items - must have, good to have, nice to have. Implement in that order and make sure your must haves work perfectly
- Always get feedback - be it from team members, friends or strangers. Your game needs to be tempered in order to withstand criticism and scrutiny.
- Don't be afraid to fail - failure nurtures future success, if you learn from it.