Title says it all really. I plain on going solo for this one mainly cause am extremely new to Godot and such but figured give it a try. Any tips?
If you have some time tonight, just hop on to youtube and look for "how to create a simple UI in godot". Watch it once to get a bit of an understanding what's happening, and then follow it step by step during the jam if you want. As far as assets, grab the asset pack that's advertised on the main page. It's got a lot of stuff and should take the guesswork out of all of that. Worst case, use them while you're making the thing and then when you're done, go find some other free stuff you like the look of more. Other than that, just break your idea up into little chunks and look up how to do each thing. Making a player, make it move, make it bump things, make things die, etc. Remember there's no pressure to any of this, and there's people with even less experience than you. Enjoy yourself and have some fun with the whole thing. Good luck :)
Focus on making a complete game, even if it is simple. You can't make a dream game in a week, but you just need to make a game. People usually vote on stuff that you won't think of, like UI, the layout of the page, or even if you can play it on itch without downloading. For my first game jam, I wasn't able to finish my game, but I posted it anyway, and it got a lot of great feedback. The things to remember are to post your game even if you aren't done, look for the small things people vote for/against, and have fun! I hope you do well and have a great time!
1. Focus on 1 single mechanic, whatever that may be, and then build your small game around that mechanic. Trying to add more than a couple of features can get tricky, time consuming, and cause you distraction from polishing the other important aspects of your game. So 1 mechanic.
2. Make it for WebGL - people do not like to download and run executables on their PC's so making a PC or Mobile or VR build is going to limit your feedback to the point of almost being a wasted effort.
3. It's always good to partner up with complementary skills if you can. I've found a couple of truly great musicians on here so if you have the opportunity, explore it.
4. Use assets if you cant produce your own efficiently and quickly.
5. Have fun - it's not that serious.
Publishing to webGL (or mobile) is often a bit stricter than to desktop (e.g. case sensitivity on filenames and other quirks around the filesystem).
Are you coding in C# or in gdscript? Not wanting to be a downer but it seems Godot still doesn't support webGL builds in C# :/
https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/export/exporting_for_web.html
Godot allows exporting for the browser as long as you're choosing in GDscript. We did this last year using the html export option. (Documentation link: https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/export/exporting_for_web.html and if you'd prefer a video we found this one to be good during the jam last year:
)
One thing I'd recommend is to instantiate any special effects, etc. in the background of a loading screen for your levels as otherwise there will be a small lag the first time the player encounters them in the game. This doesn't happen with downloadable exports, only the browser version.
Have fun! And try to plan something small and simple, get that working, and then add in any of the fancy stuff afterwards. Just focus on trying to get something that you can turn in without running out of time.
Hey! A lil advice - Do not think of this jam as lasting 10 days think its 5 and scope the game accordingly, cause you probably will need more time than you think. Also i've seen that you want free sounds so here's a couple suggestions: zapsplat for sfx and opengameart for music (you can find a lot of good assets not only music for absolutely free there)
If you are doing pixel art then here's a great video. To sum it up the easiest way to choose a resolution is to take a base of 320x180 and scale it up as you see fit (so if you go 2x its 640x360). I would suggest going 640x360 if you are new to pixel art because doing 320x180 might overwhelm you a bit with trying to make every pixel count. If you are doing non pixel art, then probably 1280x720 is a good spot. Also you should look up pixel art rendering settings (it's pretty easy to setup in godot) or it might look blurry