WOW. So, uh, more than a thousand of you, huh? Alright then, let's do this!
Theme: The official (but optional) theme for the jam is:
"Keep it Simple"
Deadline: Submissions will stay open from Friday through to Tuesday morning - pick whatever weekend works for you! (Personally, I'm planning to start on Saturday morning.)
Rules: I expect everyone who takes part in my game jam to treat all jammers with respect, and generally just not be a dick. No slurs or hate speech are welcome in this community, no racism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia allowed. I will remove any games submitted that don't live up to this very simple standard. I'm enforcing the Global Game Jam's Code of Conduct here: https://globalgamejam.org/inclusiveness-policy-and-code-conduct
Other than that, this is a relaxed jam - no judges, no winners. The goal is to learn (or at least get more familiar with) Godot, so if you're doing that, it's probably fine! And don't stress out - take breaks, get lots of sleep, and look after yourselves <3
Discord: I've set up a channel for the jam on the official Godot discord! Please come say hello in the #stop-waiting-for-godot channel on the Godot Engine discord!
Social Media: You can share what you're working on with the twitter hashtag #stopwaitingforgodot! Over the weekend I'll be checking in on the hashtag and retweeting the occasional thing that catches my eye. Apologies in advance to my twitter followers!
Thanks for joining me on this! Can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!
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The original jam announcement for posterity:
So, basically: I thought next weekend might be a good time to finally sit down and try to learn Godot. Why don't you join me?
Wait, what?
Oh, ok. So, hi, I'm game designer Terry Cavanagh! I made Dicey Dungeons, and a few other things. Over the last decade or so, I've used all sorts of tools and game engines to make my games - from Flash, Pico8, Roblox, Haxe... I've even dabbled with Unity a bit! But... I haven't really tried Godot yet.
Godot looks super interesting, from the outside. It's basically a fully-featured, modern 3D game engine meant to rival things like Unreal and Unity. But it's different from those projects in one really crucial way: it's free, open source software.
So is Godot any good then?
I honestly have no idea. I'm excited to find out! It definitely looks promising!
Why do you care about open source?
I mean basically I just don't think it's good when the tools that we use are controlled by private companies. I think there are a lot of bad outcomes when that happens. Like maybe the company that makes your tools suddenly decides that they'd like you to pay a huge monthly subscription to continue to use the tools. Or maybe they get bought up by another company, and they stop updating your tools and then your tools stop working. Or maybe the company boasts publicly about how they're working for the US military.
Open Source is not perfect - it can be a double edged sword in a lot of messy ways. But for me it's the difference between joining a co-op and licensing from a private company. Godot is MIT licensed, which doesn't mean that it's not owned by anyone (it's got funding from various external companies, and a patreon) - but it does mean that, ultimately, it doesn't just belong to the people making it. It belongs to everyone who contributes to it, and everyone who uses it.
Ok! What's the plan?
Let's all learn Godot, next weekend!
Sometimes the word "game jam" means competition, but that's not really the vibe I'm going for here. There's no judging, and nobody is going to win. Or, if you prefer, as they say over at Ludum Dare, your game is your prize.
What should I make?
Something simple! You're learning something new, so you can probably expect a lot of things to go wrong and for things to take longer than you'd planned. I recommend picking a really, really simple idea, something you're sure you can finish in a couple of hours. The classic suggestion when learning a new engine is to try remaking an arcade game, which I think is good! The cool thing about doing that is you'll likely have time to spare to add your own twist to things, and maybe discover something interesting along the way. Or maybe, you could remake one of your own games? Got an old jam game that you never finished up? Maybe remake it from scratch! Or make a sequel! The only really important thing is to try to finish it, from title screen to game over.
Ahhh I can't make it this weekend...
Sorry, that sucks. But every date is going to be bad for someone, so I kinda just have to pick one! If you can't make this one, maybe look into Godot Wild Jam, which sounds like fun?
What if you already know Godot?
Great! If you want, you can join in anyway and try to learn some new part of the whole thing.
Where do I start?
I'm new to Godot, so I asked people for recommendations for good resources for learning the engine. Here were the most common ones:
A lot of people strongly recommended the GDQuest website and youtube channel, which seem great - they're very extensive and detailed, and the youtube channel features a "get started with godot in 2021" series, which seems like a really great place to start.
An alternative video series that a number of people recommended is BornCG's "Let's Build a 2D platformer" series, which seems really nicely made and clear!
If, like me, you prefer written tutorials over videos, Kids Can Code.org has a Godot 101 tutorial, and a "recipes" guide filled with how-to guides on specific Godot problems.
It seems like the official documentation is a really great place to look too - it's kept up to date by open source contributors. I had one very strong recommendation the "Your First Game" tutorial.
Can't wait for the jam to start! See you next weekend!