This wasn't my first game jam, but it was the first one where I felt like I made something that was complete. Every day working on it was a satisfying experience, and I particularly enjoyed making the ending. It was important that I finished, and I gave all I could to that end. 

The last day was stressful because of a last-minute game breaking bug and lack of time to polish what I had left (there were several animations and routines I wanted to work on). I had to write some crappy last-minute code and my brain was literally soup at that point XD

I think what I've learned (and I hope anyone new to gamedev learns this too) is where my strengths are as a developer. For instance, this was the first game I made with a music soundtrack. I practiced over the last two months playing tunes on the keyboard and realized what a few minutes of improvisational music can provide to my experiences. I also realized my inability to form mental pictures (aphantasia) could inspire a game made entirely with outlines. 

Sometimes the best moments are the ones you give yourself to be original. Thanks for providing an original voice to the gaming world!

This is my first game jam as well! My team and I had so much fun brainstorming and while the deadline was a constant pressure, it kept us moving. TGC is one of my favorite game companies. (I have so many special memories due to both Journey and Sky). We wanted to create something truly special and finished knowing they would be trying the games.

I do a lot of solo work, so it really taught me how nice it is to work as a team when it comes to development.

I know I've mentioned it before but it was my first time too! Not my first jam overall (I did take part in an animation one during my uni days) but I feel like surprisingly I was much more on top of planning out and completing the tasks I'd been assigned/assigned myself. It truly has been an invaluable experience and I got exactly what I wanted out of it: I learnt many new things and gained some more experience in collaboration and game production pipelines! I got to see my art in an actual game for the first time!! It felt surreal and rewarding. As per a recommendation from an industry friend too, I introduced a project organisation structure (user stories and agile) to help us keep things on task which helped us out a lot in the end. One of my mentors told me that it made me seem a bit like a producer lol, and that we were pretty much functioning like a small studio.

I also got to understand what it's like creating art to be implemented in games and understanding the production side of their design. Like drawing foliage and assets in perspective for a 2.5D top down camera, but then later realising that because it's still being placed in a 3D plane with a flat ground, the bottom of the objects needed to be drawn flat instead of rounded like you would see in regular perspective!

Overall it was a challenge, I'm sure I bit off more than I could chew but I also wanted to test myself to see how much of a workload I could handle and how much I could realistically complete in the timeframe we were given. Suffice to say I think we did well, there are some things we didn't get to implement that I regret since they really would've enhanced the experience and conveyed our intentions better, but such is the nature of jams I guess. I'm definitely getting some well earned rest and taking the time to celebrate other people's hard work!