As a preparation for the jam I set up a personal jam from the 14th to the 18th, and found it wasn't so much fun as "Nice", until the deadline day as my plans were disrupted and the mood shifted more towards "Stressed, but Done"
I like the idea of making the process of game development fun and enjoyable throughout, but I can't really think of how to go about that.
What have you guys done to make it more fun for you?
Work on something really new too you, if you need a break take one (duh). It really helps to use background music/podcasts, you could even listen to videos about game dev in the background! If you find the project not motivating, try something else, or work on art for a bit, or whatever. Don't spend all you time doing this (unless your in it for the money) and focus on the aspects of game dev you like most. Try to do an additional challenge, like you can't use external tools to make a game. Take breaks often. If you see your mood shifting towards stressed but done, you could even take a day off, and leave it up to a friend to help with art.
If making games in a time frame is stressing you out, just know this: It doesn't matter, you can use a broken game as your entry, its for fun.
tldr; game dev audio in background, take breaks, and focus on what you like.
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-debug-log/id1019074514
THIS IS HANDS DOWN THE BEST GAME DEV PODCAST OUT THERE! I’ve been listening for a while and it’s so chilled out and informative. Definitely listening to it while jamming!
once you have your ideas or if you are working in a team it might be useful putting them into an app like https://app.asana.com which allows you to add subtasks to your ideas without causing too much clutter and you have the option to only see things that are yet to be completed
I find I have an easier time taking things in parts. I conceptualize what I want and just write everything down. then I go through what I wrote and think of how it can be done practically and assign each thing I want to do as a task. The real trick comes here, the tasks don't need to be done sequentially. Yeah some stuff requires other stuff, but whenever I look back over my notes I find a can make skeleton parts for different sections and just finish them off when I'm doing the other required thing.
The reason this has been a good trick for me is I don't feel forced into doing anything. I can work on whatever part I feel like at the time. When I get into a work groove I switch to the more grinding stuff that needs to be done. It massively helps remove the boring stressed bits.
The 2nd thing I do is just find something fun in the game that's already done, like 1 battle in an rpg, or a jump sequence in a platformer, and just stop and do that whenever I feel fatigued. It reminds me how awesome what I am doing is, gives me a break, and gives me some play test perspective on what the game should feel like throughout.
From observations from my actual job which gets very tedious with quotas so I have to track my numbers and make sure I'm meeting company demands, music does slow me down but keeps me sane.
That said, white noise is the best of both worlds. I produce faster than with music and the silence and tediousness doesn't kill me while I work. Whatever works bets for you though. You can probably test it out by timing how many Sudoku puzzles you can complete in a given time frame using one of those free random generating apps. See what's better for you, music, no music, or white noise.
Maybe not music and not flat white noise, but some generators like at https://mynoise.net/? I find that many of them help me concentrate, or get more energetic/more relaxed. Though the advice to test different things is a sound one (no pun intended). Music with lyrics in the same language as the one you are working in (say, while writing some texts) can actually make it harder to concentrate, but music with lyrics in a language different from the one you are currently using might help you focus... Different things work for different people, though. "Field" video game music also good? It is designed to help you focus, after all, to be "in the zone".
