This is my first ever game jam and im kinda nervous and kinda scared of what to expect. Ive never made a full game before but i have played around with many art programs and game dev programs.
What am I to expect and should this feel so daunting?
Any advice or words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated!
Expect to learn something ^^. Because that will happen :). Game jams are super cool to get a feeling about what you are good at and what you need to improve. Expect that TimeManagement is something you are NOT good at ^^. But knowing that, here's a tip: make yourself a schedule! You have 72 hours, 3 days. You need to sleep because you will get unproductive when too sleepy so plan about 7h sleep every day and plan another 6 hours for eating relaxing, taking a walk, whatever. So basically: from 72 hours, plan that you will use 36 hours for the jam, even if you will have more time and sleep less. This is a simple trick to set your goals achievable.
Next. Instead of planning 36h for your game now, plan 24 hours! Why? You should reserve 1/3 of the time for playtesting, bugfixing etc.
And the most important thing of all: plan a super simple game as your first game! Think about "guess my number" or "memory" or "klick as many bubbles in 1 minute as you can", "avoid falling objects by moving left or right", something like that. Focus on one game mechanic ( like klicking or jumping ). Why? Because think of this: if you make a super simple game with only one level you may have a playable game by end of day one! Then you have a lot of time to build on that! Add another level or better graphics or take the time to find some free music or a nice font to use it in the game. A jam should always focus on finishing the game, not making the next World of Warcraft in 3 days ^^.
As for the schedule: write down a very simple game idea (simple means: easy for you to make). Then write down everything that needs to be done, then bring it in a time order and write a number of hours on every task. Look at the list again and strike out everything that is not absolutely necessary. You can add those things back later if you have time left.
Now start and keep an eye on your time. Every task that takes longer will kill some task at the end of the list. So try to keep I time by again keeping things simple.
A schedule for a 2d game where you click on enemies that pop-up to score could look like this:
1. Create a simple enemy sprite (just a red square) (15m)
2. Setup your project in the language that you have chosen (2h)
3. Create a level with some enemies spread at predefined positions (2h)
4. Make enemies disappear when clicking on them. (1h)
5. Give the player points on the score whenever he clicks on an enemy (1h)
6. Add a scorecounter to the screen that shows the current points (1h)
7. Show a Game Over screen after 1 Minute that shows the final score (2h)
8. Show the one minute count down during the game on the screen. (2h)
9. Add a replay button to the end screen to restart the game on click. (2h)
10. Draw a more sophisticated enemy and replace the red squares with this image (1h)
11. Make a start screen with a start button that will start the level. The screen shows some nice image and has your name written somewhere. (2h)
12. Add a background to the level. Maybe an image of a forest or a pirateship or something. (1h)
13. Find a free to use sound, dowoad it and build it into the game and play it when an enemy is clicked.(2h)
14. Make enemies appear randomly over time. (2h)
15. Find and add some free music to the level (1h)
16. Find and add some free music to the start screen (1h)
These are about 24 hours! Of course the hours per task are very roughly estimated but it's better to overestimate here. Notice that you would have a playable game at position (7.) after about 10h! There you would have a game that gives you one minute to click as many red squares on the screen as you can in one minute and then gives you a score. To replay you would need to restart it and ut would not be pretty and without sounds but it would be a game. Everything that comes after that is up to you. After just 10 hours you would have something to submit if you need to.
So I hope this helps a bit. Of course this is not the only way to approach a jam but it is one that helped me on my first jams.
Have fun!
It's also my first game jam! Reading this really boosted my confidence, just wondering if a 2d platformer with a scrolling camera is too ambitious for this game jam. I think a bullet-hell platformer would fit the theme of Overload really well but it might take too much time. I'm using pygame and python, not sure what you will be using but any advice? Thank you in advance?
If you need a fast way to do a sidescrolling bullet hell platformer try GDevelop 5. Its free to use : https://editor.gdevelop-app.com/ and you don't need to code and have lots of assets right away, just klick things together. Here's a good starter tutorial:
and for the camera to follow your player or spaceship or whatever:
Ah okay! Then I got your question wrong. Sorry ^^. I didn want to sell you GDevelop, I just thought, the question was: Should I use Pygame or is there an alternative. I should practice reading a bit ^^. So for Pygame, I'm sure you know how to google some tips and tricks and video on how to create a simple game in general. But as an advice for making a Bullet Hell Platformer in general I would still say: start super simple! Then advance if there is time left.
So I would focus on one level and make a schedule like:
1. Setup the environment of pygame and create a first empty game scene that I can start: (by using the video below this should take not more than some minutes but I'll give it 1h since you may have to download stuff and install it and then something will go wrong and you will watch the clock and see that 30 Minutes are already gone. So when you take 1h you have plenty of time to do it.) 1h
2. Create a super simple main character sprite in paint or some other program and add it to the scene (fixed without movement yet). 1h
3. Implement the movement of the main character (without heavy animations of the character) so that the character moves left and right and can jump (maybe using the video as a reference) 2h ... (again a high estimation but you want to have a good feeling and don't feel under pressure to be most creative)
4. paint some platform sprites and add them to the game. They do not have to be fancy yet. Implement that the character can hop on platforms and can stay on platforms. 2h
5. paint ONE simple bullet. add it to the game so that it appears somewhere when a certain button is pressed. If that works, then always add it at the players position. When this is working add it at the players position and make it move in a direction by itself so we have bullets to shoot. (Take care, that you delete the bullet when it flies "out of the game" or when it flies too long. Else every bullet you shoot will take up some memory and in a bullet hell game, your memory will be full in no time) - 2h
7. Paint a simple enemy and add it to the game at some static point. When done, implement some code so that, when a bullet hits an enemy the enemy disappears and the bullet disapears. (google "pygame collisions") - 2h
--- This marks 10 hours now --- We now have a moveable character, that can shoot enemies that are on a fixed position. Build a first executable of this minigame now and share it with someone to get the first feedback and check if the process of creating and shipping the game works.
8. Add a score counter to the game that shows 0 points. Then add some points to the score when a bullet hits an enemy and make sure the correct points are displayed. Also add a counter for the players health. - 1h
9. Let this first type of enemy slowly move (or fly) towards the player. When it hits the player, it disappears and the players health is reduced by some amount. Make sure the displayed health of the player shows that some HP are lost. - 2h
10. End the Game with a nice end screen if the player dies. Add a Restart button to start over. - 2h
11. Now let enemies spawn at random positions over time - 2h
12. Add something that makes the game harder the longer it goes. for example the enemies now take 2 or more hits to die or they do more damage or they are faster. This way the game processes and feels more like a game. Again: You could go for a story in your game to drive the game but that takes too much time! So keep it simple. Think of something that is guaranteed to end the game over time by either killing the player because the enemies get stronger or adding a score limit or a time limit. Something like that. - 1h
--- This marks 18 hours into the development if everything goes according to the plan. This should be somewhere on day 2. If you are faster: good for you! If you are slower: No Problem you already have a game! The next steps can be done in any order according to your preferences and the time left. ---
Next Steps:
- add some sound effects and/or music
- add background
- refine your graphics
- add a start menu
- add more enemies, more types of enemies, make the enemies shoot!
- make the camera follow your player
- instead of simply disappearing, enemies now drop points to collect or weapon upgrades,
- add more types of bullets (burning damage, ice bullets, that freeze enemies in their movement)
- add a high score at the end. It does not have to be persisted. Players can simply make a screenshot if needed (keep it simple)
- enemies drop some boosters, so you can move faster or have more HP (get a shield)
I think if you can manage all of the above within the jam time you are really good! Don't try to add too much too fast. Always start with something simple and add upon that, that's way easier and more fullfilling since you always see progress and you can play the game from a very early stage on. That will keep you motivated.
I hope this helps a bit :)
In case you don't want to google: here's a good start for the very basics.
