Hello! My name is Luka, and I'm a 20-year-old college student. I'm joining this jam for the first time, because I liked the vibe of it and want to work on my first game without having to feel bad about being a beginner.

I love visual novels. The format can be made easily accessible for folks with disabilities, and they don't require much time and effort to play for folks who don't have the time/capacity to invest into playing games. Currently, my favorite visual novels are We Know the Devil and Heaven Will Be Mine. Both have brought me to the verge of tears. As a queer and trans person, I never felt so seen in a game as those two. That's why I want to make queer games for queer people.

I have some experience with Unity, but all I've created were prototypes to test out coding with C#. I hope to learn to use Fungus with Unity this time around.

Drawing and painting are my jam, but I'm not that good at either. I also like to code and design websites and user interfaces. My academic goal is to transfer to a university soon to study something along the lines of Multimedia Design. A dream career of mine is one where I help create queer narratives in media by queer folks and for queer folks. 

My goals for this jam are to get comfortable with Unity and create a game prototype within the time restraints. I can't wait to get started tomorrow!!

Hello there people! My name is Olyvier and yes I am yet another 20 years old college student joining the jam.

I haven't participated to a game jam as of today, and I wanted to because I really wanted to start but most importantly finish a creative project of my very hands.

I love many types of games but Portal 2, Civilization 5 and Pokemon are some of my all-time favorites. I have a quite specific idea to iterate on this time and it will be quite original.

I have some experience with Unity & PICO-8, making experimental games including a clock out of a Unity "Breakout" clone and a top-down exploration of my town in that very same engine.

I love linguistics as I am somewhat trying to learn German on my own and collecting books around the subject.

My goals are to finish the game, support it and fit development within the time constraints of the jam.

Hi there, my name is Solas and I live in Wisconsin, where I'm a 19 year old college student. This is my first game jam, and I've never created an actual game before in my life tbh. I figured I might as well try it. My favorite games are Portal and BotW, although I'm creating a platforming game. I really like video games, though, as well as software development. I just want to create a simple finished project while learning more about game development.

1. Hi there! What's your name? Want to introduce yourself?

Hello! My name's Omar, I have 17 years and I live in Venezuela. I love everything about videogames, technology, coding and entertainment mediums!

2. Did you participate in the last jam we held? If so, what do you plan on doing better this time? If not, what's your reason for joining?

3. What games are your favorites? Did any of them inspire you, or made you want to make your own?

My favorite games are Danganronpa V3, Undertale, Doki Doki Literature Club!, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days and Final Fantasy Tactics A2. As you can see, I LOVE deconstructive games, because they grab something we're all familiar about, and then they turn it all on its head making something totally unique! That's why I want to do a deconstructive game, because I loved that theme in those games.

4. Do you have experience with game development? What did you do/with what engine?

Nope, none at all xD. I have made some experiments with PyGame, GameMaker and Godot, but none of them got anywhere thanks to my (Not)Drawing skills.

5. Tell us about something you're passionate about!

Stories. I love all kinds of stories, from Movies to books to videogames, mysteries, suspense, action. If it makes you feel something, then I like it! Also, as I said, I like deconstructive elements and Meta-Narrative, because once the story applies them, you never know what to expect.

6. What are your goals for this game jam?

Making at least a playable demo and Feel the workflow of the Game-making process.

I'm really excited to start this jam! I can't wait to see what we all can do in this time limit!

1. Hi there! What's your name? Want to introduce yourself?
My name is Dillon! I'm a teacher and I live in Alaska.

2. Did you participate in the last jam we held? If so, what do you plan on doing better this time? If not, what's your reason for joining?
This is my first jam--and my first game. I've tried following along with a few tutorials, but the idea of jumping into a game jam (and making a million mistakes along the way) sounds like a really fun and personal way to learn. 

3. What games are your favorites? Did any of them inspire you, or made you want to make your own?
I was raised on a healthy diet of classics on the Nintendo 64 and Game Boy Color--Zelda, Mario, Metroid, and Pokemon, to name a few. I didn't play anything for about a decade--but bought a Nintendo Switch when Breath of the Wild came out, and I've been hooked ever since. Current gen favorites include: Breath of the Wild, Mario Odyssey, Blossom Tales... and Dead Cells! I am really into Dead Cells right now. 

Also, I don't think I really thought much about making games until I stumbled upon a bunch of great projects on Kickstarter. For real, indie developers are crushing it these days.

4. Do you have experience with game development? What did you do/with what engine?
Not really. But I am excited to start learning Unity!

5. Tell us about something you're passionate about!
Well, I'm a music teacher... So, my students! And teaching! And music (especially choral music)!

6. What are your goals for this game jam?
I am walking into this blind. Very few relevant skills, no specific plan--so my goal is just to plan and create something very simple. Hopefully learn a few skills along the way!

1. Hi there! What's your name? Want to introduce yourself? 

Hey, my name's Cynan, I go by ChickenTown (weird name i know, it's actually one of my favourite poems), I'm 26, and I've only started to program games 2 months ago, no previous experience (physics student 3rd year dropout, then i bartended for the last 5 years )

2. Did you participate in the last jam we held? If so, what do you plan on doing better this time? If not, what's your reason for joining? 

Nope, I joined because I want to have a goal to work towards, to help motivate myself even more, and to try and meet like-minded people passionate about games, and their development

3. What games are your favorites? Did any of them inspire you, or made you want to make your own? 

Alot of what was mentioned above, been playing games since i was 8, one that gets rarely mentioned but an absolute fav of mine is Third Age Total War (actually a mod to Medieval Total War) It amazes me what those modders managed to do with no funding, just their love of LOTR and Total War

4. Do you have experience with game development? What did you do/with what engine? 

Not much, I've been learning Godot over the past 2 months, so hopefully i can make something playable at least.
When i was studying physics I did have to learn a bit of Java and Python, GDScript being based of python means I understand the syntax, so that's nice

5. Tell us about something you're passionate about!

Any form of expression, be it games, cinema, music, books, poetry. I get more passionate over themes or topics rather than the means with which they are portrayed, I love sci-fi in particular (Foundations, Dune, and so forth).

And most recently, playing around in Godot

6. What are your goals for this game jam?

Make a playable game, focused on the theme, with sound and semi-decent sprites (I'm not much of an artist), I'd like to be able to start a project on Godot not have to have guides open to remind me of core code

Good luck everyone, I can't wait to play your games!!!

1. Hi there! What's your name? Want to introduce yourself?

A little late for my intro but here I am ☆ My name is Emily, but all my friends call me Emmer. I work as a graphic designer full time for a start-up. I really needed a change of pace and a goal to work towards in my personal work, so I joined this jam! I'm interested in all kinds of design, but my strengths are in illustration and print design.

2. Did you participate in the last jam we held? If so, what do you plan on doing better this time? If not, what's your reason for joining?

I didn't participate in the last jam, but I did participate in the Winter 2018 jam (my first ever)! This is still my second jam ever, and I excited to get back into game dev. This time I hope to stay on pace with my DevLog, but otherwise I think last time went rather smoothly. I just want to keep improving my design thinking and growing as a designer!!

3. What games are your favorites? Did any of them inspire you, or made you want to make your own?

My first ever game was Pokemon Yellow (which I played on a yellow Gameboy Color), so I have a strong fondness for Nintendo in general. On their consoles I've played tons of different types of games from action to puzzle to fighters all of which I loved playing. I think Nintendo's dedication to fun has always inspired me in my personal work. I want to be able to create things that make people smile ଘ(੭ˊ꒳ˋ)੭✧ Right now I'm really into puzzle games and weird y2k-era games, so I'm combining those for this jam!

4. Do you have experience with game development? What did you do/with what engine?

So this jam will be my first time programming, and I'll be using Unity. Last jam I focused on art direction and asset creation while my boyfriend did all of the programming for me. This time I'm doing all of that myself so I'm looking forward to trying my hand at something completely new.

5. Tell us about something you're passionate about!

I'm still very passionate about all things cute!! I like to incorporate cuteness into as many of my hobbies as I can; for about a year I ran a blog called PlamoPrincess exclusively to feature cute plastic model kits and gunpla.

6. What are your goals for this game jam?

 ☆ Get some sort of functioning game out of Unity
 ☆ Keep my scope small for the jam and build out the full idea later
 ☆ Get inspired to do more personal work
 ☆ Have fun !!

1. Hi there! What's your name? Want to introduce yourself?

Hey, I'm Seren. I'm 20, and a computer science major. I've been wanting to do 3-D models and Unity for a long time, but it's been really daunting. I finally convinced myself to try it out when I saw this jam was going on again!

2. Did you participate in the last jam we held? If so, what do you plan on doing better this time? If not, what's your reason for joining?

I participated in a jam, I forgot when. I plan to make something that really teaches me a new skill...I haven't touched Unity ever, so trying to make a game will be a challenge.

3. What games are your favorites? Did any of them inspire you, or made you want to make your own?

I like tycoon games like Megaquarium, farming/life simulators like Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing, and games like Legend of Zelda or Skyrim. I kinda grew up watching my sister play Donkey Kong 64 and Majora's Mask, so I'd say that's inspired me a bit to want to try it out for myself. I'm doing a walking simulator, but I actually haven't played many of them, haha. Those games just have what I'm trying to learn in Unity.

4. Do you have experience with game development? What did you do/with what engine?

Not really. I've messed around in Ren'py.

5. Tell us about something you're passionate about!

No one likes earthy colors or deserts and that's a crime. :( They're so pretty.

6. What are your goals for this game jam?

1) Successfully create a decent 3-D model

2) Create a fully rendered 3-D room a player can explore

3) Make at least one object interactable

1. Hi there! What's your name? Want to introduce yourself?

I'm Mark and I'm 28 years old. I worked as a software developer at a big tech company for 4 years after college, but I'm done with that now, trying to figure out what's next in life.

2. Did you participate in the last jam we held? If so, what do you plan on doing better this time? If not, what's your reason for joining?

I did not participate in the last jam. I'm joining because I want to see if I enjoy making games more than writing apps and backend server code.

3. What games are your favorites? Did any of them inspire you, or made you want to make your own?

Flower, Gone Home, and the Pikmin games are beautiful. Spec Ops: The Line destroyed me emotionally. Papers, Please; Her Story; Braid; FTL; and To the Moon are inspirations.

4. Do you have experience with game development? What did you do/with what engine?

I have a computer science degree and worked for 4 years at a big tech company writing in Android and Java. I've gotten halfway through learning Unity about 3 times now. I think I'm at the point where I just need to try to make something and deal with problems as I encounter them.

5. Tell us about something you're passionate about!

Games! Duh! Also I like bouldering.

6. What are your goals for this game jam?

To finally make a game and call it done. I need game development and prototyping to be less intimidating.

1. Hi there! What's your name? Want to introduce yourself?

Hello! My name is Jae, and i'm an aspiring writer, actor, and general creative. Been a rough road trying to accept my chosen fields, and now (as ever) is the perfect time to toss myself in the deep end of videogames, as well!

2. Did you participate in the last jam we held? If so, what do you plan on doing better this time? If not, what's your reason for joining?

I needed a change of pace, and i've been wanting to make videogames ever since I read a book on how to program them on an Apple II back in grade 3. Having a time limit and engine specifics makes this easier to make myself learn than if I simply set myself my own goals and timetables (which sadly hasn't worked well in the past).

3. What games are your favorites? Did any of them inspire you, or made you want to make your own?

Oh jeez, the penultimate question. My favourites are the ones I grew up with, usually: Starcraft, Pharaoh, LoZ: Link's Awakening, Homeworld, to name but a few. Nearly every game I play has inspired me in some way or another, however. Over the years, I started piecing together how the games were made; "Oh, I bet they made this NPC change their dialogue like this when you've already done something", and, "That's not animation, it's a clever trick with room transitions and graphics!". The fact that i've been dissecting even my beloved classics means I should probably apply that understanding to making my own! Besides, as a writer, i've constantly got stories pouring out of my head, so this is another medium to explore them.

4. Do you have experience with game development? What did you do/with what engine?

I have absolutely no experience with game development. The closest possible thing could be running tabletop RPGs, but that seems like a Big stretch.

5. Tell us about something you're passionate about!

I'm passionate about telling stories from a non-human perspective. So often, we see everything through human understanding, and even when we do play as aliens or robots, we ascribe things about their behaviour based on our own subconscious habits and shorthand. I love to explore Human language and habits too, especially through the lens of someone completely uneducated about them: is a bird in the hand Really the same value as two birds in a bush?

6. What are your goals for this game jam?

My goal is to make a smallish adventure in the Bitsy engine - I love the limitations and design of it, and I want to force myself to get clever when I want to do something that other engines might have no issue with. Depending on how much time I can devote to it, I would like a 15-minute game out of this, though I may end up needing to make a small demo for the jam, then building the rest of the game afterward!

Salutations to all! I may not be very active on the forums, but i'll always be on Discord (username Jaelien)!

Hi everyone! We're Mads and Rachel, two recent art school graduates who want to start making our own video games. We're new to this and game jams in general, but we're excited to be here and try it out! 

Rachel's favorite games include Hollow Knight, Breath of the Wild, and Twewy, and Mads's are Bloodborne/Dark Souls, Hyper Light Drifter, and Minecraft. They may seem very different, but both of us love games that tell stories through environment and gameplay with giant worlds for us to spend hours exploring. Rachel is newer to game development, though they've played around with RPG Maker and are interested in working with Unity. Mads is familiar with Unity and took a few game design classes in college, though they don't really consider themselves an expert. We've both taken at least one class about game theory and history, and have a lot of great game ideas!

Both of us graduated in Illustration this past May at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Art is definitely our strength, but we're working on our programming skills and are hoping this game jam will give us the opportunity to improve. We thought this would be a great summer project to participate in while we look for jobs and just generally try to figure out our lives post-grad. Can't wait to get started!!

Hello! I'm Forsaken (just call me For) and I'm a student. This is my second game jam ever (I took part in RenPy jam last year). English is not my native language, so I'm sorry for any mistakes I'll made. I don't like to talk about myself too much, so let's move on.

As I mentioned before, it's my first time joining this jam. I want to do something short and fun as a break from my bigger project and lear something useful in the meantime. My plan is to make a short visual novel where you can choose your path and decide what ending you will get.

I love games from Killmonday (Fran Bow, Little Misfortune) and their vlog about making of their first game inspired me to try my own luck in game industry. I love the story-driven games that give me choices, paths to explore and lore I can sink into. 

I made once a 1 hour demo of Astral Nights (for RenPy Jam). You can still find it on my main itch.io page. I want to expand it someday to a full story.  It's really just a simple game - you can write out your name and make some choices, I didn't even had enought time to code all of the planned endings.

I'm passionate about stories and new mechanics. My goal is to learn as much as I can about programming while having fun and making something cool to play :).

I hope you'll like my work and I wish all of the participants good luck with achieving their goals! :D

Hi there! What's your name? Want to introduce yourself?

Hey there! I'm Wil! I'm 22 and I completed an AS in Computer Programming about a year ago, and I haven't really done anything with it since then, so I was looking around for some projects to work on and get back into all of the things I learned and I came across this game jam, so I figured I would hop in! I know I'm a little late, but I still hope I can make something interesting to share with everyone!

What games are your favorites? Did any of them inspire you, or made you want to make your own?

Some of my favorite games are Dead Cells, Hollow Knight, Final Fantasy 14, and Starcraft 2. I I don't really have any one game in particular that inspired me to try and make a game, but I've been gaming my whole life and I always liked the idea of making some of my own.

Do you have experience with game development? What did you do/with what engine?

The only experience I have with making games is from my final project in college. I tried to make a prettied up pong game for Android. I got a good grade on it, but I don't think it was that pretty, neither in art nor mechanics, so I'm going to try and make a more interesting and better game than I did with that.

Tell us about something you're passionate about!

For the past 10 months or so, I've been streaming games on Twitch under the same username that I have here. It's been fun and challenged me to do a lot of things that I don't normally do, and I really look forward to every day that I get to do it.

What are your goals for this game jam?

I have two goals:

1. Learn how to use the Godot engine, because I've never used it before, nor have I made any game in C++.

2. Make the game fun, and free of any noticeable bugs. My previous Pong game had several of those that I struggled to fix, and I'm still not proud of that.

Thanks for reading, and good luck! I look forward to trying out a bunch of the games at the end of the jam!

1. Hi there! What's your name? Want to introduce yourself?

Hello hello! My name is Emily, I'm 17, and I am new to creating games.

2. Did you participate in the last jam we held? If so, what do you plan on doing better this time? If not, what's your reason for joining?

I did not, but I wish I did! I wanted to join because I am on summer vacation and wanted to be productive. Learning a new skill definitely has put me in a better head space. Now, I actually feel passionate about waking up, so thanks for the game jam! 

3. What games are your favorites? Did any of them inspire you, or made you want to make your own?

Stardew Valley, Minecraft, GTA 5, The Sims, and Fallout 4 are my favorite games. Visual novels, particularly Don't Take it Personally, Babe, It just Ain't Your Story and Gone Home, have inspired me to create stories that have the ability to help others. 

4. Do you have experience with game development? What did you do/with what engine?

Over the summer I have tried to work with visual scripting in Unreal along with some basic block coding knowledge. As of lately, Renpy has been a great resource to create the games I actually want to make. It is super easy to learn, user friendly, and making progress feels attainable. 

5. Tell us about something you're passionate about!

I really love to help others. In my free time, I volunteer at my local library, where I help to teach first graders and kinder gardeners how to code with LEGOs. It is really satisfying to watch young minds work. I also love to play the ukulele, video games, and basketball. 9 times out of 10 you can catch me talking about philosophy with anyone that will listen! 

6. What are your goals for this game jam?

So far, I want to create a basic concept of a game that runs smoothly, and can create an impact on someone's life. Whether that might be a quick chuckle, or a deep discussion with a friend, I would like to leave a lasting thought in peoples' minds. With this particular game I am making, I want everyone to understand that the coming out process isn't linear. Everyone goes through different struggles, battles, and victories. We need to take a step back and look at other perspectives. Thank you for reading my answers, and have a lovely day!