Participating in game jams can be quite daunting (and exhausting). There is a lot to do and time is a lot shorter than it seems.
At the same time, it is an incredibly fun experience in which you get to meet all kind of folks and see all kind of games. In order to better enjoy whatever jam that you are going into, here are 7 quick tips from this survivor.
###1. Don’t be on time. Be early!
Getting to the jam location before it starts guarantees you a good spot (my team got a ‘premium’ location with a blackboard because we were early). Being early also allows you to setup shop beforehand, saving precious time. It also allows you to work out all the kinks with the team’s workflow.
We had a member whose Dropbox was completely full - being early allowed us to create a new account for him, set it all up and get everyone synced. Just be early.
###2. Use a sharing/revision system
Pretty much any system will do for a game jam. Dropbox is not perfect but for newbies it is dead easy and really quick to setup. I would not recommend it for a team with multiple programmers but for smaller teams - or teams in which there is no overlap - it works quite well.
If you go with Git, you will have far better control of the source and, if you are using a good editor (like Atom), managing it will be a piece of cake.
If you use Github to store your repository, you could serve the html so you wouldn’t even need a local server. Neat! I just cannot stress enough how important this is.
On the last jam I went to, having a sharing system meant that the team member that got sick and had to work from home was always in the loop. The artists could simple drop the finished assets on top of my placeholders and the game, being made on html5, was playable by any member at all times. How awesome is that?
###3. Placeholders are your friends
I came to the jam with some basic presets already in place. I had structured the game folder like so:
SPJam 2014
├── index.html
├── src
| ├── main.js
| ├── load.js
| ├── play.js
| └── boot.js
├── libs
| └── phaser.js
├── art
| ├── progress_bar.png
| └── placeholder.png
├── work_assets
└── sounds
As you can see, very few assets but it helped us immensely. That is easily saving us one hour or so, plus the headache when people try to sync from their computers. This way, we all synced to this nicely structured folder.
Having a blank .png for use as a placeholder is also great - I would just copy it, rename it and then the artists only had to overwrite it.
Note: at the end of the jam, I regretted not having created a work_assets folder earlier. We were getting .ai and .psd files inside the art folder and that was awful from a distribution and sanity point of view.
###4. Eat healthy
It is really easy to just let go and eat junk food during the entire jam. Don’t. A cookie here and there is ok but you really don’t want stomach cramps, discomfort, lack of appetite, nausea or any of the many possible outcomes of consuming too much junk food.
In the last jam, by the last day, we were hungering for healthier, warm meals. My personal advice is taking healthy foods that last all day long, like sandwiches, fruits, nuts and if possible, ordering food for lunch/dinner.
###5. The 48 hours are a lie & you should go to bed
I have yet to see a (physical) jam last exactly 48 hours. They usually start a little bit late and end a little bit earlier. On the last jam, in which we made Jam Leon, we actually used about 24 hours total.
“Nah, it is 48 hours! I’m gonna power through it with caffeine and redbull!”
Sleep deprivation is your enemy. If you are high on coffee and energetics, stop. Look at your work. More likely than not, it is crap. Go home, rest, come back after taking a shower. It makes a world of difference.
###6. Your game should be ‘done’ by Saturday
On Friday, you usually want to brainstorm, then settle on an idea, refine it a bit and just go make the prototype(s - plural if you are fast and lucky).
Come Saturday, it is game face on (hah, get it). It is the day in which you do the most development and spend the most energy because, trust me, you will face all kind of problems. One of our core ideas for Jam Leon only got implemented late on Saturday due to me not being skilled enough and the problem being quite different.
The game was mostly ready on Sunday. We were fine tuning, adding sounds, doing easier stuff. Trust me, you don’t want big bugs on Sunday. There will be quite a few bugs, of course, but the gameplay should at least show the intention of the developers.
Our team could have done better - had I managed to finish the mechanics earlier, we could have playtested and seen that the current level design is shallow and either too easy or impossible (I had to speed up the character just so people could win the game).
###7. Go. Participate.
You never know who you will meet nor what you will achieve. I get ecstatic about game jams, I really get in the zone when I’m in them. I’ve met and befriended musicians, other programmers and even the crew at the jam sites.
Trust me, you will be happier if you are surrounded by people that love games as much or more than you do <3
Do you have any tips? Feel free to share below!