my first game jam - #weeklygamejam
september 3, 2020
#gamejam
WeeklyGameJam is a weekly theme-based game jam hosted through itch.io. It's fairly laid-back for a jam, giving you a full week's time, allowing for premade/stock assets and code, and being understanding towards late submissions. Most people make videogames, but any kind of game is allowed. At the end of the week, streamers will play and critique the submissions while the devs hang out in their chatrooms.
small thing that makes things
I participated in Week 85 under the theme Offspring, submitting my game on February 27, 2019. My game was Small Thing That Makes Things, an adventure platformer. You can play it on itch.io.
You play as Hamish T. Elwell, the hero accountant of an overcrowded animal shelter, investigating the recent explosion of the local stray population. You can walk, jump on platforms, collect items, and chat with NPCs. There's multiple endings, depending on your choices.
positives
For a week-made game, I think STTMT is pretty cute, and I'm pretty happy with it.
I actually finished a game, and someone actually finished playing it on a stream. That's really cool, even if STTMT isn't all that good. The deadline forced me to make final decisions, complete features, and move on, and there's a lot of value in that.
The short time-frame forced me to get around to every aspect of game development, many of which I had never done before. I had to learn how to export a Godot project, upload an HTML5 game to itch, and make sure the exported game was complete and playable. Lots of the features were first-times for me, too. I've never written code for platformer movements or moving cameras. This also was the first time I've really gotten branching and conditional dialog working in Godot, which was a skill I immediately applied to blessfrey.
mistakes
I recolored OPP's pixel art and lost the high contrast for the rock ledges. They blend into the rocky background, so you can't tell you can jump on them. I didn't even notice until Joshua McLean pointed this out during his stream. Having more eyes on your game is so important.
Also the level design is just not interesting. I spent lots of time on the choices and adventure game aspects, while the platforming as an extreme afterthought. It's a game jam, though, what do you expect?
I took the easy way out with animation. I might have learned more working from scratch, but modifying OPP's sprites to suit my character designs was way faster when I was already struggling to finish on time.
screenshots + progression
Experimenting with Small Thing's summoning mechanic. In this version, the characters are just blocks with collision that can move around the flat, empty world with WASD.
The dog spawning physics was (and still is) really broken, so dogs go flying pretty frequently. It was reliable enough in this version to be used as a moving platform.
Dogs rain down upon Elwell's animal shelter in the finished version.
Dialog between Elwell and his boss.
conclusion
If you're looking for a jam to jump into, WeeklyGameJam is a cute one to try. You aren't too rushed, you get to watch people play your game, you get useful criticism, and the community is pretty chill. The themes are always inspiring, too.
credits