I spent the last couple of weeks participating in Gamedev.js Jam 2021. I’ve been getting some ideas for games to develop, and I set a goal to start participating in jams. I went to itch.io to see what jams were coming up and saw the Gamedev.js one had 12 days remaining in it. Plenty of time! The theme, “Mirrors” offered lots of possibilities. Why not give it a go?!
It turns out that what I created was … not super-awesome. BUT I achieved many things, some that I hoped for and some unexpected:
- Participated in my first game jam ever!
- Able to put the first hash next to my white board item “Game Jams.”
- Learned how to package and upload a project to itch.
- Came up with an idea, fleshed it out with some thought to levels, and created a simple version of it, overcoming coding and technology hurdles.
- Experimented with HTML5/JS game engines.
- Learned about IPFS and the decentralized/distributed web, plus NFTs, crypto, and the Brave browser.
- Learned easy ways to reverse and flip gifs and audio.
- Got practice risking letting people play something I had made, and got game testing feedback.
- Had the chance to play a bunch of other people’s games to see how they took the same theme and ran with it in a wide variety of directions. Learned from my own reactions, and other people’s comments, what different people think makes a good, fun, interesting game.
- Won a monetary prize! (in crypto, natch)
The games were rated in five categories: theme, graphics, gameplay, audio, and innovation. To those I was adding a sixth element/challenge: finding a way to use one of the technology sponsors who put up cash prizes to sweeten the attraction. I spent several of my early hours on the project researching the technologies and thinking about how I could use any of them to make something that would integrate the theme (“Mirrors”). In the end I chose IPFS (Interplanetary File Service, a peer-distributed decentralized web technology), and then spent more time experimenting with how to host files that would persist so they would show up in the project (thanks Pinata!).
Another requirement, given the sponsor, was the project needed to be JS/HTML. So I had to decide whether I was going to bother with a game engine. I knew Unity was overkill, but I played around a bit with Phaser and attempted to install Babylon. In the end, I decided my concept was simple enough that I would just hand-code the javascript, but it was good to find out all the options that are out there.
By the time I sat down to actually start creating and coding, there were about 5 days left in the jam. The final weekend, I was not in an ideal position to do a solid push. I took my first flight in 15 months, across the country to visit my 89-year-old father, and spending time with him was obviously my priority. I submitted the project in the final hour of the jam, from my departure gate at the airport. But that’s all just justification: I could definitely have started earlier, given the length of the jam!
I enjoyed feeling like I was part of a creative community (though I was hoping to see more women participating), and reading in the Discord channel about what challenges other people were facing. Most importantly, once we all pushed “submit,” I had a great time playing other participants’ games and thinking about how to rate them. A big shout out to one of the other participants, Vykri, who amazingly played every game and streamed his reactions! I am especially grateful for his attempt to be supportive and give me and the game the benefit of the doubt, while giving me some super-honest feedback.
The feedback I got in words and ratings boiled down to: “This doesn’t feel like a game. It’s not fun to play.” What could I do but laugh?! Talk about important feedback! I was so caught up in playing the game of meeting the parameters of the theme and the add-on technology that I neglected, you know, gameplay, the actual experience of the player. That for sure is my biggest take-away from this experience.
The IPFS judges were kinder, one saying “Nice quiz + puzzler” and another that he liked “the mechanics.” So it was good to hear that some players understood what I was aiming for.
My ratings for innovation were slightly higher than other aspects, and that makes sense. My game did not look like any of the other games in the jam. When it came time to pick a drop down category, I selected “other.” A quiz game with puzzles, but not a “puzzle game.” A bit of a story but not a “visual novel.” It involved some elements of augmented reality, as some of the puzzles could not be solved without using browser or computer software, to either search for image matches or reverse a piece of audio to get the needed information to submit a solution.
Speaking of audio, I again integrated the theme by “getting creative” and reversing Justin Timberlake’s song Mirror. But again, most players didn’t care about my “creativity” or time spent on this — all they knew is they were experiencing something that sounded horrible and they wanted to turn it off as quickly as possible! Mercifully, I had embedded the longer clip as a track that loaded muted, so could be turned on and off. And one of the judges said he LOL’d at the JT reference, and sometimes for a joke, you just need one person to get it. 🙂
My main focus was making sure the code/interface worked (though I still ended up including an error in the next-to-last level that likely prevented people from finishing). I spent more time on creating assets (an animated gif with letters and numbers, and a reversed audio clue) and less time on the rest of the game’s graphic elements. I used an avatar generator to create a character. If I hadn’t been trying to make sure I didn’t miss my flight, I would have probably taken another 10 minutes to fix some issues around spacing of divs.
Overall, I got a lot out of this experience! Thank you to the organizers and the judges, and congratulations to everyone who participated.
To close, I want to offer some words of encouragement for anyone else who ranked in the bottom half of ratings: When I was in high school, I was on the cross-country team. There was one race where I entered the stadium dead last. But I was not last in the final results, because 3 people had dropped out of the race before getting to the final lap!
518 people signed up to express interest in participating in this jam. I don’t know how many of them actually started projects, but 430 people either didn’t finish their project, or chose not to start. But we chose to submit our projects, even knowing they were flawed. And I’m certain that given all we learned from the process and the feedback, we will make better projects the next time around. I’m already thinking ahead to what I’ll do differently for my next jam. Hope to see you there!
