My First Game Jam

Posted on March 12th, 2014

You can play the game I made here. OR… play the upgraded version.

Last night, I finished my first game that I made as part of a game jam. Well, not finished, exactly; more like managed to put together something serviceable that kind of makes sense, even if I didn’t get to do nearly as much I wanted to with it. Anyway, the game jam in question was the Cyberpunk Jam. All the games are listed here. And I have to say it was an interesting experience.

I wasn’t even sure I’d participate until it was half over. I didn’t have any ideas and, frankly, I just didn’t think I could do anything worthwhile. But as I was taking a shower one day, a weird question popped into my mind:

“Use the Augment? Y/N”

That question plus another wouldn’t leave my thoughts. I had to do SOMETHING with them, and they were definitely inspired thanks to the Cyberpunk Jam. I decided 1)yes, I’d participate and  2)since I needed to put this together very quickly, I’d go back to my old friend Twine.

There were so many ideas I had for what I wanted to do. But first, I had to figure out the basic details of the story. That took my a day or two. Then came the real obstacle: there was so much I wanted to do and not nearly enough time for me to do it right. It’s like my creativity was cannibalizing itself as every thought led to what I couldn’t do and how little time there was and what’s the point and it’s gonna suck and what were you thinking etc. I really started hating the time limit and feeling so confined.

Then, with mere hours left to go, I faced my nagging inner critic and asked, “So, what do you want me to do?” The critic had no answer and (surprisingly) shut up.

From that point on, the project was fun. Once I accepted the limits (for now; I WILL work more with this game later) and worked with them instead of against them, it was much easier than expected to get something done. No, it isn’t nearly what I wanted it to be. But I survived and I did make something I wouldn’t have made otherwise. Something that I’m sure I’ll sculpt into something much better one day.

The end result was a short Twine game called Raziel. You can play it here. Since then, I’ve also created a new version in RPG Maker VX Ace.