Never Jammed Before?
In a game jam, participants set out to make a game in a time limit, typically 48 hours, so make sure to factor this in when planning your game! Most game jams have a theme, usually vague, to encourage creativity when coming up with ideas for your game. The theme for our jam will be revealed in the opening ceremony.
To start, you’ll gather in teams of 3-6 people (but participating on your own is okay too). It’s a good idea to have dedicated roles in your team and a variety of skills (e.g. programmer, artist, sound designer). Even if you’ve never done any of these things before though, a game jam is a great place to start.
Once your team is set up, it’s time to start planning your game. We recommend getting lots of ideas on the table before making your decision. Remember to keep the scope small, since you don’t have much time. It’s better to have a working, fun, short game than a barely functional open world online multiplayer RPG! Also think about the strengths of your team - we’ve often found ourselves planning very art-heavy games when our team consists mostly of programmers. In this case the programmers end up with nothing left to do, while the artist doesn’t have enough time to finish all the assets. Although, this is also a perfect opportunity for a programmer to try something new, and learn some art skills.
It’s important to decide on your game engine, genre and set some constraints for your game. Be adventurous and try new things, but remember that for each area you try something new in, you’ll probably have to compromise in the size of the game you want to complete. In the past we’ve found that trying to branch out in a single new area is a good balance between being able to complete our game and learning something new e.g. using a game engine and art style you’re comfortable with but trying a new genre.
Now you’ve come up with an awesome, well-scoped game that fits the theme, it’s time to get started. Aim to get something working as soon as possible so you can test it out. Sometimes an idea that seems fun in theory just isn’t quite what you thought it would be, and you‘ll want to make some changes. Keep playtesting throughout the jam and you can’t go wrong.
You’ve made good progress and have a slightly functional game with some interesting bugs… now it’s time for a break. Most jams will have activities planned throughout - these are a good way to clear your head and take a break from wondering why your player keeps falling through that floor. We’ll reveal the relaxing activities we’ve got planned for you during the opening ceremony.
As the jam draws to a close, you will be asked to submit your source code and any executables somewhere online. Some jams have their own website to upload your games to, but we recommend you make your game available on https://itch.io/ as well, so that you have a central place to play all the games you’ve ever made!
The judging setup can vary between jams, but community voting is one of the more popular ways to judge that we’ve seen. In our jam, teams will present a short demo, whether a live one or a recorded one, and explain their thinking behind their creation. At this stage, it doesn’t matter whether your game is finished - we just want to see what you’ve come up with and what you’ve learned! We’ll then let you vote for each other’s games, and announce the top 3 winners in the closing ceremony.
Winning prizes is only secondary to the experience of in-person jams. We want to emphasise that you don’t need to be a professional to participate, so come along and try it out for yourself!
