Jam Retrospective

Retrospective thoughts. I try to jot these down as long as everything is fresh in my memory.

This jam featured the best team setup I've ever been in. With our skills and talents we covered everything from art to code to music and we had more than one person to integrate stuff, so I was very excited and determined not to lose any time. Kick-off was suboptimal. I was hoping on a get-together where ideas were flowing but eventually we shared some rough proposals online. 

The big benefit of a get-together is, in my opinion, that there's a high probability you will leave with an agreed on project idea. Ten days is short for middle-aged men with jobs and families so no time to lose - we jumped on the best of the few ideas we had. I wanted a rapid early-feedback development cycle, because this proved beneficial in the last jams and oh stuff was looking good. First rough playable prototype (moving around, using a current-connection to kill some static "enemy") was available on the first weekend. Exactly the pace of progress I think is necessary for the jam game. Itch page and first web build included.

There was some friction thereafter, because ideas on the scope were floating around which we had to prioritize/triage. Ideas like different types of connectors, having different symbols, including some puzzles. In hindsight, we probably should not have discussed any of them until we got the core gameplay right (we don't know we did, later more on that). And drawing from connector to connector proved to be fun in the very first prototype(s) which is something that really went well. Fast feedback, even if just internally.

Extrapolating our progress I was sure we would be able to present a playable demo to non-project ppl by mid-week. This proved to be very wrong. I cannot pin down exactly why. There was always something missing. Always some "oh but if this is added, we can share it with ppl" element, that went away, when added, just to make room for the next. So no external feedback on that core gameplay until... well, none at all. That's bad.

But not as bad as the content trap we fell in. Adding stuff to the game but no levels built till one day before deadline. The biggest mistake was made again. Exactly as pointed out in the last retrospective. Even though it was actually fun once all the elements were in place and everything was set up. This is what everything was done for but not used properly. I am struggling to find ways around this. Accept an idea only if hand drawn level drafts exist? Have a dedicated team member for level and world building? Make a deadline (e.g. exactly mid-jam) for project components and start building levels content only therafter? Make everything placeholdery and fully focused on facilitating fast level building and polish/update after the fact? Whatever it is, forcing the player to learn a new game and dropping him after one or two levels is not what my idea of a cool jam playthrough experience is. I strive for five absolutely enjoyable minutes with a few "oh that's cool" moments.

Back on the topic of friction, before the jam some time needs to be spent to streamline the interfaces and touch points of the team members. Short instructions on how we use git, short instruction on how tiles and assets will be used and should be exported, short instructions on code style and modularization of the project, setting up a proper template, tech some engine basics etc... Some pre-jam time worth investing in. 

In the end I am proud that we delivered something cool which didn't burn us out or cut too much in our day to day lifes time budgets. And I am certain if that team proves to be a stable setup, we could achieve a lot. Many excited!

Cheers