cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/15508679

Had to share with this community, I decided for my second game to just rip off the band-aid and I entered a game jam targeted at beginners. I placed 3rd - with 1st and 2nd going to more seasoned game developers. I never imagined that, going in, I would be on the pedestal. I just have to thank everyone that participates in game development and indie gaming as a community - including you, reading this.

If you are curious and want to check it out:

The games ranked by overall score

The game itself

A devlog looking back at my first jam experience

  • CarbonScored [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    4·
    6 months ago

    That’s super cool, well done! Hexbear had an awesome mini space-communism themed game jam that I did, but I don’t know how it compares to others.

    Even if not on a professional level, have you done much playing with game development / general coding previously? Did you find gamejam a to be particularly motivating or extra enjoyable way to do it?

    • WxnzxnOPEnglish
      2·
      6 months ago

      Thank you! <3 If Hexbear/you ever does/do another mini game jam, count me in! The one I joined advertised itself as for beginners, so with my first game finished just a few days before, I joined that one, and it was great.

      I did have a time in my childhood when I created silly “choose your own adventure” style “games” in BASIC with a friend, that exclusively worked with PRINT and IF/ELSE, and never had anything but 3 choices of which 2 kill you. I also fooled around with RPG Maker XP and the Warcraft 3 map editor a lot as a teenager. All of that was long before I had internet access (my parents were quite late on that one), so it was mostly just fooling around with little resources to get better and learn more.

      I have some training in programming, but no real professional experience, but did enjoy amateur programming as a hobby for a long time in my life. Art, music and sound, I have no experience whatsoever, game design only from playing way too many games myself and above phases of fooling around.

      I’d recommend game jams, targeted at beginners, for everyone wanting to get into game dev after my own experience. It’s completely different from just making anyhting and throwing it into the void - when you instead have some guiding theme, a time limit and the guarantee of at least some people looking at what you made and giving some feedback.

      • CarbonScored [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
        2·
        6 months ago

        Thank you for the in-depth response!~ I too remember much time spent playing around with RPG Maker XP and WC3 map editor (and I did Pascal/Python instead of BASIC), so I relate on many levels programming-communism

        That kind of feeling is also exactly what I got in the old Hexbear mini-jam, so that is really cool to hear. Think I will make an effort to seek out some beginner game jams, then!

    • WxnzxnOPEnglish
      2·
      6 months ago

      Thank you <3 It was a great experience!

  • Tomorrow_Farewell [any, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    2·
    6 months ago

    Have only had time to dedicate a few minutes to it and go through one month.
    I want to point out that, among other things, I love how the tutorial is presented. The ‘happy place’ stuff is great.
    One thing that bothers me, though, is that it seems that customers are more satisfied if you spend a bit of time doing nothing instead of completing the request ASAP.

    • WxnzxnOPEnglish
      3·
      6 months ago

      Yeah, I tried to balance that a bit with the “quick finish” bonus - but I am thinking of revisiting it after my current game jam project (due at the end of may), to make it more proportional to how quick you are instead of just being a flat bonus. Although, I was also thinking that it may work as sort of a “they took their time interacting with me”-thing. For the confused customer, I viewed it as sort of increasing their satisfaction by being patient with them.

      By the way - the game should save progress, so if you want to revisit it and play to the end, you can do so any time. Don’t want to spoil anything, but I got pretty good reactions in reviews for the ending ^^

      Oh, and thank you so much for playing and taking the time to give feedback, it really means a lot to me <3<3

    • WxnzxnOPEnglish
      2·
      6 months ago

      Thank you so much <3

      It really was an amazing experience, I can only recommend it to any devs wanting to jump over their own shadows and commit to something, getting good feedback along the way.

      Am already knee-deep in my next jam :D

  • BeamBrain [he/him]@hexbear.netMEnglish
    2·
    6 months ago

    For a jam with almost 100 entries, third place in your first jam is impressive as hell. Nice job!

    EDIT: I think the game bugged? A customer asked for a “crap mix,” but that’s not in the menu.

    EDIT 2: This happens repeatedly and tanks my satisfaction rating :(

    • WxnzxnOPEnglish
      2·
      6 months ago

      Hi, thank you so much for playing and giving feedback, it means a lot to me <3

      That is not a bug, just a little bit of a mean additional challenge. Look what “C.R.A.P.” might stand for :)

      • BeamBrain [he/him]@hexbear.netMEnglish
        2·
        6 months ago

        I feel silly now, lol. I thought item #4 was just “cheerful” and that the things below it were different items that would unlock later.