My Very First Game Jam!

1 year ago by Anasaurus

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Hiya!

For my very first game jam ever I managed to finish a small project called The Oddity Office, an office sim, where your one task is to survive the first day of work!

What did I set out to learn?

I had a few ambitions for my very first game jam, some realistic, some perhaps a little too ambitious:

Goal #1: I wanted to learn how to make a 2D platformer in Unreal, as I had previously only done 3D
Goal #2: I wanted to submit a more or less complete game, package it, and deliver it within a deadline
Goal #3: I wanted to learn how to work remotely with a team of strangers!

What did I actually learn?

I’ve already been learning GameDev for about a month before entering the game jam, but I definitely learned way more during it! There were ups, downs, troughs and peaks and I am very glad I participated.

For Goal #1 I learned:

How to set up a 2D platformer in Unreal - 2D movement, camera set-up, how to interact with tilesets to create tilemaps, working with sprites, etc.
How to create a Quest System - manageable with Blueprints - all thanks to some great tutorials I’ve linked below.
How to create a main menu - widgets all the way!
How to transition between levels - and learning about ways to persist game state in Unreal
The pros and cons of using a Component vs an Interface

For Goal #2 I learned:

Coming prepared yields results! Also, planning what you’re going to do beforehand each day was a big plus.
Keep it simple! Think of something, then simplify! I’ve had to significantly cut down my initial game playthrough design to fit it into the timeframe of the game jam.

Goal #3 was the trickiest of all - I had been warned that teaming up with strangers on the internet may result in hiccups along the way (due to changes in schedules, unexpected life developments, or simply teammates disappearing half-way through the jam, etc.), however, that did not stop me from seeking out a team of 3 two weeks before the jam. Since then, my team grew and shifted, cycling through at least 4 different people around the globe, until I once more became a team of one.

And that is ok.

I completely understand and respect that this is part of the challenge! I am grateful for the great ideas these people shared with me and inspired the resulting game.

The thing I learned for Goal #3 is to not give up! Even when your team shrinks and changes, you can still make something awesome and learn a lot along the way.