Why you should join game jams, right now!
“Expedite: speed up the progress of;”.
Learn more, build quicker, publish faster. Most developers that I know are always on the lookout for things to speed up the development of their game or to ‘learn game development’ faster and grow quicker.
In my opinion, there are just a couple of things you could do in order to achieve that. A game jam is definitely number one on that list.
If you’re just looking for some good game jams, make sure to take a look at my list of the 7 best online game jams.
Learn to scope
I’ve quite some students and pupils that wanted to make their own games. Their first projects are always very… well, naive. Most of them want to make “the next Call of Duty”, “something like Diablo”, or my personal favourite: “World of Warcraft, but better”.
So, like I told all of them: Learn how to scope. Start small, don’t overdo things, and less is more. Start with a mechanic that feels really good and brings joy.
In most game jams, mostly the ones that give you 48-hours tops, you’re forced to spend just a small amount of time to think of an idea and to scope it properly.
Believe me, this is an essential skill for every developer.
Start with a single mechanic that feels really good and brings joy.
Learn to prototype
For the same reason as the ‘scoping’ skill, prototyping is essential for every developer. Learn how to make something work quickly, just to test out an idea. See if it works.
As you know, time is of the essence in a game jam. Forget the proper documentation, extensive unit tests, endless feedback loops and concept art cycles. Sometimes, the best thing to do is to just make it work.
That doesn’t mean that you’re allowed to write bad code, though. You have to practise swiftly writing code that works and passes a certain minimum code quality, as opposed to coding as quickly as possible without checking your code for possible exceptions and edge cases.
Learn how to communicate
Communication is key in every project that you’ll ever work on. “Set the noses in the same direction”, as a well-known Dutch proverb goes. Making sure everyone is on the same page and knows who does what.
Miscommunications lead to misinterpretations of scope, people accidentally working on the same tasks, working on tasks that are out of scope, inventing new tasks, reports of bugs that are features, reports of features that are bugs, and the list goes on.
This is even applicable when you’re working as a solo dev. Why? If you’re making a game, I assume you have some sort of target audience in mind, right? Well, you will have to communicate with them at some point.
The more you work together with different people, the more styles of communication and ‘working together’ you will encounter. It will expand what I call your ‘communication dictionary’.
Improve multiple game dev skills
A game jam forces you to do a lot of things in a small amount of time. Depending on the size of your team (and especially if you work solo), you’ll probably have to put on different hats and cover various areas of development.
In my first game jam, I decided to do the sound design. I never had any experience with it, but boy did it force me to learn the basics quickly. Armed with a small, cheap MIDI-keyboard, I jumbled together a couple of semi-acceptable tunes and implemented them in the game.
But remember: this is a choice. If you want to expand your skill set as a developer, you have to choose to do so. Be brave, be assertive and say “I’ll take sound design!” when you decide on who’s doing what.
You will never fail if you do this. It might not be the result that you wanted it to be, but you took the first step in learning something new in a stress-filled environment.
Enrich your portfolio
I think we can all agree that a portfolio is an absolute must for every developer (or anyone in the creative industry, actually). Building one takes time and effort but pays off heavily in the end by allowing you to show it to possible future clients or employers.
A game jam can speed this up a bit. By building a collection of game jam results, you can showcase what you have produced in a tiny amount of time, while under stress (presumably).
Take the weekly game jam, as mentioned in my Game Jam list article, that will allow you to add a game to your portfolio every week!
Get inspired by the stuff other people make
A tradition of game jams is to play the games that other people have made for that same game jam. Not only is this amazingly fun, because, well… playing games is fun, right? But also, other people can have a completely different angle at mechanics or the jam’s theme.
So my advice would be to definitely stick around after the game jam, play the games other participants have made and give them feedback. Not only will this help you with becoming a better designer, but there’s also a chance that the creator for that game will do the same for your game.
Start now!
If you’re looking for that, and more, you should join a game jam. Now. I’m serious. If you want to know where or what game jam to start, have a look at this list of the 7 best online game jams, that should get you started!
