Double Jam

The idea of the GameDev.TV 2022 Gamejam was to encourage those who have never made a game before. So I helped my wife with the code to create her first game ever.

In 10 days she created a fun little game about a little owl exploring a forest.
It’s all done in a Gameboy-inspired style and even tells a little story.
You should check out »The Owlwakening« by Hoot on Itch.io and give a thumbs up in the jam if you like.

Working on this game with Hoot was great fun and only got a bit tricky close to the submission. At first the build did not behave as it did in the editor. I’m not a night owl myself, but I made an exception and it all worked out.
If you think doing one game jam at a time is plenty, try going double. Working not on one, but two games. Of course I wanted a project of my own as well. 😉

We each started working on a game in Unity. Hoot had already started with the code, but I think a gamejam is not a good time to learn everything from scratch. It can get overwhelming and I didn’t want it to be a stressful experience.

I’m really impressed by how nice it turned out to be with original art and sound inspired by the classic Gameboy. I always knew Hoot had a hidden talent for game making and I’m excited for what she may work on in the future. Aren’t you?

Now for my own game I decided on an unusual approach. So far I always worked on story games in gamejams. This time I started with little idea, mostly a feeling, and I knew I wanted to try something more arcade-like. Something fun, but without the usual win-or-loose-conditions. Without clear goals, but a bit of a sandbox feel.
What I ended up with is a futuristic chill driving game.
There is a hint of story, but it’s mostly about driving and causing mischief.
One fun aspect is that instead of hitting the brakes, you drop paint.
So you drive your bike through a city. Synthwave style.
When you hit other cars, theirs and your color mix to create a new hue.

It’s really just a proof-of-concept or part of it and I have plenty of ideas left that didn’t make it into the jam. I had to take a lot of shortcuts, the code is really quick and dirty, the level is small and the art is placeholders. For sound and music I had to use free assets.
But I really like the idea and feel of it. It’s like a hint of a game I would enjoy playing.
Check it out »A Chill Intoxicating Drive« on itch.io and rate it in the jam if you like.

It also still amazes me what you can do with Unity in such a short time these days.
When I started out making games in assembly code back in 1999, it took me months to even build a scrolling shoot ’em up. Every decision was rooted in technical limitations. Every level element had to be placed in the code by hand.

With Unity it’s possible to ignore most of the technology involved, but focus on what you really want to create and what the player should experience. It’s amazing!

While looking up on a few issues I found a whole bunch of young indies on Youtube who were only fifteen, much like I was starting out, but they have the power of Unity at their disposal. And all the time and energy of not needing a day-job. I think the gamescape hugely improved due to indie creators like them. We’re getting more richness and variety in games.

I grew up believing I had to build everything myself. That everything had to be original and somehow come into existence out of a vacuum or it wasn’t supposed to exist at all. Like if I couldn’t just summon it out of thin air, I just didn’t have it in me to make games.
Of course all of that is utter nonsense. Fabricated out of ignorance by well meaning people who have no clue how creativity actually works or how games are done in practise. However old beliefs are hard to get rid off.
You can only work with what you know and try to learn.

Even in my game design study a lot of the instructors, who worked in the industry, couldn’t explain how they did what they did. Seems like they didn’t fully grasp it, so they left it out. They wanted to get paid, so they taught the easy part: how different tools worked.
It’s all that stuff you’re better off leaning from Youtube and the indie dev community these days. There are some excellent creatives showing you how they do things.
And I’m wondering again why I don’t make more games using Unity with this newly discovered sense of possibility.

Adventure Game Jam is right around the corner starting on 4th of June. But I won’t be taking part this time. There was no time to prepare and I have to continue writing my novel draft, so I don’t loose my connection to it. I think I’ve told about a quarter of it so far.

Turns out the limiting factor always is time and energy. If you can afford to put both to good use, if you can establish some kind of routine doing that, nothing is stopping you from greatness.