So, I recently entered my first game jam and got second place.
A couple of weeks ago molegato announced on Bluesky he’d be hosting a game jam for Halloween. I’ve always been reluctant to enter game jams; I’d say to myself I didn’t have the time or that I already had enough deadlines as-is, but the timing on this one was unusually good so I decided I’d make something simple for the fun of it.
My entry was called “Theodore’s Great Hunt”.
If you want to play it, please let me know what you think of it! Otherwise, I’ll talk about my process for a little bit.
The idea was to parody “Duck Hunt” for the NES, and the art-style was inspired by Game Boy-era graphics and sounds. The end result is a very short game, with only three levels and around 10 minutes of game time.
Even though I have more experience coding, I wanted to spend most of my time on art and music so I could gain more experience in those areas. This was my first time composing a game soundtrack by myself, so I spent a lot of time fiddling around on my DAW.
I think both goods and bads of the game come from the fact that it’s a very short game. Something I decided from the beginning is that I wanted keep the scope small, and to submit a fully finished game no matter what.
With this in mind, I was able to make a complete package with a full game-loop, new graphics and music for each level and the simple gameplay also meant I could attain a good level of polish… But it also meant that there’s not “much to it” in this game.
The simplicity and short duration makes for a game that is not very “engaging”. There’s not a lot of variation in enemy patterns, and the difficulty curve is barely noticeable. When you are getting into it, it suddenly ends. I feel like all of these things prevent it for being a better experience for the player.
With all of this, I’m really glad I participated. I learnt a lot that I wouldn’t if I just kept prototyping forever, gave me a more holistic look into game development, and also let me play a bunch of cool games made by other devs!
Please check out all other the devs out, and play their games! You can find all of them here.
Let’s see if I sign up for another game jam in the future.
