This week has been a great week! It’s also the first week since starting the course I’ve managed to write my reflection post on the Thursday. At least until my glasses fogged over in the ice rink owing to the face mask and it was Game Over Player One.
By far the biggest event this week was the much awaited first game jam. I’ve written a little bout it on this post so won’t go into too much detail here. The big theme reveal was fun — once the initial how-on-earth-can-I-turn-that-into-a-game panic had resided — and I was quite surprised at how easy it became to generate ideas once I got more into it. The mind map definitely helped and whilst not all my ideas were serviceable or even very good, one or two were worthy of further consideration. Heeding to the Martin Cooke’s advice that “often the first idea won’t be your best” , in this first session I tried to come up with half a dozen ideas. As you can see from the mind map I created, I actually created 5.
I selected Idea 2, Aw-Sum Flyer, to elaborate on further. It’s a very simple idea and combines both elements of the theme, the picture card and ‘Basic Arithmetic’, to make a game that will help children to improve their mental arithmetic skills. It should present a good learning experience too as…
- I’ve never developed an educational game before
- I’ve not developed a 2D game on Unity before
- I’ve not actually completed a game since PCs moved from DOS to Windows despite many attempts
Point 3 is one of the reasons I enrolled on the course. In addition to gaining knowledge and experience of Indie Game Development, I feel it’s time to become a Completer Finisher within the scene. I touched on this on my Meet Me page but I now have a certain degree of accountability to help me achieve this goal. 48 hours into the first game jam, my intention is to submit a working prototype at least.
The main theme for this week was Time and Project Management, in particular getting things done. I see this as one of the biggest challenges for me, personally, on the course. I have several big time commitments already with family and work. Two active teenage children who are heavily into their ice hockey and swimming mean at least two evenings each week are spoken for already. The solution is to make time. I don’t believe in “I don’t have time” **, because excuses don’t deliver results. As I mentioned on my earlier post regarding time management, I’ve created my own default diary and published it below. Obviously it’s not cast in stone and things will need to move from time to time. I can’t be a good husband/father, a good student and a good employee simultaneously but I can be good at each one individually. It’s just a question of prioritisation.
Conclusion
Game jams are fun. They really focus the mind and the theme is a really good mechanic for stimulating ideas. They’re not nearly as daunting nor frightening as I previously thought and I’ve found I’m really enjoying the one I’m working on at the moment. It’s put the fun back into development for me.
Of course I still have to complete the project but that, dear reader, will be the subject of a future post.
List of Images
Figure 1. THORN, 2020 Initial Ideas Mind Map
Figure 2. THORN, 2020 My Default Diary
References
** This is a bit cheeky as I’m not sure if I should cite my own blog or not? If not, please let me know and I’ll remove it
Photo by Faye Cornish on Unsplash
