DEV Community: Jae Edeen

Preparing for a game jam

Jae Edeen — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve put together a small list of things I find helpful to do before and during a game jam. Some of these suggestions may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how easy it is to forget things when a deadline is approaching.

Prepare Your Tools and Assets

There are an abundance of game engines, frameworks, level editors, task trackers, and more that you can use to speed up your process. If the rules of the event allow it, you can also leverage existing art and audio assets other people have made (with permission, of course). It helps to be familiar with your tools before the actual game jam, so practice a bit if you haven’t used them before. Try setting up a sample game to help you figure out how you want all the pieces of your workflow to fit together.

Maintain Your Scope

It’s fun to think about all of the cool things you want to add to a game, but it’s important to remember that you probably won’t have time to make all of those things. I find it easiest to put all the “extra” things in a list that I can come back to later. Building a game is a constant exercise in pruning the excess, in refocusing on what is important, and in making sure those important things are finished and working. Think about the ideas that you want to communicate to your players, no matter how small or straightforward they may seem. Think about what you want people to experience when they play your game. Focus on those experiences, and treat everything that doesn’t align with them with caution.

Team Up With Other People

Working with a team of people is more complicated than working alone, but I find it far more rewarding. There is some wisdom in being careful about working with too many people, especially on a short deadline. However, if you can prioritize and divide work amongst yourselves, you can often build much more than you would have been able to on your own. You might even have time for some of those extra cool features you set aside earlier!

It’s important to note that with more people involved in a creative project, there will be more differences in opinion. Be sure to consider everyone’s ideas and treat them with respect; you’re all working to build something together.

Get Feedback

The sooner your game is playable, the sooner you can iterate on and improve it. Create a playable game as soon as you can, and then play it yourself. Does it align with your ideas and goals? Ask other people to play your game; they might see something you don’t.

Take Care of Yourself

This one is especially important. With all of the excitement of a game jam, it’s sometimes easy to forget that you need to drink water, eat food, and sleep. Move around every so often. Take breaks! Your well-being is more important than your productivity.

Have Fun

Enjoy yourself! You’re making something cool that other people will experience, and that’s awesome! I hope to see (and play) your work in the game jams of the future.

Tools for making games

Jae Edeen — Wed, 02 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This post is a list of the tools I use when I make games. I use most of the things on this list fairly frequently. Tools that are free and/or open source are marked. Most of the games I make are digital. I use Microsoft Windows on my computer, though most of the software tools here are also available for other platforms.

Code

Visual Studio Code (free, open source)

Visual Studio Code is a cross-platform editor. It supports developing and debugging in TypeScript and a number of other programming languages. There are also a lot of plugins available for any number of use cases.

Excalibur.js (free, open source)

This web-based game engine was designed for use with TypeScript and JavaScript, and I help develop it with a few of my friends. It's worked well for us over the years!

Python HTTP Server (free, open source)

If you're making web games, this is a straightforward way to serve your game up on your local computer. Install Python, type python -m http.server into your command line, and you're ready to go!

Git (free, open source)

Version control is one of the most important tools you can use when you're building a game, analog or digital. I use Git and Githhub to keep track of each game I develop and maintain its change history.

Art

Aseprite

If you want to draw pixel art, this editor does the job really well; I use it as my primary drawing tool for games, and it's well worth the price.

Paint.NET (free)

If you need something a little more general for making art, this tool provides a suite of features for drawing and photo manipulation.

Audio

Bfxr (free)

This tool can generate sound effects quickly and easily. Fine tuning is a bit more work, but it's pretty powerful.

Audacity (free, open source)

If I need to do any editing, I open the audio up in Audacity to cut, paste, level, and mutate it. It's loaded with functionality, most of which I've never even had the chance to use.

Digital Collaboration

Trello (free, subscription available)

Trello is a great way to keep a shared task list, and makes working asynchronously a lot easier.

Excalidraw (free, subscription available)

When I'm not able to meet with my team in person, I use Excalidraw as a digital dry-erase board for drawing pictures and diagrams.

Analog Collaboration

Pen, pencil, and paper

It can be really useful (and also really fast) to make notes and draw mockups. It's much easier to quickly modify a paper prototype than it is to redesign something written in code.

Physical components

Prototyping digital game mechanics (or designing board games) became much easier after I borrowed game pieces from games I already owned. Coins, beads, and other similar items also work well.

Dry-erase board

When I'm working on ideas with a group of people in person, I use a dry-erase board, which I set up on a small collapsible easel.

How I keep a work journal

Jae Edeen — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This is a short post that provides a high-level overview of my specific note-taking process for work. I don't have a catchy name for this process, and I'm not trying to be prescriptive or convince you to use it yourself. This is just a reference post that you may find helpful while you figure out what sort of note-taking process works for you.

I think it's also important to note that the way I arrange these notes is specifically in the context of working at a job. Notes I take for own purposes aren't formatted in quite the same way.

If you'd like to look at a template for this system, I've also shared a sample work journal.

Detailed notes

Detailed notes are where most of my writing takes place. I write as I work, recording fragments, partial thoughs, ideas, and questions I have. I also write lots of checklists in this section.

Summaries

Each of the summary sections is a distillation of the previous, more detailed set of notes.

Daily summaries

One day's worth of detailed notes becomes a daily summary. I often format this into three sections: things I accomplished today, things I want to work on tomorrow, and things I will work on at some later point in the future. I also make note of specific information that it might be useful to extract from my personal notes into shared documentation for my colleagues.

Weekly summaries

Five work days worth of daily summaries are condensed down into a weekly summary. A weekly summary divided into sections similar to a daily summary: things I accomplished this week, things I will work on next week, and things I will work on at some later point in the future. These notes are particularly useful when I'm coming back to work at the start of the week and am trying to remember what I was doing at the end of last week.

Yearly summaries

A yearly summary isn't just a collection of the past year's weekly summaries. I format it more specifically to be useful for the annual performance review process, focusing on projects or initiatives that I directed, processes that I improved, goals I accomplished, and positive feedback about my impact at work.

One-to-one meeting notes

I usually take notes about any one-to-one meetings I have. I keep track of to-dos, important reference information, feedback, and other useful details to help me collaborate more effectively with my colleagues.

Reference notes

I put keyboard commands, shortcuts, utilities, and other small bits of useful info in reference notes. Anything that expands beyond a small scope I consider for converting into shared documentation.

Additional Resources

Taking notes while working

Jae Edeen — Wed, 17 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been taking notes while I work for most of my career. While I’ve always found them to be useful, they’ve continued to become even more important to me with each passing year. To give you some ideas of why you might want to consider taking notes, I’ve provided a few examples in this post. Hopefully it will give you some context and ideas for how note-taking might help you.

Why should I take notes?

Fundamentally, taking notes is a way to make it easier to remember things, and also remember the context of those things. For the purposes of this post, I’ve divided types of notes into three main categories: reference info, past work, and future intent.

To remember reference information

Keyboard shortcuts

When I’m learning new keyboard shortcuts or commands for programming tools, it takes a while for me to be able to use them effortlessly. Every time I find a command I think is useful or I think I might use often, I’ll add it to a list so that I can quickly reference it later. Often, I eventually don’t need to go back to the list at all, but being able to look it up quickly as I was learning it was really helpful.

Repeatable steps

Similarly, when I’ve gone through a number of steps to configure something, prepare some process, or set up a debugging tool, I always write down the steps. This makes it easier to repeat them next time. Recording processes in this way can be super useful, because you can turn them into documentation that others can use!

Future Documentation

Anytime you think your reference notes would be helpful for others, you can turn them into documentation! Whether your notes are quick tips on useful shortcuts or a list of complicated steps, you have the opportunity to let everyone benefit from the information you wrote down.

To remember what you did

Starting the week

When a new week starts, it can sometimes be difficult for me to remember what I was doing the week before. Having detailed notes about what I was working on at the end of the week makes it a lot easier for me to reload last week’s context into my memory and continue working.

Meeting notes

Meetings are often focused on making decisions. If those decisions don’t get recorded, it can be very difficult to remember them later. Recording the outcome and reasoning for decisions made during a meeting gives important context when collaborating with others. Taking notes during a meeting is also helpful for anyone that wasn’t able to attend the meeting.

Prior solutions

Another way notes can help is in problem-solving situations. Occasionally, when I’m working on a problem, it seems very similar to something I worked on a while ago. Luckily, I wrote down what I did then, so I can go back and read my notes! Sometimes this can outright solve the current problem, but I at least gain additional insight into the current situation and can guide myself towards my next step.

Accomplishments

A number of companies I’ve worked for have year-end self-reviews as part of their performance evaluation processes. Having specific examples and details about all of the things I did during a year can make filling out my review much easier. Cataloging my accomplishments also provides opportunities for me to personally reflect on the work I’ve done.

To remember what you were going to do

Resuming after interruptions

We’re all very busy and collaborating with each other, and sometimes that means we have to set something we’re working on aside and come back to it later. Getting into the habit of writing things down before I do them means that I have an easier time remembering where I was going when I get back to that particular project.

To-do lists

Another common category of notes is the to-do list! Keeping track of what I was going to do is often just as important as keeping track of what I did. Sometimes I’ll have several ideas for fixing a problem, but I won’t get to try all of them before I have to attend a meeting or help someone else with something they’re working on. Luckily, when I get back to working on the issue again, I know right where I was and what I was about to try because I wrote those potential next steps down.

Asking questions

We often end up with a lot of questions while we’re working on something. Sometimes those questions can be answered by reading through code, or searching through documentation, but not always. When you write down the questions you have, you can help direct your thoughts towards potential solutions. If you asked someone else for help, you can also write down who you talked to, so that you remember which of your coworkers has insight into specific portions of the work. Additionally, the answers to any particularly useful questions can be turned into documentation!

Aspirational ideas

Anytime you have an idea for something, it’s a good practice to write it down. Even if it turns out to be less useful than you initially thought, even if you never have time to get around to it, you’ll at least have a record of it and have the option to return to it later. I make a habit of writing down ideas for potential tools, refactorings, process improvements, presentations I’d like to give, and more.

How should you take notes?

There is no universally helpful technique or process or system for taking notes. Take notes however you want to, in whatever way works best for you! Whether they’re handwritten or digital, markdown or text or HTML, use whatever method or pattern or tool works well for you and doesn’t get in your way. I recommend finding a process that is as easy as possible without interrupting what you’re actually working on. The easier it is to take the notes, the more likely it is they’ll get written down. My process started as just one big text file, separated into sections by date. It’s a little more involved now, but I’m still focused on making it as unobtrusive as possible. Notes should help you, not get in your way!

I’m avoiding the specific implementation details in this post because I think that they have the potential to constrict what you come up with for yourself. If you are interested in the file and folder layouts and specific process I use, I’ll be writing a separate post about that soon.

I think a work journal could be really useful, but that’s up to you. I hope this information has been helpful, at least, and has provided you with some ideas about how to start or improve your note-taking process.

Returning to an old project

Jae Edeen — Sun, 14 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Sometimes we have to put a project on hiatus. Other things can get in the way; focus can shift over time. I end up returning to old stuff pretty often, so I’ve written down the set of questions I ask myself when I'm reapproaching a paused project.

Why am I looking at this project again?

Am I just reminiscing?
Do I just want to look at it again for a while before I have to go work on other things?
Do I want to remind myself of what I get to work on soon, to help me get through what I’m working on now?
Do I want to recycle some of this project to use for something else?
Do I intend to continue working on the project now?

What was my progress on this project?

What was the project about?
What was the goal of the project?
How did I go about accomplishing the goal previously?
How far did I get towards accomplishing that goal?
Do I still want to accomplish the original goal, or is there a new goal I’d rather pursue?

How will I complete this project?

How much time would I like to devote to this work?
How much time can I actually devote to this work?
How will I schedule my allocated time?
Are there any external motivators that might help me finish the project?
Do I need any help completing the project?

After this, it’s all a matter of actually starting again!