Hello, DEV Community!
This is my very first post here and I'd like to share with you my latest experience as a dev: making a game for a Game Jam.
For those of you who don't know, a Game Jam is an event where devs have the mission of developing a game in a short period of time. For this one, Brackey's Game Jam 2023.2, we had a week to make it happen.
A colleague of mine convinced me to be part of this challenge and so I went on an exhilarating rollercoaster of creativity, coding, and collaboration. The Brackey's Game Jam 2023.2 took part from August 20th to the 27th but we joined the event on the 22nd of August, missing out on the initial couple of days, but oh boy, what a transformative five-day journey it was!
Diving Deep into Uncharted Waters
The game jam's theme was "Diving Deeper", a fitting metaphor for plunging headfirst into an area I had no prior experience—Game Development. Before this, my interaction with games was solely from the "press start to play" side of things. I had never thought about what goes into making a game—how data structures power a game's logic, how entities interact within a virtual universe, or how complex the actual coding could be.
Learning Unity Engine: Behind the Magic Curtain
Our game was built with Unity Engine and learning Unity was like peeling an onion; each layer revealed something more exciting, yet complex. Until now, all I knew about Unity was what most people also do know: it is a powerful game engine. My first interactions with the Unity Editor felt overwhelming; the interface seemed daunting with its multitude of buttons, tabs, and panels. But as we progressed, I learned the roles of each component, how to script behaviors, and how to bring static objects to life.
What I found most enlightening was the real-world application of data structures and controllers. Until you've had to decide whether an array or a linked list would better suit your in-game inventory, you don't realize how critical data structures can be. Understanding the engine's inner workings felt like having a backstage pass to a magic show. You finally get to see how all the illusions are performed, and it's absolutely mesmerizing.
I never thought making a game was so complex yet so fun.
Building a World from Scratch
Given that we had nothing but a theme, every single game element needed to be brainstormed, planned, and created. We decided to make a game with a vibe similar to "Limbo" and "Inside"—a moody, atmospheric experience where instead of "diving deeper", players would already find themselves in a "dark world" with nothing but hope to find an enlightening (pun intended) way out of that place. From the initial conceptual sketches in Blender to storyboarding our levels, each step was like laying down a brick for our virtual world.
We had to consider everything from game physics to enemy AI behavior, from level design to the protagonist's interaction with the game world. Deciding how the character would respond to environmental elements, designing puzzles, and even selecting the right color palettes were all intricate pieces of a puzzle we were racing against time to complete.
Beating the Clock: A Lesson in Deadlines
One of the key takeaways was the importance of deadlines. Given our late entry, we had just five days to submit our game. This forced us to prioritize tasks, be decisive, and learn to say 'no' to ideas that were too ambitious for our timeline. Each deadline was like a level boss we had to defeat to move on to the next stage, and believe me, procrastination was not an option!
Making decisions and changing the course of our project due to the short period of time was definitely one of the most challenging parts of this experience. Until now, I had never thought that even the smallest aspect of a game can take an insane amount of time to be done. To put it on perspective, coding the main menu of the game alone took us a whole day. I really admire the efforts of all game developers that deal with this daily and deliver such amazing experiences to the players, big shoutout to you guys!
Community Feedback: The Unexpected Reward
Finally, the D-day arrived. With bated breath, we submitted "Echoes in the Abyss", our game. What happened next was truly unexpected. We received some feedback from the game jam community—people were actually enjoying something we had built from scratch! Reading through the comments and reviews, I was overwhelmed with a sense of accomplishment and joy.
Thank you so much to everyone that took their time to play our game and express your opinions on it, you surely took many smiles off my face!
If you'd also like to give it a try, you can check it out here.
Wrapping Up
Participating in Brackey's Game Jam 2023.2 was not just about creating a game; it was about breaking out of my comfort zone, about looking at games from a creator's perspective instead of just a player's, and about the joy of crafting something that others could enjoy. And the sense of community, collaboration, and constructive feedback has made this experience one that I'll cherish forever.
Until the next game jam adventure,
Happy Coding! 🎮👾
Top comments (2)
This was a breathtaking text to read, my friend. I'm really impressed with your and all the other member's works, I'm so proud of all of you!
Looking forward to participating in the next game jam with you guys.
Learning game development truly is an astonishing experience, I'm still learning and everything I figure out has me pointing and thinking ou loud: "So that's how it works!!!".
Thank you so much Gabriel!! I'm glad you enjoyed reading it, hope you can join us next time!