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Kartik Patel
Kartik Patel

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One More Try

#godot #gamedev #onemoretry #devlog

Faith isn't believing you'll never fall. It's believing you can stand up one more time.

Sometimes the person who needs to hear your game's message the most... is yourself.

A few days ago, I published One More Try for Micro Jam 060.

It was a small retro platformer with three levels.

  • Level 1 introduced moving platforms and collapsing blocks.
  • Level 2 hardens the game with introducing enemies.
  • Level 3 ended with an intentionally difficult boss fight inspired by -------- [Cant tell as this might be spoiler, So try out the game, to check it out yourself].

The game had two endings, a lot of dialogue, and one simple philosophy:

Faith begins where certainty ends.

Best Game

This wasn't just another jam entry for me.

It was the first time I looked at one of my own games and thought,

"I'm finally becoming the developer I wanted to be."

It wasn't perfect, but it felt different. The art came together, the dialogue landed, and for the first time I genuinely believed I was getting close to making the kind of games I'd always dreamed about.

Then I lost.

16th place.

No prize.

I was frustrated.

Not because I expected first place, but because I had poured everything I had into those two days.

I even told my friends I wanted to quit making games.

At that moment, it honestly felt like all the effort wasn't worth it.

Then I did something different.

Instead of uninstalling Godot or deleting the project...

I opened my own game.

Not to play it.

To criticize it.

I started writing down everything that was wrong.

And there was a lot. [Will talk about what not to do in game jams some other day.]

The biggest lesson?

The game simply wasn't fun enough.

That sounds harsh to say about something you made yourself, but it's true.

People weren't playing because they wanted to see my story.

They were playing because they wanted to enjoy themselves.

The movement was satisfying.

The visuals looked nice.

The dialogue landed surprisingly well.

But the gameplay loop wasn't engaging enough.

The boss fight was also much harder than I realized.

As developers, we play our own games hundreds of times.

Eventually, impossible starts feeling normal.

Many players never even reached the ending because they simply stopped before getting there.

That taught me something important.

Execution beats ambition.

A clever idea isn't enough if the core gameplay isn't enjoyable.

Surprisingly...

The one thing I didn't write down as a weakness...

...was the dialogue.

I actually think I cooked there.

Even people who criticized the gameplay mentioned the conversations, humor, or presentation.

While replaying the game, some of the lines I had written days earlier hit me much harder than when I first typed them.

Like this one.

Every jump begins with a single step of faith. [Introducing that game is platformer]

Or this.

Faith isn't believing you'll never fall. It's believing you can stand up one more time. [Showcasing Level 2]

I wrote those for the player.

Instead...

They ended up being for me.

I've always believed something.

People constantly say,

"Stay motivated."

I don't really believe motivation lasts.

It comes and goes.

I've always liked the idea that faith is stronger than motivation.

Motivation depends on how you feel today.

Faith is what carries you when you don't feel like continuing.

Ironically...

I forgot my own philosophy after seeing the rankings.

My own game reminded me.

I realized something.

I can't quit game development.

Not because I'm successful.

Not because I won.

Because this is genuinely what I think about every single day.

When I'm in school, I'm thinking about mechanics.

When I'm walking home, I'm designing stories.

When I'm lying in bed, I'm planning Katha.

Game development isn't just something I do.

It's how my brain works.

So quitting was never really an option.

I was just angry.

Then... everything changed.

A few days later, I got a Discord message.

"Congrats on winning!"

I had no idea what they were talking about.

It turned out the original rankings had been updated after one of the winning entries was disqualified for manipulating ratings.

My game moved into 3rd place in the Ziva category.

I had actually won prize money.

Looking back...

The money is nice.

It'll help fund what I'm really working toward: Katha, my first commercial horror game.

But that's not what I'll remember.

I'll remember sitting alone, replaying my own game after losing.

Writing down every mistake.

Learning from every level.

And somehow...

Being motivated by words that I had written myself.

I still believe One More Try has flaws.

A lot of them.

But I'm strangely proud of it.

Not because it won.

Because it taught me a lesson before the judges ever changed the results.

And I think that's the biggest takeaway from this jam.

You don't always need your next project to prove that you're a good developer.

Sometimes your current project teaches you how to become a better one.

So I'll end this devlog with the same line that ended my game.

Faith isn't believing you'll never fall. It's believing you can stand up one more time.

Outro

If you've made it this far, thank you for reading. ❤️

I'd love to hear your thoughts on One More Try, this devlog, or your own experiences with game jams. Feel free to leave a comment below or reach out on Discord.

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This post was written co-assistively with AI (OpenAI GPT-5.5). Some events and emotions have been slightly dramatized for storytelling purposes, but the core events, lessons, and experiences described in this post are genuine.

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