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Shai Angress
Shai Angress

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One hour Game jam experience

A short story about my experience with one hour game jam.

What is one hour game jam?
One hour game jam, or in short 1hgj, is a great way to improve your skills in game design and development, You will be amazed by what you can achieve in just one hour. The concept is straight forward, you have one hour to design, develop and publish a game related to the random subject which is revealed when the jam starts.

First Experience
I had the chance to participate in 1hgj 2 times by the time writing this post; The first time the subject was “one hard minute”, so I came up with some sort of a “maze” game where you have one minute to complete it; From this game I created a full web game “fukaso”, inspired by this jam, you can see the value that 1hgj gives you, it makes you a better game designer and also gives you inspiration for your creations.

FTOHGJ! by ꗟḫߥï 𝚫ᥰგ𝖗𝟈ʂʂ

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Play the final version for free

Second jam
On the second jam the subject was “limit”, and I had a hard time to find an idea for a game about limit, a game that is simple enough to create in one hour…eventually after about 20 minutes of just thinking and listening to my girlfriend’s ideas as well I came up with a goofy little game that you need to keep the weight-limit for your hippo; And the reactions was surprising and made me feel good about that game.
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Play Hippo Limit

Live stream of the published games
In 1hgj, at the end of the jam, they sometimes stream a live session (on their website) playing all the games submitted to the jam, this is an amazing experience by it self! It gives you a small shot of adrenaline and also the opportunity to see an experienced person’s reaction for your game live!

In conclusion
I recommend this jam for all game designers, experienced and noobs :)
It makes you realize what are the important parts about game design and focus on them.
The jam is taking place every Saturday night and you can see the exact hour on their website;
so go crazy! go and do stuff, it will make you laugh.

Links:
1hgj website
My 1hgj page

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