The GGJ23 post jam writeup

Issues needing fixing before next workshop / jam event

Information towards newcomers

Game jams are normally welcoming to beginners and novices. There shouldn’t be a barrier in participating, as the in-person experience is about having a good time with others while making something together.

With that in mind there’s usually some confusion as it’s new territory for these newcomers, and information may sometimes not easily be found or understood. Mostly because game jams may be run in many different ways.

We have had good success with the start of a wiki to step through the process of submitting a game to the Global Game Jam website. And I know that GGJ has it’s own version of a game jam reference manual. But my thinking is that the wiki should expand to (for example) the typical definition of a game jam, link relevant sources, and explain what to expect at our version of the game jam / workshop events that we organize, what to prepare beforehand, what to bring.

It will not ever be required reading material, but information that can easily be found and linked should help manage expectations a lot better.

Post write-ups should maybe include feedback

We do try to play all the games either at the event and later on before the write-up. And in previous years feedback on the games made took the form of silly award titles given to each group/game.

While feedback (and it’s helpfulness) varies on who gives it and who receives it, one thing I find we need more from our write-ups is more specific feedback on the games made. I believe as long as it’s clear who the feedback is coming from, it would be nice to have some/more feedback.

If there are too many games made then a selection (either through requests or by free choice) should be fine.

A check-in and a system to help manage users

Something that would help immensely during the event would be a CRM (i.e. software that assists in “Creator Registration Management”, see what I did there?).

In the years of me organizing the event, a large bulk of managing registrations was a large undertaking that consisted of me going through the Google Spreadsheet generated from the Google Form that we use for registration.

Friday was spent with (but not limited to):

• Checking if the user profile was made on the GGJ website,
• Checking if they added themselves to our jam site location,
• If they are not at the jam site location and have not placed themselves elsewhere, adding them to the site,
• Compare the registration list with those that have added themselves to the GGJ jam site location, emailing those that have not registered,
• Check if they got themselves into the Discord server we have,
• If they joined the Discord server, applying the “jammer” role,
• Send an email to those who registered but have not yet joined the Discord server,
• Event check-ins (done physically on a printed sheet).

Saturday was spent with (and not limited to):

• Ensure which groups formed (this is helped with an extra collaborative Spreadsheet),
• Lock registrations through the GGJ website, and also through the Google Forms,
• Check and collate from the game pages made compared to those who wrote down their groups,
• This finalizes who actually dropped out / who to ignore, and settles groups that can finally be referred to by their main game.

This work needing to be done becomes a lot more frightening after there are more than 30-40 registered users. While the spreadsheet modifications takes a lot of the guesswork out for a few of these tasks, keeping track of many users sinks a lot of time when all the checking is done manually. For about 50 participants I usually spend upwards of 12 hours dealing with these tasks.

It is also difficult while the status of a lot of the users are unclear. For example, there were 7 new participants registering at check-ins, only 1 out of 6 said they could not show up from current registrations, and a handful could not be added to the GGJ jam site. Counting becomes a lot less straightforward as there may be overlap, mismatched data, or data which is simply missing.

I do have a Discord bot which does some work with keeping track of users on Discord. It’s also managed manually.

So I feel a webapp / website service which helps manage some of the above mentioned tasks would critically lighten my workload. This would make things easier because it would not rely on me feeding in the data, but the participants doing so directly. From my end I should be able to announce status information, call for certain actions to be done, or prompt for data to be filled in if needed. The Discord bot can then pull this data and automatically manage the Discord server side of things.

The added benefit would also be that participants could also use the webapp to check-out and check-in when leaving and re-entering. Or that I as an organizer could prompt a roll call if there is an emergency and we need to account for everyone.

We would also not experience ‘phantom participants’, people who register and check-in on the first day and disappear for the rest of the game jam. Or those who do not register at all (which we can then account for).

A webapp like the one described above would light the load enough for me to focus on adding and working with feedback sessions, and more time to do the game jam ourselves during the quiet moments without too much organization overhead.

Personal biometrics

So I got a smartwatch a few months back. And this is where looking at the biometric data confirms why I’m concerned with the above issues so much. My heartbeat is consistently a lot more elevated and I sleep a lot less than normal. I will share the metrics during the period of the jam event as a way to map a reference point for future jams maybe.

For this run, I will only add that my typical resting heart rate outside of the jam event is between 60-70 bpm and that I usually sleep between 5-7 hours daily. Just for added reference, I took 10927, 12579 and 8148 steps on each respective day of the in-person jam.

Heartrate vs Sleep graphs
Note that the points on these graphs show the same date in order to overlap. The labels denote what day it is instead.

I’m by no means an expert while giving out this feedback, and most of what I’ll write here will be my own personal thoughts and opinion.

Rootleg

The mixed use of 2D in 3D is quite whimsical, kind of like this game. It has a very similar buildup of games like Nidhogg, where players have to hit their opponents and score before their opponent can. Perhaps one gripe I have is that their shirts match the green of the grass without meaning to. Adding a counter move seems like the next step to inspire more confrontations and less running away otherwise. A well put-together arena brawler with a fun special mob who has got a fine set of chompers. Big plus on the gameplay video!

Beat Rootz 2: Player edition

Really enjoying the dancing animals detail in this Bomberman-like 2-player game. I like the asymmetry for each of the players, though I think the next step would be to figure out powerups and ability cooldowns for the characters to add more variety in the gameplay—that or maybe something to speed up gameplay as it feels slower the longer one plays. The movement is otherwise very clean and the win conditions feel balanced and fair for the respective players. Solid submission and very nice feel to it.

Rootscaped: Overgrown, Undertended

This entry surprised me as this narrative-based game did a good job of setting the player into the shoes of the character. Exploration was straightforward and painless, and figuring out the next action(s) to progress further went smoothly. There was a shelf completely missing collision, though nothing that breaks the game experience. It would be fun to explore previously saved answering machine messages maybe right before the ending, as that seems to be the point of contact with the ‘outside world’ before stepping out, and some flourishing of sound and visual effects to add to the immersion of what happens / is happening. Maybe more alternate endings can be explored where more narrative can be fleshed out. Well done!

Rooty & The McToots

The playful characterizations and the play on words were wonderful and had me smirking. The controls were tight and the level transitions (and tooting) were a joy! I’m going to have a hard time with suggesting what to improve on, as it is a fine game with great aesthetics and game feel. There may be some hiccups with how a McToot collides with it’s own root and reverses dramatically further back, but I’m certain the tolerance for that can be adjusted easily later. This submission was simply excellent and fun to play.

Radicle

This submission shows good potential. I believe more risk-taking was maybe necessary to push it in the direction it needed to go. While I understand this was maybe meant to play like a tower defense game, it could have been better played in reverse. One way to adjust how this game plays would be to have the knights that were attacking be just one knight, who happens to have stolen a core that’s dear to the root hivemind. The gameplay would then have the player controlling the hivemind more specifically while the knight runs along a path away from the origin of the roots. There’s definitely something here and it could be reworked in a good way, and these were the thoughts that sprung to mind as I tried this game.

Root Access

I did not successfully get this project to work on my own (as of yet, I’ll try again soon), but I did watch some of it being played. It was definitely ambitious creating a game without much of a game engine and creating a multiplayer experience through Java at that! This kind of game works great in a game show or public setting, both in how it plays and in it’s thematic and aesthetic elements. I suppose if this were to continue development, I would like to see competing hacker teams where there are 4-8 players playing at the same time and between each other. A lot of different mechanics and gameplay elements can then be introduced, where opportunities for teams to interact with each other further add to the gameplay experience. Good job!

Bow to Noone

Ninja archery! Who can resist trying that? I really dig that the arrows (if not hitting an opponent) marks the next location that the player moves to. The unconventional movement makes the game more novel. And being able to shoot off the opponents hat for bragging rights just adds to the experience. Good call on adding obstacles and mist and speedlines. And the silly and punny game title. If this continues getting worked on it may be fun to have alternate gameplay modes available; racing tracks, platforming puzzles or timed collections – where a whole set would feel like a great party game to break out when having people over.

Water Bear-ers

This particular entry had me the most interested during the jam, as it showed a strong creative direction and team effort. The soundscapes produced along with the artwork makes it look and feel fantastical. The gameplay does need more visual feedback and depth within the interactions to be more immersive for players. I would suggest that players activating buffs perform an extra interaction for increased power, or to decrease the debuff amounts alternatively. It may be a quick time event-like mechanic or similar. This all may boil down to the super ambitious effort for this project however, needing an extra programmer to assist the main programming efforts. There was an overwhelming amount of assets and the build was incomplete at the eleventh hour. It would be really cool to see a more complete build in future though! Valiant efforts overall 😀

ESC

I almost felt like I was intruding and playing with a camera feed while playing this game, in a way. The repetitive nature of the setting and events, coupled with the scanline and sci-fi aesthetic gave a strong impression. It did irk me that I could not wash my hands at some point, where my character seemingly forgets and has moved on to the next task / part of the day. Comically, the forced interactions may have been the point really. So kudos on a faithful submission 😄

Growth Spurt

It was great seeing this entry come together very nicely at the very end. There may still need to be some more balancing in how easily one can ‘save up’ cards to generate for later, but the actual mechanics involved in this game work super well and are well thought out. Once the player understands how to navigate and not run out of cards, this game gives off a good state of flow and lets the player get into it. In future versions there may be consideration in adding in cards that may further help or hinder the player more so that there is more variety in what to consider. There’s probably other mechanics that can be explored too like having multiple destinations to reach, or doing the same run in less turns, or including a rival tree. This version has a pleasant ending!

Nyögth-Nyögth Happy Gardening

This game made me giggle out loud while playing it. The game is great, the art is wonderful, and the music and sound effects compliment everything to a T. I did several rounds and really appreciated some of the details put in. I would like to see more obstacles/missions added, and whatever should happen once you infiltrate the Sacred Grove. In a way, this game made me want to explore by expanding the roots, so it won’t be surprising if fog of war for the enemies was added, with maybe some other points of interest. Another adjustment would be to allow turning (or tuning) the mushrooms to grant more situational control to the player. They may drain favor quickly, but it also abruptly ends a fun experience if players aren’t constantly looking at the favor points (specifically at the rate of decrease). A well made game ~

Settling In

A solo project which has meaning sort of hidden behind the interactions. I had a chance to speak with the creator about how it relates to the theme and what it means to them, and found a touching sentiment that’s embedded within the game. If developed further I would like some of this sentiment to make it’s way as narrative within the game. As a suggestion for improving upon the gameplay itself I would work on adding tooltips and indicators for potential interactions and objectives. Good work Sandeep!

ro to no to

The game I’ve awarded needing the most playtests. In a way I am super grateful we had a game show and that I was brave enough to lay the game out bare on a table. It gave me the chance to playtest and discover plenty of issues that severely affect gameplay. The core interaction is still playful and fun however, so that will be kept in future revisions at the very least. It did need more development time really, as four hours (including the upload of the submission) is not enough time to resolve what makes the game fun. I’ll find time to revisit this in future for sure, as I’ve had amazing feedback during the game show.

OVERBOARDING

This one was tricky to figure out at first. It may still be a little unclear how to guide the rats to the ‘exit’, as I’ve taken to angering them quite frequently. That or level II really does not end. I think something that is missing in this game is an indicator of how mad the rats are so I can avoid that scenario better. Also an indicator of how many rats are left to take care of. It was nice to be able to click and hold to add/remove rope, so that interaction was quite alright. I’m really not that good at puzzle games like this, so my comments may be a little limited. I did do a bunch of attempts, so it is a game I tried more of (with about 20 or so points at level II). The aesthetic and the colors used works well enough. For a future version, maybe a little bob with parallax can be added to simulate being on a ship to give the eyes less of a static background, and some accent colors may be used to shake up the muted palette a bit.