The GGJ24 post jam writeup

The Global Game Jam event went smoothly and with much enthusiasm (from your part!) this year. While it may not seem like a lot was changed since last run, this year I focused more efforts in improving some processes that take place in the background. Behind the scenes some new challenges were taken on and a few things were also improved upon.

Thanks again to Qgroup and Tarsier Studios for sponsoring our event, and to Game Habitat for their support and the venue! This year a total of 72 people participated and made 16 games altogether during the course of the weekend at our jam site location. The numbers in total for the Global Game Jam have yet to fully come out (I’ll edit them in here later), and this year’s theme was “Make Me Laugh”. We got a good increase of engagement since last year (where 58 participants made 14 games) 😀

Improvements

As always, we try to find ways to better the overall jam experience from how we do preparations, how we manage the event, and what we should consider for the next time we help organize the event.

Improvements this run

  • Instead of a pitch deck, we created a document with sponsor information. Both are good for different situations. The pitch deck is great when meeting with sponsors personally, while the document is useful for when the sponsor needs all the details laid out and ‘in writing’.
  • Had a schedule shoutout in our announcements channel, letting participants know what happens tomorrow.
  • Have a checklist for tasks during the jam. What I did was dedicate a todo app on my phone for just that. It worked really well!
  • The registration spreadsheet gets two more sheets for post-jam processing:
  • One for checking the status of the games (a little more on this later), and
  • Confirming who submitted games, and from those who didn’t, a column displaying their Discord handle.

For next time we should…

  • Have better signage (like the extra bits at the door, the check-in sign should transform into Team MJT).
  • Shift the check-in desk perpendicular to the door to avoid the pull-at-door behavior.
  • Have check-in notes for quick information that’s legible for those entering.
  • Should mention things like toilet access and logistics better during presentation and as an announcement.
  • Only mention instructions for uploading in the presentation; try to cut the time as much as possible.
  • Dedicate activity time for stretching and a break or two.
Expand to see my (Torsten’s) self-reflection

Self-reflection

So my self-reflection from last year still stands, but some of the details have slightly changed and maybe a little bit of the approach (for reference, it’s at https://www.malmojamstoo.com/2023/02/12/the-ggj23-post-jam-writeup/).

“Information towards newcomers”, where I felt that there should be the least amount of friction for participating as a beginner/novice. What I suggested back then was the use of documentation, in the form of the GGJ game jam reference manual and the start of our own wiki. While it was super beneficial at that time and still serves a purpose for me as an organizer, one drawback became super apparent with documentation: they may become dated. The website had an overhaul (and therefore the game submission process changed) so the wiki’s information and it’s visuals became pretty useless for participants this year.

My new solution then is to prepare such directions to load in (i.e. copy in) as announcements instead. What I will do on top of this is to prepare some evergreen copy that outlines what’s important, which should allow me to prepare faster with the reuse of these announcements towards future jams as well.

For the “Post write-ups should maybe include feedback”, I find that doing about 20 of them is OK. I stated previously that a selection is made by request or by free choice if there are too many submissions, but I can imagine getting a fellow mentor (i.e. volunteer) in to split the work may also be a possibility.

Finally, for “A check-in and a system to help manage users”, all of it remains as it was. I’m still adamant about creating some kind of in-house system that automates most of the work. Now I remade the registration spreadsheet quite a bit last year and focused on ease of use, which allowed me some reprieve this year when getting into it, and cut my time agonizing over check-ins by up to a third, spending about 8-9 hours instead of the 12 from last year.

I mentioned JamHost last year, which renamed to EventHost. At least the domain redirects accordingly, but it feels slightly unreliable having to depend on an online service, which is why an in-house system will work better. One of the sponsors for GGJ this year is Jammio, a Discord bot that is more in line with what I was thinking of in terms of a solution. But in a way, this isn’t it either. I use our custom made Discord bot MJTBot to export the userlist and to demote users of a certain role. And for the most part, that’s all I want a Discord bot to do regarding the management of the event. There’s of course some features missing; automated announcements, promotion of roles based on a list, time-tracking of the event, maybe the ability to parrot certain pinned announcements, to name a few. On the other hand, I still prefer a web-based UI for users to interface. Both for things like group formations (for example), and for me as an organizer to perform and generate results with. And part of this reasoning is because this data may end up as published and easily accessible later. It also clearly simplifies user interaction if all the information they need can come from this supposed webapp and not split between their browser and a Discord bot. The data itself is mostly from the internet, from Google Forms and the GGJ website (in this case), and it can be transformed there instead without having to find ways to input that data. Furthermore not everyone needs to be reliant on Discord communications if it’s all online via the user’s choice of browser—at least, this is what I hope for in future.

Personal biometrics

In continuation of last year’s collection of data, I would like to add this data to compare and evaluate. I took 6868, 11340, and 11283 steps on each respective day of the event. I slept only very slightly better if not about the same as last year. And in a way, that sums up the experience while awake as well ~

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.

tl;dr on the Self-reflection above—Prep more for the announcements beforehand, and I still feel like my main assessments from last year’s evaluation stand true (even if I may have to adjust how I should tackle certain situations.

Other stuff worth mentioning

One new thing I experienced this year was that the usual haunts where I put up posters (e.g. Malmö University’s Niagara and Orkanen) have a policy of one poster that’s relevant for the students and has the date on it. I checked on them and they stayed for their intended duration, though I am unsure how effective they really are. I did pass out posters towards The Game Assembly with the help of Ylva, who kindly received me at the door, and I believe it’s good to find ways to connect more than once with places to ensure they know about the event and to remind others.

One of the new spreadsheet sheets that track the status of the game submissions.

So I added two new spreadsheet sheets for tracking game submissions and finalizing check-ins by submissions. This provided an unexpected insight that gave me pause. Some context. During the presentation at the start, I usually emphasize the importance of providing the source files above all else. However the red columns above are what’s most important to the game submission. In one zip file that comprises of: the source code, the license (by default it should be CC-BY-SA, but I suppose anything even more permitting works), and instructions on how to get the game submission working. As you see, only two-thirds managed to share their source code, and one-third included their licenses. Really only one group provided direct instructions on how to get the game running (the other two are tabletop submissions). It struck me that the game submissions do not have clear enough instructions from GGJ itself, and I believe this should also partially be resolved technically.

Since the engines for these game submissions have been consistently chosen for the most part, the instructions for getting someone to run it from source could be generated automatically and bundled together with the source files. And that applies likewise to the license file; if it can not be detected in the root of the zip file, bundle it together automatically with the source files and/or alert the user that it is missing. My thinking is that the license bit (at least) can be done on the off-season of the GGJ event if it’s too resource intensive to do so during the event.

I did note that GGJ has streamlined the start of the game submission process, so maybe this is in the works for the future. For now I plan to be a lot more concise and exacting with what’s needed in order to pass my final check on the game submissions at my end.

Oh, I was also able to blast my way through my own presentation before the keynote+theme reveal. From what I thought would be 20min tops down to half that, at 10min. I think 10min is a good amount of time for our intro, so in future jams it would be good to cut a lot of unnecessary information out and relay those into the announcements instead.

And that’s it! This concludes the assessment for my experience at Global Game Jam 2024. I hope you enjoyed the jam experience at this event, or if you are interested in attending in future, I hope we meet at something like this. The participants make the jam event fun. So thank you for keeping interest and I will see you around.

It’s not over yet though. What follows are the award titles, the game submissions (and my feedback on them), and some other details. Read on for more 🙂

Award titles

  • Allnighters was awarded “Chaos Simulator 2024” for See Gull – Agnes H., Jasper P., Liam S., Jonas H., Herman S., Anna S., Frederik B.
  • Sleezy Lampshade was awarded “And the last laugh” for The Last Jest – Sofia M., Aline S., Henrietta S., Domenico F., Robin A., Alborz G., Frans W.
  • Backsies was awarded “Assimilation failed successfully” for Chuckle cam – Henrik H., Felix K., Victor J.
  • Stressball Interactive was awarded “Outside In, squish squish” for Say The Line – Mina M., Tilde P., Jonathan M., Vanessa G., Hannes W., Linus P., Mattias L.
  • Epic Trumpet Interactive was awarded “Meowsical Magic” for Epic Trumpet Simulator – Kasper B., Anton E., Rasmus B., Océane N., Kasparas E.
  • SteamBootleg Studios was awarded “Most contemporary” for Sinking About Willie – Karl J., Bazo M., Marco Z., Ove Ø., Gabbriel O., Luna H.
  • Group 7 was awarded “Ba. Ba. Baa!” for Trago(at)s – Bianca T., Martin A., Sam B., Kris K., Elias B., Lorenzo C.
  • Group 8 was awarded “Shortest paper trail” for Paper Pinball – Milan L., Aaron G., Dan S.
  • Please Laugh was awarded “Best 2nd person perspective” for Stagehand – Chris P., Marcus S., Gregor P., Erik Ö.
  • Olympen was awarded “Layers and layers of puns” for Pungeon – Henrik W., Kevin B., David S., Adina D., Alfred S.
  • Special Ingredient was awarded “Most realistic clay physics” for BURNING BABY – José V., Joana V., Dennis H., Ivan B., Brandon M., Sascha H.
  • Group 12 was awarded “Comedy Tabletop RPG” for Laugh Quest: Roleplay Rumble – Bianca T.
  • Team MJT was awarded “Exquisite, Enchanting, Excellent” for Everett’s Eatery of Exotic Eats – Torsten H.
  • Group 14 was awarded “I’m scared” for Who’s Laughing Now – Per F., Victor Å., Tadej G.
  • Group 15 was awarded “Hue hue hue hue!” for Bher’loth-Bher’loth Happy Refueling – Dennis V., Tristan L., Lisbeth F.
  • Group 16 was awarded “Most screenwriter-ready” for Elevator Pitch – Daniel S., Jakob H., Adam N., Scotty Y., Mathias E.
Expand to see more specific feedback on the games from Torsten

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. Given in alphabetical order.

Bher’loth-Bher’loth Happy Refueling

The game loop had me try a few times, which makes for great replayability, and is something I’ve noticed in each iteration of these Cthulhu-inspired creations each year that I look forward to the next installation of. I laughed at the residents when they laughed, and laughed just as much when they were running away. I spent my time gathering them together to generate fuel for my ship. Though I think what may be missing is an indication of how well it’s going, both in how much fuel left is required for the ship and the progress of it being tipped over and failing the game. Otherwise this is as always, a well made game.

BURNING BABY

This had interesting developments with the use of photogrammetry. Gameplay was fun and the overall feel was good, though I believe there is something missing in directing the player in the objectives and the feedback of each player action. The controls could (still) be simplified and I suppose in future it would also be good to consider for a 4-player (and single player) mode. The models were cute and definitely added to how enjoyable the game is. Good job on a worthwhile two player experience!

Chuckle cam

This entry I had great curiosity of from the start, as you are all programmers and decided on an idea very quickly. The result is also very much in line with this year’s theme, so props to that! I’m happy to see that there’s a quick disclaimer and warning about recording, as that’s something that a player can be unaware of. It looks like everything runs smoothly and absolutely has the player interact, engage and react in quite an interesting way. I did see players ‘sleeping’ by looking away from the camera, so letting the player know they should show their closed eyes in some way or informing them that the game reads facial expressions and not gestures could prevent that misunderstanding. Well done ~

Elevator Pitch

Solid submission, with good execution. When I talked about this game with you, you mentioned that you had certain updates to make which indicates to me you had quite a lot of thoughts on improving the experience. The result of each pitch could be saved down perhaps! In future it would be interesting if more variety to the pitch bit of the game (and in turn the results) was added so that players could enjoy a less linear experience. Nothing grand, but just enough to have players thinking about what possibilities there are a bit more 😉

Epic Trumpet Simulator

Really enjoyed the meme factor and ‘animation’ of the cats playing the instruments. The easiest setting was the most enjoyable for me to play. Somehow the increases of difficulty had me struggle with the jumps in difficulty too hard to manage. The notes map for the medium level could also be tweaked a little more so that there is more ‘expression’ if that makes sense. Though I think the time constraint of the event probably prevented enough playtesting to find a balance for each difficulty level. It’s an enjoyable game though, pretty sure I supremely suck at rhythm-based gameplay

Everett’s Eatery of Exotic Eats

This is a game I created, and I will give some feedback for future me to read. I believe I need to implement a way to knock down points from a plate, adjust some of the values for such a large disparity of resulting points, and add ‘peeking’ mechanics for the uncooked ingredients. Maybe even a mechanic that prevents the movement of ingredients during a turn. And maybe forcing players to cook all their ingredients. Overall I think there is something there for it to become an entry worth continued development on, as the base elements and main mechanics work quite well together. This game, like plenty of my other attempts, severely lacks the playtesting for it to become a better game. I do like it’s current state and where it’s going though

Laugh Quest: Roleplay Rumble

I touched base with you a few times about this game, and I’m glad it was able to be shown at the game show! While it was unintended, I initially thought that the ‘actions’ described on the card (i.e. the flavor text) were to actually be performed. Which is interesting as something to think about for an extra challenge to this game (or to determine who goes first), but also indicates that the text should indicate it’s intent better. So I would suggest a smaller type size, have it in italics, and enclosed within a border or space to make it more obvious. I do really enjoy the thought of simultaneous turns along with the catchup (tomato) mechanic, and I can see a lot of thought was put into the mechanics of the interactions made for each player. Especially since each player has slightly different stats. I can imagine a version of this game where there are mechanics introduced as “events” for each round where the audience reactions vary more in some way, causing players to reconsider the best action cards to use for their turn. Well done!

Paper Pinball

The game loop for this game was pretty solid, and I feel the movement around the space was good and allowed for enough exploration. The gaining of points was really satisfying and the bump physics gave off a pachinko feeling. For a future update, I would like to see a much larger level design where time isn’t the constraint. Clicking to change direction could also be adjusted so that there’s a way to get a larger boost, or set how much more force is given. Overall a good submission 🙂

Pungeon

While the most punny, this entry also gave the most cutesy aura. I liked that it was kept simple too. I think what’s maybe missing from the player experience is some kind of gauge to know if their choices were satisfactory or not. This could be a literal gauge or come in the form of points, or other visual indication. Going further on this line of thought, it would also be a thought to add how far into the dungeon the player is in, and if they know how much of it is left. They may expect a final boss encounter or some resolution at the end. I feel like there’s a lot of potential in this one!

Say The Line

This was quite a likeable experience, and had me play it at least twice to hear what would happen if I failed (or succeeded) at certain points. I very much liked the idea that the player has to navigate their mind in order to execute a result as a comedian on stage. However! Maybe in a future revision to this game there may be things you can do while actively outside the mind that can increase/decrease the likelihood of finding success at the end. It was fun seeing the different environments inside the mind. My jumping experience wasn’t that great, and found I could not move myself while in the air (for example) to adjust for certain jumps. It felt like the jumps were a bit ‘stiff’ otherwise. But all in all, I had fun ~

See Gull

I loved the game for how silly it is. The walk and head bob while moving around will definitely make many smile and laugh. The different dark gull skins were also a fun addition and the game handles well overall with it’s wiley objectives and movement. Two things I would like to see though! I feel separating the timer and the objectives is probably not necessary at the moment, and can be one persistent and automatic thing. The other update I would wish to happen would be indicators for certain objectives. Some general wayfinding towards the six different areas, or implementation of ‘clues’ that can help players find the frog in the tent to feed. After that, I suppose implementing as many hidden interactions and gags as possible would be what completes this game in future. As an aside, the documentation and uploading of this game is perfection. Well done!

Sinking About Willie

I like that this game has two comical stages, which I think can be developed further. So these are the moment when a player hits the failed game state and the one where the player holds on while chaos tries to pull him away. From the start (and because I didn’t build the game and played from the editor) I kept failing and it instantly reminded me of Boshy-like gameplay. So my suggestion would be to develop it further so it’s not an instant fail but one where the player has a chance to recover with a slimmer chance of succeeding, intensifying that moment.  The holding phase feels good at the start, but I feel like a mechanic is missing where the player can actually keep the game loop going by resetting the scene a little. I believe if these two stages are improved the player will be a lot more engaged with the game. This was still a good experience however. I look forward to any updates 🙂

Stagehand

This game piqued my interest in that it implemented a 2nd person perspective in the form of a camera pointed at the scene moving independently of the player yet still part of the game and it’s mechanics. The game runs smoothly and I played for a very good while. It was great finding out that bananas also served as props and could also be picked up from the set. I half expected some ones hidden in and around other objects but this was still a good experience. I guess the next step would be to figure out what limit the completed objectives need to meet and what could end the game, along with more interactions or npcs that could be affected. If an update is made I would look forward to playing more of this game ~

The Last Jest

I liked it, and played this several times. There’s always some comforting feeling while playing a deckbuilding type game, and this is no different. It had a good overall feeling, and I had fun freely choosing different options and seeing if it opened new ones to progress further. I think I got a handle on how to read their reactions, but I think the player needs to be told it more plainly in some way. One development I would like to suggest would be to somehow indicate if a certain combination has already been used, and to encourage reusing it if there’s new interactions for it available. That way a player can explore and progress without having to be as mindful about what has already been tried. Well otherwise, it was also just as fun to fail spectacularly at least once.

Trago(at)s

So at the game show, I found I struggled a lot with the controls and the pacing of this game. Oddly enough, once I got home I found the controls and general feel and pacing to be fine. It’s possible that I had trouble with the collision the most, and that’s something that should be adjusted if this were to update. The game had funny moments though, and the character itself was enjoyable. One drawback for this kind of game is that you hardly see the character’s face. To counter this you will have to either find ways so that the character faces the camera more, or, implement a bunch of cutscenes with some narration so players can get a good look and feel of whom they are playing. I loved that it felt more intense and like a horror game when in trouble. Definitely had me chuckling 🙂

Who’s Laughing Now

This is definitely not my type of game, even if there is multiplayer! But spamming the pun button did make up for my experience, where I was enjoying quite a lot of the punny dialogue. The spray was useful for marking where I’ve been too. Something that was dearly missed (even though it may have been intended) is indicating where the exit will lie on the compass. I did appreciate seeing a visual when you deactivate the dad joke monsters though, and that there was a laugh button for social settings. The first two levels were designed well as far as I could see and understand, and the monster design is nightmare fuel. However, I think it would have been a better experience to have respawning flashlight battery pickups and a recharge of bullets after a period of time instead of pickups. And a harder engage from the monsters once the light runs out of battery to avoid getting ‘stuck’ in the dark. Something like that anyways, to have a tighter loop. This game was great overall and played smoothly ~

Action shots / photos during the jam

Sixty (60) action shots survived the pre-screening this year. If you’d like to share photos with us to share freely, feel free to send them to contact@malmojamstoo.com!

The Hello video

Here is this year’s Hello video. Loved the enthusiasm!

The next Global Game Jam event will happen 20-26 January 2025.

Thank you!