Time Out Postmortem

Overview

Time out was my submission for the 2021 Global Game Jam with the theme "Lost and Found." I think I've typed that sentence in at least 6 different places, so here I'd like to go a little more into the reasoning behind it rather than what it was.

Game Jams have been fairly digital these days, and it's getting harder and harder to find teams. Likewise, this jam happened directly after a very exhaustive week of other work, so I wasn't sure I could commit to an online team even if I did find one. Rather than going for a massive scope with an absolutely out-of-this-world idea, I decided to come up with something simple and fun to do on my own.

My roommate had never been part of a jam before, and she said it would be fun to dabble in some of the art if she had free time. Before long, she was as committed as I was, and we both cranked out a game we were very proud of!

My Role

So, what was my role if I had help? Generally speaking, I was the overall idea and design, coming up with how the player would interact in the world, what they would be doing, and the setting/theme. After that, it was mostly just up to coding, as the point of the game was cemented fairly early on. Putting everything together was also my job, so the kids shaking, the teacher holding the main character, the dialogue boxes and quest systems were all designed by me, but the art, level layout, and dialogue was done by my roommate.

What Went Right

Simple Scope Because I was so tired, it was agreed that the game would be very simple. The original concept was to just have the player walk around mazes and find toys, but we thought it would be more fun if it was at the behest of quest givers. Had we not gone with that, the game would have been a little too basic to be proud of, and we may not have even needed the time we had. With the very simple game we had in mind, it was just enough to fill our time and make it fun without overwhelming us.

Complimentary Strengths

I was certain I'd be going into the jam alone, but with the help of my roommate, we were able to get way more done than if I had to solo it. She doesn't know much about coding, and my art leaves a lot to be desired, so it was lucky that we complimented each other so well. Without a second thought, I went to design and coding while she cranked out art piece after art piece. I actually feel a little bad, because there was more art than there was time to put into the game, but that's why we would like to keep working on it!

Learning

I know I sing the praises of how great the internet is for explaining coding pretty often, but it never ceases to amaze me how much information is so readily available. I had never even touched a dialogue system before but was quickly able to implement it without even the slightest hiccup due to tutorials from people like Brackeys. The best part is, they were modular enough that I was able to make it the way I wanted rather than just blindly copying code and hoping it looked good. I'm really happy with how it turned out!

What Went Wrong

Fatigue

My roommate feels differently, but as previously stated, I was exhausted before even entering the jam. I also tended to stay up a bit later and wake up a bit earlier than her, so my blood started to become pure caffeine by a certain point. I will say, I've learned not to try to spend the full 48 hours on a jam, but even the time I did put in left me fairly drained. As the jam was nearing its end, I was coding more and more sloppily as a result of both rush and being too tired to solve the problems in more eloquent ways.

Time

While we did manage to get a complete game done in such a little amount of time, some of the things that would have made it better were not able to be added. Some of the most basic necessities like a control scheme players could see or an explanation of the quests never made it in, making a few playtesters quit before being able to try anything. I can forgive it because it's a game jam game, but that definitely should have made it into the final build. Oh well.

Lessons Learned

Simple can be Better

There aren't many short projects that I'd like to keep working on afterward, but this one was by far one of the closest competitors to making me put down my current title. The scale of what it would take to keep working on it is so small, the playstyle is so simple, and the art is so charming, that it really wouldn't take much to keep working on it. We really really liked the game and think it would be very fun to finish up despite the fact that the core gameplay loop is so basic. Playtesters seemed to love it as well, showing me that it doesn't need to be absolutely earth-shattering to be fun.

Cohesion

One issue I tend to bump into a lot when working on Game Jams is that the team rarely has a solid idea of what is going on. Often, everyone is fighting to have their hand in the cookie jar for design, and while I love feedback and input, a lot of times people will go off on their own ideas for so long that when they come back to introduce it to the game, it either can't be added or off balances the rest of it. This game went much better because we had very consistent communication. With both of us in the same room, everything being added was discussed before being worked on, saving both time and effort.

This has definitely taught me that if I work on a team, either they need to follow very closely to a document, or they need to check in frequently if they intend to make any changes. Myself included, of course. This isn't to say "the game won't be good if I'm not in charge," so much as "the game won't be good if we make two separate games and come back at the end of the day with our versions confused with each other."

Try New Things

I tend to try to stick within my wheelhouse of genres and coding practices that I'm comfortable with, especially when it comes to cranking something out quickly like a game jam game. This jam showed me that it really isn't the end of the world to spend some of the time learning new techniques in order to add things I'd never tried before. Going forward, I definitely want to just come up with an idea that I find fun and figure out the logistics later.

Overall

As I say with every game, overall, I'm very happy with how this turned out. Actually, I'm very very happy with how it turned out. It has such a solid and complete gameplay loop that isn't just complete because it's a never-ending arcade. It's actually finished, and it shows off everything we were hoping for. If we were to continue working on it, we'd add a few more quality of life things, but otherwise I think this was a great example of what the full version would look like. It was a lot of fun to work on, it turned out great, and even if the design concepts are a bit too basic to consider it my top 6 games for advertising my design abilities, it is easily in my top 6 for just what I've made.