Game Off 2023

By the end of October, when Adam went on a trip, there wasn’t much progress on the DarkFlow project. Suddenly, I came up with many ideas. Although I tried several models myself, none were quite satisfactory, so I thought of finding a talented team to join a Jam. In fact, the process was the other way around. When I signed up for Game Off 2023 (11.1 ~ 12.1), I met a team I liked.

Although small in number, Jeely Games, which had won Jam awards before, intrigued me. After listening to their introduction, I joined the team without hesitation to take on this Jam challenge. The first four days of the first week were the busiest. I completed most of the gameplay code within 72 hours of the Jam's start, much faster than anyone, including myself, expected.

Gradually, art and music were incorporated, and I ensured that no design request stayed with me for more than 48 hours. Most deliveries and tests were completed within two days of receiving the design requests. This made my third and fourth weeks much more relaxed. (Fortunately so, because in the third week, my son first had a fever for a few days and then broke his arm while playing. I had to rush to the hospital for his surgery after several sleepless nights. That week was a challenge for me.)

In the three days before submission, I got busy again. After the art and sound effects were in place, a lot of adjustments were made. I hurriedly completed all the sound and music code and debugging in the last few hours before submission, and was responsible for the final packaging.

Finally, in collaboration with the planner, we completed the submission at https://jeelygames.itch.io/synaptic in the early hours of the morning. At the deadline, I saw that 641 works were submitted, even though I remember over 8700 people had signed up for this Jam when registration initially opened.

This Jam, unlike my previous solo efforts, was a team battle. Although only 4 people (planner, artist, sound designer, programmer) completed the main content, we had clear plans and rhythms every step of the way, every week, every version had a clear purpose, design, and completion milestones. As a programmer, I mostly finished my work a few days in advance, leaving more time for other members. This was partly because we initially set a very small scope for the game to ensure a high level of completion. On the other hand, it benefited from the planner's thorough communication and rapid feedback, so I didn’t have to spend too much thought on game mechanics and details.

Thirty days can be a long or short time, and our final product was a game with 5-6 minutes of gameplay. But it was enough to get valid feedback and a clear market test. I really like this approach. It’s more scientific and confidence-building than blindly spending months or even years on a game that only I like without any market research, and it brings us one step closer to successfully creating an excellent game. This is what I always hoped to learn from the team, and it aligns with the intuition formed by my past twenty years of experience.

Today is the second day after submission, and we have already received four votes and feedback. At least it's a good start. I’m very grateful to the other members who allowed me to join this Jam: Sid Zhang: Producer, director, designer, original story; Zenos: Artist; Shizi: Sound designer, composer.

Through this competition, I have gained more confidence in my technical abilities. Independently undertaking the entire development of a complete game and ensuring that the game's changes and the continuous upgrading and refactoring of its architecture are feasible has been validated. In fact, this was my first time making a 2D game. The rapid learning did not cause me any trouble; I quickly adapted to all the design methods and implementation techniques of 2D, and applied them to this game.