#MyFirstGameJam

[good-fwiend-in-wome]

I HAVE MADE A VIBEO GANE

It's a tiny little brawler type thing where you fight monsters to keep the light around you from going out. It runs in a browser, please try it, I'm insanely proud of it. I learned so much making it and had a blast too.

[tehstripe]

It's done! Or as done as it's going to be, because today is the deadline for @myfirstgamejam

FashionFLASH is my second complete game ever and my first game jam game, and I'd really love if you could check it out! I learned a lot while making it and had a blast putting together all of the various features, even if there's still more I'd like to add. It's free to play in browser!

Features

Use your computer to browse through online trends, buy new clothing, and upgrade your FashionFLASH account!

Go into your closet to choose the outfit that best matches the trends of the day!

Post your outfits online to get followers, earn cash, and receive helpful* feedback on your fashion choices!

*helpfulness of user-generated feedback is not guaranteed by FashionFLASH

[marzgamez]

HI!!!!!

I DID THE ITCH MY FIRST GAME JAM!!!

My Last Speed Date - The dating sim for people who love deranged characters.

Disclaimer: NONE of the dateable characters are based off of real people. Anything similar to real life, regarding dateable characters, is a coincidence.

Desperate for a love life, you decide to give speed dating a chance. What you had hoped to be a normal evening of trying to find the love of your life, was far from normal. Though, you could hopefully still find the love of your life among these (mostly)non-human killers.

Please check it out if you are intrested!!!

[lazytunes]

Doing a gamejam game about a witch going out to get milk. Had to make her kinda fast but shes a cutie!

[bernadinesweetspot]

Day 1: My First Game Jam!

On the evening of July 20th, I set my alarm for 8am. This is because I want to participate in My First Game Jam summer 2023, for some reason.

The theme was announced at 8am sharp in my time zone. Whilst entirely optional, the theme they agreed upon to inspire jammers was 'cycles'.

I wanted to brainstorm a little before attempting something anywhere near coding, so I browsed some story prompts, opened up OneNote and attempted to map out a story arc, as well as defining characters and locations, and additionally writing up a reference section to link to any resources and credit any assets.

I had decided to use Twine as my engine of choice. The last time My First Game Jam was hosted, I had planned to learn and use Unity but unfortunately bit off more than I could chew, which resulted in me not submitting a game at all and shamefully lurking in the discord's #general channel.

At first I was intimidated but as my answer to the @daily question in the discord, my second goal was to "actually read the documentation" of my chosen engine, which unsurprisingly was very helpful. I managed to whip up a prototype for the entirety of the prologue for this small game whilst learning to use conditional variables.

My first goal though was to "actually submit something this time" which, with the way things had been going today, seemed like it could be genuinely plausible. But upon reading deeper into the topic of variables, I suddenly thought: "I could make the game I initially wanted to make in unity, but was too chicken to attempt."

So I dug out the old school notebook and pens and got to work.

I found my handscribbled gameloop I had made for the previous jam, and went about inputting this loop into Twine. I ended up with a simple game with a beginning that reset all your scores, an end that displayed your scores once you completed the game and, if you played your cards right, could be played infinitely.

In looking up different types of variable rules for this game prototype, I found you could balance player choices with luck probabilities. Using these types of variables would give more unique outcomes, which in turn could mean more replayability for the game. I had a brief discussion with my fiance about weighted probabilities, but this is definitely an area that could do with some more research (and at this time of night, probably tomorrow!).

So in summary:

- Berni woke up

- The theme was announced

- She answered the @daily question

- Berni brainstormed an extremely simple game

- She then read the documentation for Twine and SugarCube

- Berni was like fuck dis I can make ma game BIGGER and b e t t e r...

- She decided her two goals tomorrow would be:

1. implement CSS into her game

2. expand sections of text that could be randomised

[starstabberzirc]

I'm planning on joining @myfirstgamejam (runs July 22-August 6) which means if everything goes like it should I could have a working prototype/demo (using GameMaker2, tentatively) in just a few weeks! Which, uh, means I should probably stop making new concept art and actually figure out which things are actually going in there. Any favorites?

[myfirstgamejam]

My First Game Jam 2024 is on!

The optional theme is: “Light”

Here’s a few tips and links to get the most out of the jam.

Make a dev log on the community!

A development blog is a blog in which a game developer or team talks about the process they’ve made over the course of the game’s creation. Maintaining a devblog keeps your audience in the know and helps facilitate productivity so you’ll have something to blog about. It also serves as a record of problems you encounter as well as the solutions you find for those problems.

Development logs are essentially the same thing, except we’ll be using the jam forums rather than a blog. However, you are free to use both the forums and your own blog as you develop your game.

Doing so is not necessary at all, but check out all the logs from last jam! In order to get the most out of your jam experience, it is vital that you interact with your fellow jammers and the community surrounding it. They’ll provide valuable feedback and support to help you along the way. So please, we encourage you to mingle, post in other logs, and of course post your own!

In addition, you are encouraged to add images and gifs. Here’s some programs to help facilitate that:

ScreenToGif

Licecap

Start your dev log today!

Respect your community!

Take a moment to review our code of conduct. We strive to create a safe, supportive, and productive environment, and we appreciate your efforts to make our community welcoming for everyone!

Post daily updates!

Post screenshots or fun mishaps to your dev log, twitter, tumblr, or your own blog to track your progress and get feedback. Tag your posts as #MyFirstGameJam so other jammers can find your work! To get the most exposure you can also tag #gamedev or #ScreenshotSaturday for Saturdays! Share your work and link back to your devlog to get feedback.

Manage your time and tasks!

We have a list of of useful time and task management tools for staying on top of your project. Set goals early and keep track of how fast it takes you to reach them!

Use our resources!

Still deciding on an engine? No problem. Check out this post to see what fits your project best or try the sortingh.at!

We have also started migrating our resource lists over to a new jam resources wiki! Here's some direct page links:

Unity resources

Godot resources

Gamemaker resources

RPGMaker resources

Ren'py resources

Twine resources

Free assets

Resources tag on blog

If you still have questions about the jam itself, take a look at our rules page!

Join the jam chat!

Want to share your work or ask for help? Or even just take a break from dev? Join discord chat here! (Please note you must be at least 14 years old to join!) Feel free to say hi and share your work! If you need help with a specific skill or engine, you can @/Unity or @/2D Art to notify mentors. If you think you would like to help other people with some part of games–join us as a mentor! You can get notifications when someone has a question about engines or skills you have expertise in!

Here’s a quick guide to how you can become a mentor.

Heed advice from previous jammers

This jam we took the time to write up a quick summary of advice from previous jammers: Know how to scope.

You can read about the number one game jam killer here!

Take care of yourself!

Game-making can be exhausting as well as rewarding! You are more important than your work, and we compiled a list of helpful tools for getting the most out of you!

Aaaand good luck!

Game dev can be exciting, frustrating, and extremely rewarding. We hope to give you the tools to help you succeed in your goals in the next two weeks!

[thedurvin]

I’m joining MyFirstGameJam and this is my first time using a Discord server with a lot of people and I DO NOT understand how so many of y’all use this as a major communication platform. Maybe there’s some setting I haven’t figured out yet but it’s like having a few dozen text conversations going at once and seeing the texts from all of them in chronological order

[draftingtides]

myfirstgamejam usually starts around july maybe I will wait til then..

Guys I may be developing a solo journaling rpg

[violentlydefending]

“It’s Not You, It’s Your Trauma”, a.k.a. “I Was Transported to Another World to do Mundane Tasks!?”

The world’s most prosaic isekai.

---

Stuck in an unfamiliar world inside a library that records the entirety of its history through mysteriously magical means, Sammy Baxa must... dust the shelves? Well, at least she's got a friend to accompany her while she waits for a way back home.

"It's Not You, It's Your Trauma" is a short character-focused game with lots of dialogue and lots of silly faces and just a little bit of drama.

If you’re interested, please feel free to check it out on itch.io HERE!

[petricakegames]

Devlog: My First Game Jam (Day Three)

Folks, I don't mean to alarm anyone, but we've got a first level complete

Okay, yes, it's a little on the empty side. BUT! It exists. This morning this thing did not exist and now? Now, it does. Behold the power of creativity.

The rest of the dev day is going to be polishing some of the assets and getting into the nitty-gritty of gameplay details. So far I feel very on track and I think I might actually be able to produce the game I wanted to (knocks on every piece of wood in the house)

It's also a holiday in the US so I think some otome game playing is in order. Hmm, what to play...

[cerberus-writes]

GAME JAM DEV LOG (DAY 01)

i’ve decided to indulge in a little game jam project as a treat for finishing this semester. it’s a mostly-linear story centering around small snippets of interactions, written in twine (my beloved) with some attempts at integrating bitsy, mostly for aesthetic reasons but also just for like. Vibes. u kno how it is

[tehstripe]

Day 3 of the game jam, and the core game loop is nearly done! i did a bunch of programming today which was a nice break from the constant drawing i was doing for days 1 and 2. there's some polishing of the menus and transitions to do for sure, but for now its just nice to have everything working. more details under the cut!

First thing I programmed today was the computer screen. The other two tabs up top are able to be clicked on and they'll change the screen, but nothing shows up there yet because that will be where the shop goes! The comments there generate randomly each day based on whatever the current style trends are, so they're meant to give hints about what you should wear to impress the fickle whims of social media.

Next up is the closet! Each item in there has several tags that will help determine if that article of clothing will help you or hurt you for your social media post. Pleasantly surprised by how smooth it was to implement this feature, honestly!

And last is the JUDGEMENT ZONE. Based on how well your outfit matches the daily trends, you'll earn money and followers, and those numbers will scale up depending on the number of followers you have, so there's the potential for exponential growth. But watch out! Post a bad outfit, and you'll lose followers instead! There's also some randomly generated comments that will give you a sense of why your outfit succeeded or failed.

Tomorrow I'm going to be back to drawing some more clothing options, since the next major core mechanic to build out is the shop, but there is currently nothing for you to buy.

And again, if you'd like your username to be one of the ones that gets used for the random posts, let me know! (Also taking clothing item suggestions.)

[deliverance-the-game]

You are the Messenger. Your job is to deliver messages. Get in, get out. Simple, really.

Now, it’s time to put your life on the line to deliver the most important and dangerous message yet. A bad omen has driven the lands into a frenzy, and the Prophecy foretells that the Chosen One needs to be found and awoken to bring peace back to the lands.

Embark on a quest to seek the Chosen One to help restore balance to the world, or witness the world succumb to chaos and catastrophe..

Travel across the lands and find the legendary Chosen One!

Bond with your merry band of advisors, scholar, and captain!

Befriend, romance, or even antagonise your companions.

4 romance options

Restore balance to the world before it’s too late...

[bruisedconscience]

My poor laptop isn’t loading most of the images on Itch.io after I exported my first 3D game in Unity and it is clearly overheating. I just saved everything and put it to sleep 🤣 Letting it cool off for 30ish mins while I have a snack & relax. :’p Then I can submit my Newly Zipped File to the itch.io @myfirstgamejam! My first 3D game in Unity or Ever! (I followed a stellar Udemy course for this one.)

[bernadinesweetspot]

Day 2: My First Game Jam!

At the end of my last blog post, I had decided I wanted to achieve two things today:

1. implement some CSS;

2. expand and randomise sections of text.

I feel like I can safely say I met both of those goals today!

Most of the morning and afternoon were taken up by reading through CSS documentation, mainly using W3 schools as reference. I then put what I had learned (or relearned... lots of my knowledge of CSS and HTML coding came from my college years, which I can admit was about... 12 years ago~) into a simple stylesheet that my twine game can use.

This involved thinking about certain design aspects. Whilst I could easily decide on what fonts would be used for headers vs text, the sizing of borders and styling of hyperlinks, I had not yet chosen what colour palette I wanted to use for my game.

I frequently use pinterest as a low effort mood and idea board, and I already had a board that I had saved plenty of my favourite colour schemes in. These have mainly been used as inspiration for bitsy games or games that use less than 8 channels of colour. However, when browsing the ones I had saved over the years, I found none had that post box aesthetic (whatever that actually is...). so I searched for palettes with a post box/mail type theme.

I limited it down to three options, but I most liked the last palette I had referenced (it's always the same, it's the last one you try!). This probably wont be my final colour palette, but it's been nice to not have to think about it again, and should I wish to change the hex values, I know exactly where and how to make those changes.

After mucking about with CSS, I switched over to randomising my text segments. This was easily than I had imagined, only using the either() function in sugarcube. Now each point defining passage has a 50% chance of having different text in the storyline! I hope that with this change, my game could be a bit more replayable.

Randomising my suspicious scores alongside my happiness meter proved a bit more tricky... and I wish I could tell you how I fixed it but I don't quite know what I did?

At some point I was super embarrassed because I had a functional game before, which then changed to a non-functional game and when trying to troubleshoot why, I was greeted with a  whole ass page of + 4 repeating. I wish I got a screenshot but I also am grateful I no longer have to look at an entire screen of + 4 + 4 + 4 over and over and over...

Finally, after losing some steam since it is currently midnight over here, I jiggled around my twine wysiwyg passages into a more readable format. This wasn't particularly hard but my fiance had a good point about flow chart readability, and I trusted his opinion due to his history and experience with other pieces of software that depended on flow charts (for example, Magic).

Other than that, I might call it a day! What I'd like to do tomorrow is:

Refining score probabilities using maths (will likely need a helping hand to make gameplay balanced);

Adding more functionality and random text segments;

Creating a new level wherein your suspicion meter could advance you to a promotion? Unsure... stay tuned!

Over and out!-