I am simultaneously happy with current prospects, and fried. I inadvertently spent three hours doing design with another teammate when I planned to use that time getting started on sound effects and maybe a dash of art concepting. Design is one of the two roles I planned on going into this game jam, but, well, life finds a way.
The core concept started coming together at about 8 p.m. local time. Our team sorted out its roles and load well enough for everyone’s skill level and time available. Once the details started coming together is when design chaos ensued. Design entropy? Something. There were merely a lot of options, and we had a bit of trouble nailing down the core gameplay loop briefly. It happens. Then I had an inadvertent hour-long talk about respective dev and lifestyle backgrounds between myself and the last other teammate still present. It was great building camaraderie with them, much as I was at the end of my perceived energy.
Here I sit at 1:30 in the morning, and now I feel much less loaded mentally speaking. There are less people here, maybe 40-50 of the initial ~300, so that might be factoring in due to reduced noise levels. In any case I find myself glad. I have some energy back, and I’m beginning some sound effect work before I end my night. I’ll probably sleep at ~2am. Team meeting at 9:30am! If we make it. 10 would still be fine.
The design conversation ended well with my teammate, too. There was a lot to fill out in the design document, but it got me thinking and re-thinking a few aspects of our game concept. In the end I pitched something that the other designer thought fit great and helped course-correct our plans. That felt good. I hope we can expand and capitalize tomorrow. I’ve only been to three or four game jams so far, but Saturday or Day 2 seems to always feel like the “longest straightaway” to drive on. The main or primary piece that sets the stage for the last partial day of work.
Oh, and this year’s keynote videos were puzzling to say the least. I feel like last year’s GGJ intro was nearly ideal. This year the direction of the video production seems like a complete reversal. Did we get trolled? The tone was off-balance between the two main intros and both of them piqued the curiosity of the few people who weren’t laughing for half of the duration. I don’t necessarily think that the ultra-pensive video and the funky aerobics video were terrible by themselves, but… what made those more desirable than the balanced, well-designed intro we had last year? It felt really baseless and out-of-step; and I don’t mean that in a traditional or cultural lens. Curious minds would like to know what happened.
Anywho. Back to tinkering with sound effects. I hope to make our game a little more precious with my audio contributions in addition to the design direction. Tomorrow is the decider for pace and how much the game gets polished after the essentials are complete. Sweet dreams, universe.