LUCA GALLI@Leyart86

PLAYER ONEVideogame Design for all

A Brief Game Jam Survival Guide

WHAT IS A GAME JAM?

• It is an event that allows a team of developers to realize prototypes of games in a limited time span.

• It involves game designers, artists, musicians, programmers...

• Dozens of Jams are organized each year

• Ludum Dare

• One Game a Month

• 7DFPS

• Experimental Game Play

• Paper Jam Game Jam!

WHAT IS A GAME JAM?

• At the beginning of the Jam, a theme is announced (a word, an image, a concept)

• The teams are then given limited time to develop an original game able to interpret at best the theme of the jam

• For instance:

Minimalism

Small world

Construction

You Get Only

One

Respawn

HOW DOES IT WORK?

THE GLOBAL GAME JAM

» The Global Game Jam 2015 was a 48 hour Game Jam during 23-25 January 2015

• 28800 Participants

• 97% surveyed would participate again

• 5438 games

» 518 locations

• 25 of which streamed the event LIVE via ustream.tv

» 78 countries

• 14 time zones

2009

«As long as we have each other,

we will never run out of problems»

2010

Deception

2011

Extinction

2012

2013

«The sound of a Heartbeat»

2014

"We don't see things as they are,

we see them as we are"

2015

"What do we do now?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ecb6VupzgA4

of Jamming

1. Team Building

2. Brainstorming Setup

3. Implementation

4. Finishing Touches

THE 5 PHASES OF JAMMING

You will need– Developers

– Audio & graphics artists*

– Game/level designers

– Coordinator

*Rare unicorns

TEAM BUILDING

The last two roles can be

fullfilled by anyone

Developers– Coding dark arts

– Need to split up tasks among them

• Graphics, Controls, Physics, UI, ...

– The less code overlap, the better!

– Need to teach/instruct artists on what formats they need

– Need to define how game/

level designer creates content

TEAM BUILDING

Graphics & Audio Artists– Wizards of the senses

– Need to split up tasks among them

• UI, background, characters, effects, ...

– Need to agree on an art style

– May need to create placeholder art early on

TEAM BUILDING

Game/Level Designer

– Does the content bits

– Needs to definemechanics

– Needs to define progression

the game

the game

– Needs to

– Needs to feedback

create "levels"

playtest and giveto devs and artists

TEAM BUILDING

Coordinator

• Makes sure everyone knows what to do

• Keeps track of things to bedone

• Keeps track of dependencies between team members

• Keep track of Time

• Keeps track of human needs (food, sleep)

TEAM BUILDING

– If you have no developers, look into Construct 2

– If you have no artists, use preexisting art or

programmer art

– If you have no game designer, everybody

becomes a game designer

– If you have no coordinator, pick one person

– If you are alone, you get to do all the things :P

TEAM BUILDING

BRAINSTORMING

• Get a high level understading of your

game:

Genre

Mechanics

Setting & Story

Art Style

• Take time limits into account

FPS, MMORPG, RTS are probably not

your best bets

• Think outside the box!

TO-DO LIST

1. Gather ideas from everyone

2. Pick most promising ones via note

3. Define genre & game mechanics

• Use pen & paper!

4. Define setting & story

5. Define art style

• Let artsists draw quick mockups

Don‘t

Don‘ttime

be afraid to throw things away

be afraid to iterate, take your

BRAINSTORMING

Technology AestheticsMechanics Story

A. ShootingB. JumpingC. Turn basedD. HidingE. BuildingF. CollectingG. CraftingH. MatchingI. Climbing

1. Unity2. Flash3. Oculus Rift4. Wii controller5. Unreal6. Photoshop7. Mouse and

Keyboard8. Leap Motion9. Board game

a) Animeb) Low polyc) Cell shadedd) Realistice) 8 bitf) Isometricg) Noirh) Art Nouveaui) Surrealj) Horrork) Steampunkl) Cyberpunkm) Japanese

Woodblock

i. Rescue the princess

ii. Amnesiaiii. Rise to poweriv. Escapev. Survivalvi. You are the villain!vii. Hero’s Journeyviii. Rescuing yourselfix. Personal

Developmentx. Narrative gratia

narrativexi. Satirexii. American Fat Fast

Food eater

GAME MECHANICS

Pattern Recognition

Wikipedia stands to knowledge as BoardGameGeek stands to games.

Betting/Wagering

Line-Drawing

Tile-PlacementPattern Building

MemoryHand Management

Action Programming

Auction/Bidding

Partnership

Possible, meaningful game mechanics:

Take Inspiration!

Goals

• Get a detailed understanding of your game

What will the developers have to do?

What will the artists have to do?

What the game designers have to do?

• Define interfaces between all team members

How do developers work with each other?

How do artists get their art into the game?

How do game designers create game content?

• Define tasks and their order for every team member!

The coordinator is responsible for keeping track of tasks

SETUP

SETUP

TO-DO LIST

1. Developers agree on platform & tools

to use

2. Artists agree on artstyle

3. Developers and artists agree on how

to get art into the game

4. Developers and game designer

agree on how to create content

5. Each subteam defines their initial

tasks

6. Coordinator keeps track of things

Scrum-like boards are a plus

Goals– Get the damned game done!

– Ensure to have a playable prototype

• Prioritize tasks accordingly

• Game mechanics first to see if they are

early

fun!

– Realize you‘ll likely not get everything done!• Which is why you should have something playable

almost all times

• Cut corners, kill features, focus on the core of your game

at

IMPLEMENTATION

Tips for Developers• Use source control (git, SVN), do NOT use

ZIP files, e‐mail!

Don‘t code for re‐use

Don‘t optimize – you have no time for that!

shared drives,

•

Try to create a modular‐design so people don‘t depend on each other to much

• One person responsible for graphics, one for UI, one for AI, one for controlls, etc.

• Make surepossible

game designer can create content as early as

• Make sure artists export to easy to use formats • Make sure artists work for some standard resolution!

• Make sure artists & game designer understand limitations

IMPLEMENTATION

•

•

Tips for Artists– Make it easy to export your art to the proper format

– Make sure everyone uses the same coordinate system/resolution!

– Use descriptive names for files• Good: badguy-‐walk-‐left.png , Bad: w_1_2.png

– Have one shared folder (Dropbox, Google Drive) containing assets ready for the game designer/ developers to integrate

• Don‘t put multiple versions of the same thing there!

• Have whatever local folder structure for work in progress assets

IMPLEMENTATION

Tips for Game Designers

– Talk to the developers about what‘s what‘s not

possible and

– Focus on simple mechanics but try to put in atwist

– Favorlevels

– If you

simple level-design over "brainy" complex– they take to long to design!

have down‐time help/be the coordinator!

IMPLEMENTATION

Tips for Coordinators– Ensure that everyone can stay busy

• Gather the team to discuss new tasks or current tasks

– Check on progress regularly

reprioritize

• If something takes to long, as the team to reprioritize/kill features

– Make sure everybody is reminded they are human• Make everyone take breaks

• Make people go to sleep

• Make people eat and drink

– If you have down-time, take on a task you can do!

IMPLEMENTATION

Goals

– Submit a playable game before the deadline :D

FINISHING TOUCHES

TO-DO List

1. Feature freeze 2‐3 hoursbefore the deadline

Create a build for submission

Get team together and decide what to polish in remaining hours

2.

3.the

4. If polishing works out, createa new build for submission

FINISHING TOUCHES

– Sleep!

– Eat & Drink!

– Take breaks!

– Make new friends!

FINISHING TOUCHES

WRONG!

ADDITIONAL GRAPHICS TOOLS

SpartanAseprite

SPRITESHEETS PACKER/ATLASES

Texturepacker GUI

(Free alternative to TP)

Spritesheet Packer

Leshy Spritesheet Tool Shoebox

Texturepacker

Dame

Editor

?

Most important– Do i know it already?

– Do my teammates know it?

– Is it the tool i‘m fastest with

Bonus– Does it

– Does it

fit my budget?

export to HTML5?

If you didn‘t use it before the jam, don‘t use itduring the jam!

HOW TO PICK?