Devs That Jam #3

Introduction

At the end of June 2024 I participated in another game jam. This time it was Devs That Jam, which is a 36 hour event. We actually won the jam!

If you are not familiar with game jams, here is a brief description:
Game Jams are creative events where individuals or teams come together to design and develop a complete game in a limited timeframe. These events emphasize collaboration, innovation, and rapid prototyping, and often revolve around a specific theme or challenge. Participants bring diverse skills such as programming, design, art, and music to create unique and often experimental games.

For this game jam, I worked with two of my friends that I met at one of my previous game jams. Finn is a programmer in the same role as me. So we are working together to speed up the development time. Dirk is a music composer who has done some music for our past jams. His music is always on point and he proved it again this time. Below you can see a short gameplay clip of our submission:

Game concept

As always we started with some brainstorming. Finn and I gathered ideas about the game jam theme “60 seconds”. We basically took two approaches on game ideas. The first one would be a timeframe to solve a single task. If you do not fullfill it in time or make a mistake earlier, you lose. An example would be a bomb defusing game.
The second approach is about getting as many points as possible during the timeframe of 60seconds. In my opinion the second approach is often better, because it gives the game more replayability. Also in terms of a game jam, it gives the players the opportunity to compete with each other.
Below you can see our different type of ideas:

As you can see, we did not just start with our first idea. At the beginning we really liked the idea of making a fire in 60seconds. But in the end, it is important to compare some game mechanics, the time it takes to create them, and the resulting fun for the player. The first rule of a game jam is always to think small … and then to make it even smaller. Also, we did not have an artist in our team, so we also had to keep in mind to choose a game idea that could be done with simple graphics.
In the end, we decided to go with the idea of destroying confidential data. The reason for this is the simplicity of the game mechanics required for this. Pick the data, destroy it and get points. All other features like different types of confidential data, combos or obstacles can be added on top of the already existing concept. When making games, you should always try to follow this principle. Even for bigger projects you want to publish.
To make this game fun, we wanted to stick to the theme and make it very hectic and chaotic. The idea of searching for confidential documents scattered around an office and then shredding them, seemed to fit that vibe.

First day

With the game idea in mind, we started writing a small game design document to get a better common understanding. After that we set up task for each other. We could reduce a lot of programming time using code from our previous projects. I encourage every developer to create a collection of small reusable code snippets (or use mine on this website ;). In particular we used a 3D player controller, a countdown system and a game starter kit of mine, which includes a user interface and a game, scene and audio manager.
For the rest of the day we implemented the basic game mechanics:

• Picking up objects
• Move objects to a shredder
• Drop objects
• Highscore system

We managed to implemented this in about 6-8hours.

Second day

After sleeping, we had about 16 hours to finish the project. We began by developing a tutorial scene to ensure players could easily grasp the game’s mechanics. Using the Polygon Office Asset Pack, we quickly populated our game with consistent, high-quality assets. We would have loved to have an artist on this project, but we didn’t have one, so we still tried to create a consistent look. Creating the map was our next step, focusing on an appealing and functional layout. The player should immediately understand what to do. Because of the silly and hectic style, we added rooms to the map for the player to explore. This would take time and create pressure to choose the right ones.
At this point we had sent some gameplay to our music composer Dirk. We also provided him with some reference tracks. He then created some great soundtracks to enhance the atmosphere of the game. The other sound effects were taken from https://freesound.org.
Post processing added visual polish with lighting and color effects. After some playtesting we fixed some bugs and improved the game feel with some more visual and sound effects. We also tweaked the player controls a bit.
In the end we were running out of time, so we only had 2 hours left for our Itch.io page to showcase our game and share it with the community. I recommend doing this sooner than later, because it always takes longer than you think to create a game capsule, take some screenshots, etc. Remember, if your capsule and screenshots are not visually appealing, other players may not play your game! So take your time.

Result

In the end, we managed to win the game jam! My personal opinion for the good result is the overall impression of a finished game. The controls, the look, and the music have a lot to do with it. Even though we didn’t have time for more features in the end, the basic mechanic is fun and people actually played multiple rounds to improve their scores. Another reason might be that there were “only” 42 entries, which makes it easier to stand out. Still, there were some other great entries that I expected to have a chance to win.

You can take a look at the results for yourself:

• Feedback from 22 ratings:
• Play it here: Strictly confidential - itch.io.

More

If you are looking for more general Game Jam tips, check out the lessons learned from my previous Game Jam post. Also, if you like small game jams, then I encourage you to participate in Devs That Jam. It takes place at the end of each month.

And now you!

• Have you attended a game jam recently?
• Share your experiences with short game jams and protoyping
• Let us know if you plan to attend a game jam and leave it below in the comments!

Screenshots