How To Survive AdventureJam

A quick guide to getting the most out of your game jam experience without smashing yourself or your team (if you have one).

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1. Working With Constraints

Game jams are about creating or prototyping games within short timeframes. Some jams have additional rules, but the primary constraint, and possibly the constraint that provides the most interesting creative pressures is the time limit.

As developers, we pursue creative solutions to problems. Even though abusing your body to artificially extend available time is a default choice for many, it is a brute force approach for working around a limitation that instead should really be embraced.

1. Working With Constraints

The question to ask yourself is not "How much can I crunch in two weeks?" It's "How can I use the skills and tools I have available to comfortably create something interesting in two weeks?"

The answer, of course is "Through planning, prioritisation and understanding what is (and isn't) achievable."

2. Looking After Yourself

If you feel you do need to pull all nighters (you don't), try to make sure you do the following:

• Take breaks every 20 - 30 minutes to get up, stretch, do some light exercise and rest your eyes.
• Make sure you continue eating and drinking (fruit is best!).
• Avoid caffeine and excessive sugars (you'll get a short term boost, but you'll crash harder).

2. Looking After Yourself

Also, if you do go ahead with an all-nighter (don't), be sure to take these points into account:

• Understand your own limits and weigh up decreased efficiency against the extra time gained.
• Plan ahead and don't pull your all-nighter on the last night (you'll probably need to make hard decisions at the end, and you'll make better ones if you're rested).

3. Planning

The best thing you can do to help yourself through a jam is to understand what you're going to be doing. You'll have less you have to worry about and be able to make quicker decisions mid-project.

• Know your skills, know your tools, know your workflows.
• Experiment with art styles and systems design ahead of time.
• Identify the core experience you want to deliver.
• Understand your critical path.
• Cut out as many unknowns and uncertainties as possible.
• Identify and design around the impact of late features (!!!).

4. Prioritisation

Prioritising the right things can let you be more efficient with your efforts and give you a more complete project if you do run out of time.

• Identify the core experience you want to deliver.
• Front-load development that provides insight.
• Follow your critical path first, expand around that.
• Use your concept art as placeholder art.
• Get your game playable. As. Early. As. Possible.
• Get your game finishable. As. Early. As. Possible.

5. Tools

Make use of planning tools (diagrams, charts, etc.)...

• Use storyboards (layout insight).
• Use puzzle dependency charts (pacing/complexity insight).
• Use PERT charts (critical path insight).
• Use anything you think you can create quickly that helps you understand your process and progress at a glance.

P.S. You don't need expensive project management software to get use out of these - scrap paper and sticky notes are just as good!

5. Tools

... but don't be afraid to deviate!

• Make use of the insights you gain during development.
• Recognise when something's not working and another approach is needed.
• Respect the limits of your team members (if you have them) and adjust the load when necessary.
• Your charts and plans are there to help you make informed decisions and understand the impact of change, not to tie you down!

6. Disaster Avoidance

Reduce the impact of the crashes/hardware failure/power outages/accidents. Use alarms as reminders if you need.

• Save! Often!
• Use some kind of source control management/versioning system (git is trendy these days).
• Do off-machine backups of your project regularly (even a USB drive is fine so long as you eject it after each backup).
• Communicate! Make that everybody is clear on what work needs to be done if somebody becomes unavailable.

7. Outcomes

Things that matter (things that will lead you towards having a more-good experience if you focus on them) are:

• Experience.
• Skill growth.
• Interacting with other developers.
• Demonstrating that you can make something.
• Getting feedback on your work.
• Having a project you can continue on with if you like.
• Having a playable game.

7. Outcomes

Things that don't matter (things that will lead you towards having a less-good experience if you fixate on them) are:

• Having a polished game.
• Meeting your original vision.
• Awards.

7. Outcomes

... and more than anything else, HAVE FUN!

More information on AdventureJam can be found at AdvJam.com

For details on AdventureJam's history, visit Cheese Talks

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