I like to try and do a write up every time I finish a project, mostly to organize my own thoughts but also because there's so much mystery around game dev that I really just want to be transparent in how I approach projects.  Maybe it'll help someone else, maybe it'll just help me organize myself better for the next thing I make.

I've done a few jams before this, Ludam Dare being the biggest and most frantic, I would say.  And knowing how that goes I already had a game plan going into KenneyJam.

Preplanning

So there's only so much preplanning you can do with a jam because part of the challenge is being able to make a game materialize out of thin air with a surprise theme.  I've been playing a lot with Ren.py lately so I was already hoping the theme would be something I could work into a visual novel/dating sim style game.   I also spent some time just browsing Kenney assets so that when the time came, I would be able to cut down on how long it would take me to find what I needed.  (I immediately really like the Animal Head packs and was already hoping to be able to use them). 

For music, I already rely on Kevin MacCleod for free assets so I browsed his works for a few tracks that seemed promising.  If you haven't, you should definitely check him out on YouTube and at his own site, Incompetech and ALSO if you can, send this man a couple bucks because his tracks are high quality, incredibly varied, and in everything from gaming Youtubes to professionally released projects.  Another Asset Jesus, if you will.

Planning

Once the Jam's theme is released my strategy is to give myself uninterrupted brainstorming time.  This part is possible the hardest part of the jam, at least for me.  Scope is, I think, the biggest challenge we all face as game devs.  We all have ideas but wrangling them into something we have the time, money, and resources to pull off is incredibly difficult and in the context of a Jam, its even harder. 

Basically my brainstorming process is to just rapid fire a lot of idea- overarching game themes, mechanics, characters, story points, anything really.  Once I have a beefy enough list i can start stringing things together.  Here's what my brainstorm notes looked like for KenneyJam:

Sorry my handwriting is atrocious.

You can see that I obviously had ideas for a full game going on here, this is well beyond what I could get done in a single weekend as a lone dev.  But jams are about prototyping and prototyping quickly and this was enough meat for me to work with.  At the beginning I thought about implementing a "scoring" system for the dates like how you see in dating sims, however to save time I ended up taking the more "visual novel" approach where the main character gets to choose.

Elaborating on the theme of rotation and speed dating, I also came up with an additional mechanic to not only rotate the available dates but also the POV as the main character was drawn into conversations happening next to them.  While interesting, the limited storytelling of working with primarily dialog and visuals made this too confusing to sort through under such a strong deadline.

Also it becomes painfully obvious that I come from a writing background, you can literally see I basically outlined a whole, very full story.  Nine whole scenes to take you through having three conversations with each partner, interrupting conversations with the others, a wrap up/recap, and a date scene.  There was no way I was going to get that far in a couple days but its easier for me to come up with more and trim then to try and add more later.  And again, this is an exercise in prototyping.

You can also see that I had extremely vague archetypes in mind for the characters, even though the didn't really stick to them very hard.  I wanted Lup to be sort of an exuberant but well meaning extrovert/ friendly tough guy, Alle to be a quiet nerdy type, shy and introverted but very into gaming and internet culture, and Paca to be kind of an eboy-lite, nice and fun but opinionated and deep into "Nerd" Internet Culture.   These character types were sort of  the guiding force while I was writing their dialog, however I also sort of let the attitude of each naturally develop as it happened.   Funfact, I named all the characters based on their Latin species/family names.  Lupus, alces, and pachyderm.

Getting Underway

Art and art assets are time consuming so I did those first.  I wanted UI to be eye-catching so I recolored many UI elements from Kenney into the pink/magenta color palette I had chosen.  (I always choose a color palette for a project as early as possible, and stick to it as rigidly as I can.  It helps keep the project more professional looking by staying cohesive as it develops).  UI, the title card, and the character models took me most of the first day to put together.  There was some experimentation that ate up time but overall I'm pleased with how everything turned out.

I actually started out with the Pixel Emoticons and some of the Kenney pixel fonts but they clashed with a lot of the rounded characters and I didn't feel like the text was as legible as it could have been.  Instead, I opted for bolder and rounder text mostly for readability and the slightly cleaner look.

One of the things I needed to do was make sure the characters were sufficiently personable and actually likeable.  I knew my writing could do a lot of that lifting but it turns out adding silly features like eyebrows and smiles from the Modular Character pack really helped make them more likeable.

Something I learned from KenneyJam: Eyebrows are really important to character design.

After all that art, I jumped onto scripting.  Coding/scripting is definitely one of my weakest skills when it comes to game dev and I usually struggle quite a lot.  I anticipated this not to be incredible difficult, per se, but I knew it would be time consuming given my general level of comfort.  Ren.py- thank god- is an easy, wonderful tool that helps me compensate some of my coding weakness.

By this stage, I was ready to "trim the fat".  It became clear that my original scope of the project was overblown.  I think "ruthlessly cutting away creative content you made" is definitely a difficult skill to learn.  I learned it as a writer/editor and it doesn't usually feel good to scrap content you think could be interesting or actually like but delivering the finished product in a state that is whole and complete and good ultimately has to take a higher priority.  I think being able to compromise with yourself on your original image for any given project is the key to avoid that deathbound cycle of making endless improvements to something and never finishing it.  

But regardless, that's how I sort of navigated what content needed to be shelved in order for me to actually finish something playable on time.

Besides a last minute snafu with the game not registering if you had already spoken to a certain character, I was able to complete the code and submit the game a little early, much to my relief and immediately treated myself to a nice nap.

The Takeaway

I think the most important thing to takeaway here, for me, is that Jams have a very specific goal.  Its to teach prototyping and scope, skills that you can't just learn without hands on experience.  Running a small game company, scope is everything for me.  My resources are limited and I need to maximize them, complete projects, and move on to the next idea in a timely fashion.  Jams are probably the fastest way to get a grip on those skills- though I definitely can't say that I've perfected them.   I think its one of those ongoing learning experiences, honestly, something that's almost impossible to quantify and a constant uphill battle for gamedevs with resource caps (so... that's all of us, I think).  But jams continue to be possibly the strongest, most efficient tool for honing it.

Anyway.  Thanks for reading my thoughts on KenneyJam 2021 and thank you to those of you who played, rated, and commented on Animal Speed Dating.  A jam's other use is building community and I'm grateful we have such a good one here.