Right, high time I finally got to making a post mortem!

hello

Having participated in GMTK 2020, the largest game jam I have ever participated in and with the most participants I've ever seen in a game jam (18 thousand people, jesus, thank you Itch.io for holding up and not going under),  it was certainly daunting, but nonetheless I pulled through, so here's what I did, learned, and what to improve on next.

 The rights:

Hell yeah

The core mechanic and theme

The first build of the game

Just before the jam started, I changed by perspective on the theme. Originally I saw it as a liability, something to just tack onto an idea I originally had and then run with, but this time was different. This time I instead saw the theme as an advantage, something to instead build a game around, and it certainly produced great results in terms of the core mechanic.

The central game mechanic, with the theme at the very centre of it, was both strong and flexible enough to allow a decent enough gameplay without too much code and work put into it. This allowed me to finish the main mechanic within somewhere of 2 hours of the project starting, and left alot of room for other stuff. Furthermore, because of how simple it was, it was easy to design and build levels around it along with adding additional side mechanics to complement the main gameplay.

All in all, this allowed for a solid foundation for the game to be built on, without taking too much time and effort, something I will definitely keep doing for future jams and projects.

TDLR: Have a strong core mechanic that is also flexible enough for a decent range of gameplay around it, preferably with the theme woven into it.

But how did I come up with it? Well, then we move onto:

The planning and thinking phase

The papers of plans for Heistmaster

Although I've been doing game jams since Ludum Dare 39, GMTK 2020 was the first ever jam where I actually sat down and properly planned  the game from the start along with coming up with a good game idea, and I've learned alot from both this experience and the advice of others. To start with, there are a plethora of ways of ways to come up with a good idea, but two pieces of advice that I received on the GMTK discord greatly helped me along:

"write down everything that comes to mind associated with the theme. Then start to look at how those words and ideas could lead to a game that already exists. Then pick one of those games that you like or think you can manage to create- that gives you the core of your game idea, the words and images that connect to that. Then start twisting that game's mechanics to emphasise some and de-ephasise others until you have something unrecognisable from the base game that you used as inspiration. Make that" - Walrusware

"Practice!
Though I don't know how good my ideas are, I've heard and read a lot about "idea generation" being a skill you can improve on with just practice.

Carmack had a good talk (...as all of his talks are) about "antifragile" idea generation. The gist of it is: don't get attached to your ideas, they are not part of you and don't reflect your worth as a person. Once you have an idea - attack it, find flaws in it. That's how you refine it and figure out if it's worth pursuing

Another great designer I used to follow talked about writing out your ideas as soon as you have them. Because when you're nursing an idea in your head you become attached to it, you start to value it. Instead just put it out and get that stuff out of your head - forgetting your ideas that way will get you used to generating new ones, faster and better" - Taugeshtu

In this case I followed the latter's advice, and after thinking up the main idea of Heistmaster started attacking and refining it. One case was the 'Move mode', where originally the player would randomly spew bullets in random directions. Had I not thought further I might have tried it, but after I attacked it, it was clear that this would provide not very fun gameplay, and would be difficult to design around. Instead I chose another route: the player would keep shooting in the last direction he/she aimed at, which although was not perfect was at least a step up.

I also made sure I did another thing: plan for at least an hour. Had I only planned for 5 minutes, my game would have been filled with holes, some potentially irreversible, and overall any time saved would have been paid back ten-fold in dealing with bugs and trying to fix up a decent game from a 5 minute plan. Carefully planning for an hour on the other hand allowed me to see how the gameplay would work out, whether there were bugs to fix, what it would feel like and overall a much clearer picture of what to achieve.

TDLR: Planning is paramount, and to run with a poorly thought out plan is only to dig a hole you'll need to spend time to dig yourself out again. Try to at least give yourself an hour to create a strong and non-fragile idea.

Finally:

Preparation 

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The tile map for Heistmaster, made using a pre-planned colour palette

For this jam I decided to use Construct 2 instead of my usual go to, Clickteam Fusion 2.5. Due to the similarities I was able to quickly get the hang of it, and a previous jam where I used the engine greatly improved how I worked with it.

I also pre-searched and archived various sources for references, music, SFX and others. Especially the latter considering how bad I am at creating audio effects and music.

Last but not least, I carefully picked out several colour schemes, of which one would be chosen based on the game idea after the jam started. This is because in previous jams where I didn't have one I quickly became lost in what sort of art to have, and spent alot of time fiddling to not much success.

These preparations greatly reduced the stress I had when the game jam started, and allowed me to save precious time and resources that was much better spent on side mechanics, level design, and polish, something that in my opinion, greatly paid off.

TDLR: Do some preparations, set up colour palettes, prepare resources and do some practice unless you just wanna wing it (not stopping you tbh, it can be fun), they come a long way.

Those were some of the things that I got right in this jam in my opinion, but of course I haven't quite achieved perfection just yet, so moving on:

The Wrongs:

Hell....  ehhhhhhhhhh, no

The difficulty and goal

Clearly I didnt quite manage to work this out during the jam, as some players critiqued that the game was a tad little too challenging for their tastes. On paper the plan was to have the level itself be easy and optional gold pieces to be alot harder and challenging. Nonetheless clearly I placed too much emphasis on the latter. Had I have some people play test it I might have worked this out, but considering how jam packed the schedule ended up being, I doubt I would have had the time anyhow.

If I were to do this again, I would make the base level easy but still have adequate content, while having only 1 or 2 gold bars for those that want a slight more challenge.

Indeed that's if I dont scrap the gold bars entirely because of what in my opinion is the bigger problem: the goal. The goal of the game was to get to a fixed pile of gold to win the game, but since there was no time limit some players tended to edge towards a more cautious playstyle defensive, unlike the more fastpaced and challenging offensive playstyle I had in plan. This could be remedied with the gold bars to be scrapped entirely and a time based point system being implemented instead, definitely something to keep in mind for my next game.

TDLR: The game was slightly too hard for some and the goal did not entirely fit the aimed play style.

My health and habits during game jams

Although im sometimes proud of the games I make during jams, im definitely not proud of how I take care of my body during it. More emphasis on saving time and using every second meant long hours into the night and not very healthy meals. Along with reduced breaks and this meant that I near at my breaking point by the end of it, and it didn't help that I had school the very next day (not online class, actually catching a bus).  

Ideally I would be able to have some decent sleep at the least, but due to how large I tend to scope my games it's not easy. 

Well, that's no excuse, but still I should at least try. 

In conclusion:

Hell

Just kidding, but to sum it up:

• Have a strong core mechanic that is also flexible enough for a decent range of gameplay around it, preferably with the theme woven into it.
• Planning is paramount, and to run with a poorly thought out plan is only to dig a hole you'll need to spend time to dig yourself out again. Try to at least give yourself an hour to create a strong and non-fragile idea.
• Do some preparations, set up colour palettes, prepare resources and do some practice unless you just wanna wing it (not stopping you tbh, it can be fun), they come a long way.
• Try to have people play test your game, they can help flush out bugs, reveal problems, bring forth suggestions and tweak values.
• Don't break yourself, if you need a break, take it. It's not worth dying over a game jam.

This was Game Maker's Toolkit  Darylsteak, and I hope anyone who took the time to read this enjoyed it, and some of this stuff can help them.

Cya!

Want to try out my GMTK 2020 entry Heistmaster? Here's the link: https://darylsteak.itch.io/heistmaster.