Game Jams are an excellent opportunity to demonstrate our skills, make ourselves known in game devs communities and above all, to develop video game prototypes. In short, game jams are a good push to start within the world of video game development. If you have never participated in a game jam or you have already participated but you gave up, I recommend you to read the following tips:

Take your time designing your video game. Don't hurry.

It's true that we have a time limit for developing our video game. However, start developing with the first game idea that comes to mind will result in a game that won't be as fun or exciting as you thought and you won't even want to submit it. Paying special attention to the design of the video game is as important as creating the plans for a building before it is built. I recommend that you take your time thinking about your video game, forget about the game jam pressure, go for a walk, take a nap, try to read something new, skip the routine a little bit.

Once you have an idea of the game, I recommend you to make a paper draft, try to imagine and draw how the game would be once developed, write down how the game mechanics will be, the player's objectives, the story and context of the game. Analyze critically the draft and ask yourself: Will the mechanics of the game be fun and not tedious? , Will the story and context generate interest in the player? , Does the idea of the game fit in with the theme and rules of game jam?

This is the best time to be critical, erase and rewrite the elements of the game, and as a last resource, think again about another idea and repeat the same procedure.

Also remember that the game shouldn't be so complex or you won't have time to finish it at the end, so limit the number of elements in the game.

Organize your workflow, what to create first?

Participating in a game jam allows us to evaluate the performance and efficiency of our workflow. Remember that we have a time limit, so we must re-organize and work as fluidly as possible. The best way to do this is to simply start developing the game and then look at which part of the development took you much time, find out why.

From my experience in game jams I have been able to define my workflow, which consists of the execution of the following tasks:

1-Develop the main game assets (with the minimum number of details).

2-Develop the game mechanics. This is the most important step, since we can test if our game idea works as we want it to and make small adjustments to our design before continuing.

3- Create other elements of the game ( levels, GUIs, etc...) and refine the game assets

4-Adding final details (creating sound effects, background music, etc..).

5-Try the game and modify its difficulty. The game must not be too easy or extremely difficult.

Reuse your code. Don't reinvent the wheel.

Apply this wise expression "Don't reinvent the wheel", if your game needs to implement a mechanic or functionality similar to a game you've made before, reuse your code. This will save you time and allow you to focus on other things. This also applies to game assets and any other game elements.

To be able to reuse your code you need to try and document as much as you can, commenting your code is good practice. Remember that if you want to use other people's code and game assets, you must verify their licenses and give them due recognition (in your game credits and on the game page).

Enjoy the experience. Zero stress.

If developing video games is your passion, then enjoy what you do. Developing a game in a time constraint may seem stressful and overwhelming, but remember that game jams are a way to express your creativity and your passion. You don't need to try to create an extremely complex video game, but rather to create a simple game that shows your originality. And if you couldn't develop it within the time limit, no matter, try to finish and publish it, I'm sure the game devs and gamers community will want to play it and give you feedbacks. Evaluate your performance and your workflow.

Tools to speed up the development of your video game.

Creating sound effects can seem tedious, especially if you don't have experience in this area, however, there are tools that will help you quickly create sound effects for your game. My favorite tool is BlendWave, which allows you to easily create sound effects.

If you like developing with Godot, I recommend you to use SoundManagerPlugin, it's a tool that will allow you to speed up and easily control the implementation of sounds in your project.

If you want to develop a game focused on storytelling (visual-novel for example), and you don't want to deal with programming, bitsy and mosi are retro-style game development tools, which may be a good option for you.

Where can you find game jams?

Itch.io is a popular platform for publishing, selling and downloading independent games. Itch.io hosts numerous game jams where you can participate online.

One of my favorite game jams is the Tri-Jam, a weekly game jam where you have to develop a game in 3 hours. GodotWildJam is the favorite game jam of the Godot community.

Gamejolt also hosts interesting game jams.

I hope my tips will help you take off and follow your passion.

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