Hey guys,

This time i want to spend a little time talking about best practises for Gamejams, how i like to approach them and how i have succeeded before and hope to succeed again:

• Work at scheduled times and get enough sleep before the home stretch.
  My first gamejam was a 48 hour Global Game Jam with 6 total hours of sleep. Since then i’ve come to realise that being well rested is important in the first stages of the gamejam. The best moment to pull the all nighter is the last night, because you won’t have to work up until late the next day. Trust me on this one, first and second night about 4-8 hours of sleep are advised.

• Choose a game concept that you can have playable halfway through the jam
  Gamejams can be experiments in scope once you know what you’re doing, but especially for a beginner, scope your game accordingly to your and your teams skills. a 2D game is usually therefore a safe bet.

• Think long term, is this game a jam experiment? or will you continue working on it?
  Too many times have a made a jam game, only to never take a second look at it again after the gamejam. This is perfectly fine, but some gamejam games are simply too good a concept to be thrown down the drain. Talk to your team about these possibilities and don’t be afraid to plan the game out across a longer period than just this jam, as long as you remember to create a self contained proof of concept during the jam to prove to yourselves that this game is worth the effort.

That’s all for now, i’m getting back to work, stay tuned for some more in-depth info about the Base Defense game Virtual Raiders…