Jam Post Mortem

Last year I saw Sawyer and DJ write post mortems for their jam entries. I did not find that my game warranted one back then, so I opted not to write anything. This time I want to try, even if the game might not actually warrant one.

With Harold jam 2023 now officially over and the results in (well sort of…), it’s a perfect time to reflect on what I did and what I really should have done.

My Goals

I have two goals for each jam I enter:

1. Finish the game in a state that would not warrant a DQ (so no game breaking bugs).
2. Try something new, no matter how small or how big.

Since Harold jam is a casual jam for me, there’s an additional goal:

   3. Don’t overdo it or you’ll get burnt out.

The Start

Unlike previous Harold jams, I actually started on time. On time being when the jam actually started as I didn’t realize we were allowed to do asset stuff beforehand. Not that it would have helped me much, as I was stuck between five different ideas and hoped the requirements would make it easier to pick. (Which it didn’t.) Anyway, in the end I decided to go with a detective game, as I had started on something similar for Drifty’s jam once and I would be able to reissue some ideas and assets.

This was my idea for Drifty’s jam:

1. Takes place at the King’s castle seen partly in my Harold jam 2021 game. All RTP heroes (and their plus ones) have been invited to attend a ceremony.
2. A demon attacks staff and impersonates one of the heroes. The goal would be to find out which “hero” isn’t so heroic.
3. Reid, Priscilla and Eliot would be the main cast, with each a different role (detective, assistant, informant). The player can pick which character has what role, but whoever is the detective is the player character.
4. Talking to suspects would result in a battle, like Last Word/Profit Motive/Guilty.
5. After the big accusing scene, it would be revealed that it’s just kid Reid and Priscilla playing make believe with their tutor/nurse/nanny Eliot, while they’re waiting for the ceremony to start.
6. On a bit of a side note, I was thinking of titling it ‘Elementary!’ as a nod to Sherlock Holmes. I was also playing a lot of Wordle and thought that would be a cool minigame for a detective game.

Obviously I couldn’t just go with that, as I felt that would break the jam rules. I did use that as a base and changed it into:

1. The setting remains the same, the invitees too, since that helped with both assets and some minor background writing I had done for these characters.
2. The biggest change was to the actual crime, where Harold got killed. In a short-lived idea the player would actually play as Harold for a while solving a case prior to his demise.
3. The trio is still the main cast, although Eliot’s role got shortened. I also rather quickly decided to ditch the ability to choose roles as that meant more artwork needed.
4. I had already done two RPGs last time, I wanted to do something without a battle system for once. It was however my back-up plan, in case I wasn’t able to do the Elementary mini game.
5. This remained unchanged.
6. The title was changed to Detective Who? (which was a relic of playing as detective Harold), but Elementary stuck around as the name of the minigame.

While I was still figuring out story and gameplay details, I worked on the busts of our trio and finished Reid’s sprite.

The Hiatus

How far were we into this jam, when my energy level and motivation was just at the bottom of the barrel? If you guessed less than a week, you are absolutely right. There wasn’t one big reason for it, but as usual all tiny little things:

• The busts. I’m more comfortable with pixel art, so editing digital art took a lot of energy and time. It took me more than three days to make these, which was almost as long as some people needed to make an entry.
• Discord. Being on Discord when there’s a jam going, is amazing. Everyone’s really active and showing off their great works. It creates a community feeling and can be very inspiring. Being on Discord when there’s a jam going, is also hell. You just can’t help but compare their works to yours. There’s always someone with a better concept, better art, better music, better maps, etc. Not too mention the speed at which they are completing the games, art, etc. It can be both motivating and demotivating. This time for me it was rather demotivating.
• Timing. To be honest, while Human did give a heads up, I kind of forgot about it until a few days before it started. I had reserved Breath of the Wild from our local library for March and really wanted to play that in my free time. There were also other hobbies I didn’t want to give up on (I did that for IGMC and it took me ages to catch up again), as well as planned meetings/parties with friends and family. Work also got busier after the first week, which meant less dev time as I try to write during down time at work.

I figured I’d take a break and see if that helped restore some energy/motivation. It did, but of course it left me with not a lot of time left to actually make the game. I enjoy jams, but they drain me so much.

The Final Rush

So with less than a week to go and not even the bare minimum done, it was time to rush through everything!

• I focused on eventing the minigame first. It took me a whole weekend to get it done. (Though admittedly I lost a lot of time (9 hours!!!) adding something only to realize it wasn’t working correctly. The joys of game dev.)
• Realizing the story had morphed from “Reid, Priscilla and Eliot are playing make believe”, to “the trio is playing Cluedo with the RTP heroes”, I had to look up how to actually play Cluedo. (Confession time: I have only played the Junior edition of this game.) I removed the murder location part since that wouldn’t make much sense in a video game.
• While at work I wrote the intro dialogue and the dialogue with suspects (and the other visitors). Everything else was off cuff as they say.
• Maps were done in an evening. I had to search for busts for the non MZ RTP characters, which took a bit longer than expected. Then it was time to start eventing all scenes. (That preview Move Route was a God send and a time saver.)
• I didn’t want all requirements done at the start, so the “Go on without me” is at the very end. (I also did almost forgot to include it.)
• Music was last minute as it always is. It’s my weakness and I’m no good at it. Originally I was going to pick all music from The Agency DLC, but then I realized there was a piano in the game room, so it would make more sense if the music you were hearing throughout the game was all piano.
• In the end, I had an evening left for testing, so obviously couldn’t ask anyone on the Discord. I’ve only had one bug reported, so I’m pretty proud about my own testing skills.

What I’ve learned

A lot surprisingly. Now whether the lesson actually sticks this time is a different question.

• For Harold Reid jam, do some asset work/brainstorming beforehand. It’s probably good to actually come up with stuff now then wait until next year.
• Make a schedule and stick to it. This should hopefully help with burnt out feelings.
• Try and finish a week before the deadline, so I can get feedback early.
• Fight the median score! I really need to promote my Harold jam games more. Share progress more, so people become invested and want to try it out.

I don’t really know how to finish this, soooo go Reid!