This post is about several GameJams that we attended recently.

0h GameJam on the tram

Remember My summer internship at a local nuclear reactor? So the best 3 teams at the GameJam got a free Indie Pass for the Game Industry Conference. We were tied for the 2nd place so lucky us, huh? Either way, it wasn’t the first time we were there. But this year was different. The event fell on the daylight saving time day in Poland where we enter the winter time by moving our clocks by one hour back when the clock hits 3:00am.

The idea

A famous polish developer - Sos Sosowski, looked at this and thought: “What if we made a game and didn’t waste any time making it?” Thus came forth the idea of a 0-hour GameJam where you start making game at 2:00am and finish it at 2:00am, effectively wasting a whole 0 hours making it. But this idea wasn’t crazy enough. He came up with a place perfectly suitable for making games - a moving tram. And yes, it was as crazy as it sounds.

The trilogy

Because of the time limit of the jam (0 hours isn’t a lot of time) we split ourselves into 3 teams - 2 pairs, and me (a single). To make our games a part of the greater Stork’Studios we decided that each team will make an entry into a trilogy called “It’s all lies”. And so, we’ve created such beauties:

It’s all lies	It’s all lies 2	It’s all lies 3

The atmosphere

It was hectic. Imagine you get on a tram at 2am in the dark an then you MUST create a game in 0 hours. Inside, organizers played high energy music (like Megalovania) to further boost the adrenaline rush. Furthermore, nothing was provided: no electricity, no internet, no nothing so you really had to rely on yourself for those things. Then, at the end, you get off the tram at the same time like nothing ever happened. The atmosphere was further amplified by our sleepiness as we were playing Minecraft for the previous 6 hours awaiting this event.

The incident

The tram was privately rented for this event and wasn’t part of the normal public transport. But, of course, things happen and we had a stowaway - a woman from Abkhazia, a region in conflict with Georgia regarding it’s independence. Unlucky for her, one of the participants was Georgian. And all hell broke loose. What’s more, she couldn’t just get off as it was against the rules. It was so severe that organizers had to intervene by separating them to the different ends of the tram. The funniest comment came from one of the participants who said:

I only wanted to make a game in 0 hours in peace, and not be a witness to a political argument

- like he was the normal one there.

RPG and 2 GameJams at the same time

Further down the road was the official beginning of the new academic year for the RPG science club. And as always it began with a 2 week long Start Jam GameJam. It is mainly aimed at the newcomers as it was discovered that you learn the most by making and finishing something. Of course the jam was open for everyone so we also participated. Last year I made something by myself and this year I also wanted to make something solo. Later I needed some assets so I stole borrowed and didn’t return one of the artists from the main group.

Theme - Death is good

After hearing the theme, Daniel from the main group came up with a plethora of different game concepts. They chose a simple concept - a platformer where every death spawns a corpse which is used to progress further. Me, on the other hand, had a creative void in my head. After a full day of brainstorming I only came up with an idea that we would be playing a card game as death (referencing a game of chess form The Seventh Seal). What were the rules - I had no idea.

INTERMISSION - a new GameJam is starting

Earlier this year it was decided that, as an experiment, the science club should host its annual 48h RPG GameJam near the end of the year to see if it attracted more people. It happened that the only free date was right in the middle of the ongoing Start Jam. We, of course, never missed a jam so as a break from making a game during a GameJam we made a game during a GameJam.

Thinking of a game isn’t as easy as it sounds, but making it is

The randomly chosen (by ChatGPT) theme was Lost in time. We took almost a whole hour to come up with concept that would be relatively playable. We split the theme and decided that “Lost” means that something needs to die and “in time” means that it needs to happen at specific time. To make matters more interesting we chose to make the game in the Godot game engine as we have never worked with it before. Of course, having 3 programmers and 3 artists meant that, even with this handicap, we had every feature implemented code-wise and were just waiting for the assets. Also due to this, I added to the game a very important hub with email system.

Finishing touches

As always Stachu came over to record some songs for the game, but this time he came with a friend who had the hardware that allowed for a better quality recordings. The lore was also finalized - a shady motel where Mrs. Death (the player) needs to kill every guest one by one every time a bell rings. The event ended with a presentation of games and the winner was chosen in the vote. Sadly our game Death Bell didn’t win, but the game that did (Rewinded) clearly deserved it. You can see the rest of the submissions here.

INTERMISSION OVER - the old GameJam is still in progress

As the 48h GameJam ended we realized that we were less than halfway done with the games for the 2 week GameJam. With 2 days left the main team and my team had to create most of their games. Over my dead buddy was lucky enough to be finished on time. The same cannot be said for the Deadman’s Hand which ended up in a buggy state with half of the card graphics missing. Well, I couldn’t live with my failure so I patched it up after the jam. Either way this jam wasn’t a contest and we only had to show that we did a game. Funny enough, one game has the same concept and only a slightly different name as our main game. Over my dead body has a different, more satanic setting but in general sense is basically the same game. It only shows that different people can come up with the same idea at different places and times. The rest of the submissions can be accessed here (there are some pretty cool ones there).

Over my dead buddy	Deadman’s Hand: The Death is good at cards

Those were a busy 2 months

I hope I didn’t bore you to death (pun intended). Those 6 games represent a very chaotic time in our gamedev journey, but we aren’t done yet. Expect more updates on Bullet Waste or maybe a little surprise soon.