THIRD YEAR RUNNING#

The GMTK jam has always held a special place in my heart. It’s the very first jam I ever did, and I had so much fun that it convinced me this whole game-making malarky was something worth pursuing. Since then, I’ve resolved to make some time each year to take part. Even with the job and a few stressful deadlines, this year was no different. I booked a day and a half off work (I couldn’t get the full 96 hours off :/) and sat down to jam my heart out.

WORKING WITH OTHERS#

Decided to do it on my own this year! Initially asked if Louis and Jake wanted to form a team again (also invited Alfie too, because he’s a good egg), as I had good fun last year and we placed decently well. They agreed, however - the coward that I am, I backed out a few weeks before the jam started for a few reasons:

1. I wasn’t able to take the full jam time off so I didn’t want to hold anyone back
2. They were going to do something in person in Bristol and I wouldn’t have been able to join from Guildford
3. I wanted to test myself and my skills as a game dev!

That last point is probably the most salient. I wanted to work selfishly - exactly the workflow I wanted to try out, and with as little friction between myself and the work as possible.

Reducing the time between:

idea -> implementation -> iteration

I love working with other people, but going into this jam I felt like I’ve been doing this a lot at work, and so I wanted to see how far I could take an idea on my own.

THE PROCESS#

Looking for no friction and working with my hands meant that everything was drawn by hand onto a sketchbook with a POSCA marker and then scanned in and cut out. I used Godot, Krita and Ableton Live 10.

THE RESULT#

Give it a play! https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-jam-2026/rate/4810933

I hit a point during the jam where I stopped what I was doing, and simply reflected on how much fun I was having. Game dev in all its forms is so dang fun.

It’s quite a simple, boring game and I had ideas to take it a lot further, but I’m happy with where I ended up. Side note in that Godot is incredible - the game works on mobile without me doing any extra work.

Can’t wait til next year!