District June Jam Postmortem

CONCEPT

The initial AHAB game and concept came from  District June Jam, hosted by Micha Faw.  The idea of a fish emerging from the ocean sprang from the jam's theme "Emergence", and the concept morphed into a whale fishing game stylized around Moby-Dick to participate in the "I've Been Living in a Cave" diversifier.  Moby-Dick was published 170 years ago, qualifying it for the 17 year cycles of said diversifier.  I'll go over my thoughts on my ranks and what I could have done to increase rank in the different categories.

Game Jam Results (out of 11 submission)

Audio (1 out of 11)

As an audio guy it's hard not to love a good audio rank!  I put on my Music Director hat for AHAB and it really paid off.  Although I spent some time finding the right music, the extra time I would've spent making music was used for sound design and implementation, and I was okay with that trade off.  Music curation withstanding, the sound effects and the music-synchronized title cards directly translated into my high Mood/Narrative score.

Both amazing pieces of music selected for this game jam entry can be heard here and here.

Mood/Narrative (2 out of 11)

Mechanics balancing was hard and time consuming, game mechanics *were* there; my vision was stronger than my ability to efficiently balance those mechanics, and conveying that vision was important to my engagement and presentation to anyone who played AHAB.  I wanted AHAB to feel fun if not mysterious and interesting; dramatic where possible.  Music synchronized title cards, sound design, and my choice of multiple panels of information probably went a long way towards the narrative and mood rank that I got.

Gameplay (5 out of 11)

Controls refinement and systems balancing could have gotten me a higher gameplay rank.   Playtest watching revealed the game's actual difficulty.   To bridge the learning curve tutorials and more helpful  controls.   Finally, putting the action controls closer together would have simplified the process of drawing up and reeling in line for players.

Visual (5 out of 11)

I'm unsure I could've gotten a higher rank here without sacrificing time spent elsewhere.  I'm proud of the amount and quality of the visual content I created for this jam.

Overall (5 out of 11)

This was interesting, as my raw overall score was the highest from all entries; I only had 5 ratings though, which means AHAB was the second lowest rated game of the jam.  This was most certainly due to accessibility, the other lowest rated game was also download-only, while the other games were embedded html.  To increase my overall rank I think I would have needed an html port of my game.  It's also worth noting that if more people had played maybe my overall rank would have been lower!  Maybe the 5 additional raters would have rated my game much lower.  It's an interesting rank category to mull over, but I think in general accessibility is important to maximize playability.

Innovation (7 out of 11)

Ironed out mechanics, simplified controls, and more transparent mechanics could have netted me a higher innovation ranking.  (I mean c'mon, how many fishing games have you played like this?).  Several mechanics affecting line reeling speed and player stamina consumption were opaque.  Making those systems more apparent could have been as simple as having the line change colors to indicate tension or ease as the player moved closer or further from the fish.  That feedback to the player would have helped the gameplay score as well.

Theme (9 out of 11)

The surface level theme for the Jam was "Emergence", while the meta theme was Cicada related. My theme rank was low because my game wasn't meta, but also because the whale never actually emerges (it actually did but I hid the action because I wasn't able to make it come up the way I wanted to).

Jam Takeaways

Time spent on theatrics paid off.  Sound is important, but how you use sound is equally important.  Leaning into the theme and the meta of the jam is probably very important for a higher theme ranking (go figure!).  I should have completed the "emergence" sequence, but I spent time hand making the font for the credits and title cards, which may have contributed to my other scores.  I spent *so* much time on non-game systems related item, and I think that is a huge boon to the scope low argument.  Polish in presentation is a  universal score booster to raters, especially during time-sensitive things like game jams.  Keeping your game idea simple affords the time to work on  whole game concept.  I always want people to see a glimmer of the fantastic game that's in my head; I typically cannot get to that point if I don't present a game with sound, style, animations, small flourishes, etc.  I'm content with my scores and final product, and it was such a blast to play other people's games!  There isn't a lot of time for playtesting but, if you can afford it timewise, playtesting will reveal blind spots in your systems.  Make your kid sister your playtester and give her credits.  My partner tested my game post jam and I wish I had asked her to do it sooner.  Being so invested or close to your project makes it easy to think your game ideas translate properly or that your game is hitting certain notes appropriately.  Critically observing your project through the lens of another player can really bring your project back to Earth, in a good way.

Conclusion

Game jams are hard, but they can also be bottled lighting!  I love AHAB's concept so much that I've continued working on it.  Game jam development flow ultimately depends on your goals.  As creative juices poured and I got into a groove I realized that creating a game was not the only thing important to me and that three sub-goals had begun to bide for my time: A strong vision that really excites me, a presentation to encourage others to play my game after it was done, and (yes, really) credits to properly attribute my friends and family and the beautiful music I chose for the game.  I literally spent ~4 hours working on the font and credits screen (time well spent for how grateful I was).  This is not everyone's path, nor would those necessarily be my goals every game, but I think being honest with your path and owning it will help ensure you're happy with final products and outcomes.  What made it into my game was not just what I didn't have time to make, but also what I chose to cut from my vision to focus on my three values for this jam.  Big thanks to Micha Faw for hosting and to the other District June Jammers!

-Craig