how-i-met-your-mothra

vee

@how-i-met-your-mothra

is this thing on??

  • he/they/whatever

🌸gamedev getting through grad school, one step at a time🌸
🌻ask me about my ttrpgs!🌻

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how-i-met-your-mothra
@how-i-met-your-mothra
hthrflwrs
@hthrflwrs
hthrflwrs
@hthrflwrs
Anonymous User asked:

Game jams are good for meeting people??? This is incomprehensible to me. Like I know there are usually sections for people looking for others to collaborate with but I can't imagine that being anything other than a scarier version of the universally-recognized-as-unpleasant environment that is School Group Projects. Particularly if you're not confident in your ability to contribute

SO YOU WANT TO MEET PEOPLE AT GAME JAMS

  • do a local one, don't go online. if it's worth its salt, there'll be a portion for people to meet one another and form ideas, and then form groups based on who likes what idea
  • be honest about what you can contribute and where you want to grow
  • approach with an earnestness towards wanting to meet new people and work together
  • remember that the primary difference between game jams and school group projects is everybody at a game jam wants to be there. there's no consequence to failure beyond a wasted weekend. this doesn't mean there won't be crying but at least the crying will feel silly later
  • enter with a light heart and open mind and the world will be your oyster

you can spend your life with the flinch that certain things will be miserable and it's impossible to enjoy them, and as a result those things will be miserable and you won't enjoy them. or you can let go of the flinch, see every situation as an opportunity for growth and connection, and understand the beauty of the world. it's not easy but it is worth it

kyatt7
@kyatt7

the thing about game jams is, if you're intimidated because you only heard about the big jams where people vote on a "winner", know that many jams, especially locally organized ones, don't have that sort of competitive aspect.

if you release a game before the jam ends, you won.

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in reply to @hthrflwrs's post:

IkomaTanomori
@IkomaTanomori

If I were to try to depend on public transport to get to one, I'd have to take a bus to a train to a different train, one way travel time 90 minutes if everything lines up nicely, but more likely up to twice that. I do have a car, so for the price of mileage I can cut the travel time one way to about 45-50 minutes barring bad traffic.

The points are, however, not about the personal inconvenience. It's more pondering the effects. There's an expense in time and money to participate, and being located close to the city locations where such jams happen comes from someone investing money and/or time at some point. It's opportunity availability and cost.

I don't have a solution in mind, and it's possible the solution would be on a whole other level from the events themselves. Maybe if cheap or free public transit could bring people to events from farther flung areas, or maybe if there were more jams out in suburban areas too, I dunno. I'm certainly not expecting everything to be done for me, I just don't know what to do to make things better.

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hthrflwrs
@hthrflwrs

yeah, that's a fair point. when it comes to discussions like these my responses tend to be more about the direct individual practicalities of navigating the systems involved because i feel like a broader conversation about how they're broken tends to fall outside the range of actionable advice, but that doesn't change the fact that those systems are still broken and you're stuck with them. i wish i knew a solution too.

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Jonah
@Jonah

That last note oughta be applied to game making in general. I see so many hobbyist folks, totally separated from the very real precarity and scary existential threats of corporate game making, lamenting the challenge of the craft. The whole point of being a hobbyist is that we don't have the crushing weight of expectations of 40 hour work weeks, so like, embrace that part of it too? Cut yourself some slack and enjoy your leisure time.

I seldom collaborate on jams because I like enjoy flying solo (and have not had the opportunity to join a jam locally), but when I have teamed up with others: I find that the only expectations on your jam output that you are failing to meet are your own.

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in reply to @TrashBoatDaGod's post:

Video-Game-King
@Video-Game-King

Doesn’t he only come to warn Guts about the horrible supernatural fate he’s been burdened with?

(The only reason I feel obligated to reply is because I’ve spent the past few days binging the manga. Right now, I’m around the part where the brick shithouse Inquisitor smashes his face into the ground.)

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in reply to @kyatt7's post: