sharksonaplane

sharks + planes as formerly seen on Twitter

@sharksonaplane

Sharyna Tran

Sharks are cool and comfortable!

Elden Thing | Back & Body Hurts Platinugggggh Rewards Member

Profile pic and banner credits: sharkaeopteryx art by @superkiak! eggbug by eggbug! Mash-up by me!
[Alt-text for pfp: a cute sharkaeopteryx sat on the ground with legs out, wings down, jaw ajar, and hed empty, looking at eggbug and eggbug's enigmatic smile.]
[Alt-text for banner: a Spirit Halloween banner with eggbug and the sharkaeopteryx that Superkiak drew for me looking at it with inscrutable expressions]

I'm a Vietnamese cis woman born and currently living in the U.S. You may know me from Sandwich, from Twitter or Mastodon (same username), or on Twitch as Sharkaeopteryx. I do not have a Discord or Bluesky account.

Ask me about language learning/teaching, cooking/eating food, late diagnosis ADHD, and volunteer small business mentoring. Or don't, I'm not the boss of you.

I think people deserve to be young, make mistakes, and grow without being held to standards they don't know about yet and are still learning. So, if you are under 22, please don't try to strike up a friendship or get involved in discussions on my posts.

Please don't automatically assume I follow/know/co-sign someone just because I reposted something from them—sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. Also, if you think being removed as a follower when we're not mutuals is a cardinal sin, please do not follow me.

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sharksonaplane
@sharksonaplane
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

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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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