Introduction

Every good story needs an introduction. A place where you tell your readers about what you will be rambling in the following lines of text. I am not sure if the story you are going to read will be good, but I am damn sure it will have an introduction. So here we go...

I have joined my first ever game jam. Maybe it sounds simple enough for you, but for me, it is a somewhat of a big deal. You see, I have always enjoyed playing games, and as same as all gamers with artistic and/or computer backgrounds, I had wanted to make my own games one day. Years back I had an opportunity to work on a simple rogue like game Ever Hunter. I did all of the art and animation for it. We produced a demo and that was it. I had stopped doing art because I had enough of it. I was like, 15 at a time and wanted to play games and football with my friends, not sit 12 hours a day making pixel art animations while my friends had fun together. In the coming years I had discovered rock n roll and drums and the rest was history. Up until recent months. I am 22 years old right now when I am writing this and had come to a period of life where I need to decide what am I going to do with my life. I am finishing my IT bachelors degree and I am playing drums in two local bands, Eho Radar and Revolt. I had always liked creative and collaborative work, hence programming is my weapon of choice when it comes to IT. But man, programming web sites, business applications, POS systems etc. is boring. Is this going to be rest of my life? Talking to corporate people about money and analytics and statistics and yada, yada, yada. I can't imagine myself doing that. Music is fun, music is pure, music is like a drug. But in Bosnia and Herzegovina, you can forget about living from music unless you sell your soul to music industry and it's standards which are... not welcoming to bands and punk rock. After some time thinking I thought to myself, why not try making games again!? Okay, I hadn't sketched, let alone drew, anything in years but I can come back to it. I have programming and software engineering knowledge now so how hard can it be? Writing songs can't be much different from making a simple game? Right? I spent a month or so learning SFML and C++ and made accounts on Newgrounds and Itch.io in hope of meeting other people with pure hearts that just want to make this world a better place through their art. On Itch.io i found Kenny's game jam and decided to join because, why the fuck not? During the game jam I plan on writing my thoughts and process in form of a journal. Just so I can reflect on something if I happen to continue on this path and to send message to all of the people reading this to follow their dreams and do the things that make their hearts full, not just their pockets.

18. 7. 2024. - Day before the jam

13:47

Here I am, sitting at my computer thinking about the Kenny's game jam that starts tomorrow. This is going to be my first game jam and I plan on tackling it by myself. To be honest, I do not have a single idea how I am going to approach this. Only thing that I have sorted out is the engine that I am going to use, which is a problem in itself. My plan is to use C++ and SFML library to code everything myself (you could say I am a masochist). Thankfully I will not have to worry about visual assets as they will be provided (that's the point of the jam), and I will (most probably) use Pixabay to find some nice sounds and music. The jam starts tomorrow (19. of July) at 18:00 o'clock (6 PM for you American folks). I can't say I am scared but I would be totally lying to you if I sad that everything is all right. The best way to illustrate how I feel right now is to imagine that meme of a yellow dog with a hat sitting inside of a burning room with a speech bubble coming from his mouth containing following words of wisdom: "Everything is fine." My goal is to make something, somewhat, playable that fits the theme and has some fun game mechanic. Something in lines of Flappy Bird or Doodle Jump, simple and fun. Single level game that would make someone say "Hhm, interesting", nothing more, nothing less.

First day of the jam

19.7.2024.

11:51

Jam starts in about 6 hours from now and I have already made a fuck up. The jam starts at 18:00 o'clock and I have totally forgotten that I have a 3-hour band rehearsal that starts at the same time. My plan for today is as follows:

1. Program the basic game engine without any functionality before the jam starts

2. When I get home from rehearsal (which will be around 10PM) make the basic game concept with pen and paper. Make something that fits the theme and choose appropriate assets.

3. Stay sane.

16:00

While mindlessly writing the foundations of my engine I had an idea. I could also write a Game Design Document tonight. If you are unfamiliar with the term, let me break it down to you. It is very simple. It is just a written plan of what are you going to build and how are you going to do it. Which tools are you going to use and what were your inspirations for the game. For more detailed explanation, follow this link.

16:44

Okay, the engine is finished. Only thing that remains before the jam is to do the rehearsals and we will be ready for lift of.

21:35

I am back. Tired as fuck and with my ears ringing like Sunday church bells. The theme I have to follow is "Connected". First things that come to my mind are game called "Watergirl and Fireboy" and a game mechanic inside of Dying Light 2 where you need to plug a power cable from one side of the level to the other, but the catch is that the cable is long just enough to connect in through a specific path. If I think about story driven, and not mechanic driven game, then I might make something that tells the story about connection of mother and her child, possibly the strongest connection of them all. Back to brainstorming.

21:51

I might be onto something. While thinking about how we can interpret the word "connected" I have remembered two ages old PvP games: Tic Tac Toe and Connect four. What about making a simple, digital, board game? I will also cover bonus challenges with it that include game that uses assets from only one pack and game that is played using mouse only. This might not be so hard after all (or so I think).

22:11

And we have a game! How about we combine the Tic Tac Toe and the randomness of rolling a die? The game will have a 3 x 6 grid and the number we get from rolling a die will tell us in which row we can play. If the row is full, then we lose our turn (like when you need to get the 1 to enter the house in the Ludo game). Of course, the winner is the player who manages to connect three symbols. It is not really groundbreaking, and it is not going to be the best game idea out there. But it will be a game and I will make it. I will call it "Tic Tac Dice". Considering that this will be my first game and that I am still fresh with C++ and SFML, I am happy with it. Let's get rolling!

22:58

The Game Design Document is complete. I have everything planned out and can't wait to get my hands dirty with programming and tying everything together. But I am too tired to continue now. The day was long, I spent half of my day learning about OpenGL and graphics programming which made my brain explode. I had already coded the skeleton of my engine so that is a jump start. With my ears still ringing from the rehearsal (I actually broke all of my remaining sticks today) I plan on taking a cold shower, reading a chapter or two of Dave Grohl's book "The Storyteller" (which I highly recommend) and going to sleep. Goodbye for now.

Second day of the jam

20.7.2024.

11:19

After a good night worth of sleep, some breakfast and a cup of coffee, I am ready to embark on this journey called game development. Game design is somewhat complete, I have everything I need, and everything planned out so only thing that remains to make this Frankenstein monster of mine alive.

15:52

I have become one with my chair. Most of my time since my last writing was spent coding about 50% of the core mechanics, rest of my time (about 30 minutes) was spent on lunch break. Next step is to implement the dice logic. While coding I must have listened to whole Guano Apes discography... twice. They were just looping the background. Time for some Suicidal Tendencies! (the band, not the actual ones)

19:08

The dice is now working as intended. Confusion and mind fatigue that had settled upon me while trying to sort this mechanic out were out of this world. But everything is fine right now. Next step would be to implement the game over mechanics. The plan is as follows: drink a cup of coffee and the get back to this god's forsaken task. God's forsaken task that I quite enjoy, to be honest. But enough chit-chatting for now (there will be time for that at the end of the jam). Cup of coffee and then return to work.

23:24

The core game is finished, and everything is working as intended. Now I just need to work on presentability on user experience for a few hours and Tic Tac Dice will be ready for submission. To be honest, this was harder than I imagined it to be. I would be the happiest if there was enough time to rewrite most of the engine in order to make it tidier and more logical. That will definitely be a good practice session after all of this. Now is time to go take a cold shower and read few pages of the book I had mentioned earlier (you could say I have a night ritual of showering and reading before the sleep). It was fun experience so far. Can't wait to wrap it all up and release it into the wild. My first game that someone might play and give me feedback on. Still can't believe I am doing all of this. 

Final day

21.7.2024.

13:36

Four hours before the deadline and I had not done shit since yesterday. My morning started with stuffed nose and breathing problems due to my seasonal allergies. Since I had run out medication, I had to go to the drug store and get some. Now I am okay and ready to continue with the development of my game. Not much has remained which does make me less stressed about meeting the deadline.

17:41

I HAVE SUBMITTED THE GAME. It is not perfect. It lacks some features like a proper menu, SFX (there is just a chill looping music track), and in game tutorial that explains the rules of the game. It needs loads of polishing. BUT IT IS A WORKING GAME THAT IS PLAYABLE AND FITS THE THEME. I can't believe I have managed to do this. The adrenaline that has been pumping me for the last hour is out of this world. But it has been done. I am happy.

Conclusion

I have never in a million years believed I will say this next sentence. I have made a video game. Not a tutorial from the You Tube kind of game, but a game that I have designed and developed. Okay, the idea is not that original but as the Thor (God of gamers, not God of thunder) has said: "We just mix ideas that work and put them in our game". This jam was fun, and I had great time thinking. designing and coding my video game. I have honed my C++ skills and learned a lot about game-dev.

This story might be for you, to convince you that anything is possible, that you must try and fail to succeed, but it was really for me. By writing this, I have realized what I am able to do and what I am not able to do... just yet. This text was someone I could talk to during the development, someone who understands me better than anyone... that someone is me. If you draw anything from this story, please, for the love of God, just try... Try that marathon that you had always dreamed of running, try to sing a song in front of a few people, try to learn programming, try to do few push-ups... Just try, just start, because you don't know where that journey might take you. Talk to yourself and listen your heart, because only it can choose the right path for you.

If you are still here and reading this, thank you. Thank you for your time and thank you for believing that I might pull this off, because I did not. But here we are. 

You can follow me here on Newgrounds if you are interested in this wacky sort of games and stories because there are more to come.

You can download the game at the Itch.io.