How to Run a Game Jam (Insider, Sep 2018) (Patreon)

This weekend just gone, I hosted the second annual Game Maker’s Toolkit Game Jam.

If you’re not aware, a jam is a game making marathon. You’re given just 48 hours to make an entire game from scratch - and it must fit a theme that is only revealed when the jam begins.

Last year we had the biggest jam on itch.io with more than 2,000 sign-ups and over 700 entries. 

This year… we beat our record with over 3,000 sign-ups and more than 1,100 games submitted. It was an incredible outcome, and I’m so impressed by the quality of some of the games I’ve played so far!

In 2017 I got some lovely people in the community to help me organise things. But this year I did most of the heavy lifting myself. And so I wanted to do a post to talk about the behind-the-scenes thrills (?) of running a game jam, and specifically - what I’ve learnt for GMTK Game Jam 2019. 

You need to get the basics right

There are four major things you need to decide on for a jam. Date. Time. Theme. Judging.

There are so many jams now that it’s hard not to pick a date that will clash with one of them. Ours didn’t clash with big ones like Ludum Dare and the Extra Credits Jam, which is good - but that pushed us back to the first week of September, which meant it did interfere with new school terms.

Next year, we’ll go a bit earlier in August and just announce the date sooner so everyone has to make room for us!

Last year, we totally screwed up the timing. We tried to make it pleasant for everyone by making it time zone agnostic but that just lead to confusion and cheating. This year I decided to go for a set time. 10PM in the UK worked out nicely - it’s a little bit of a late start for Europeans but it’s very nice for those in the US, Asia, and Australia.

It was also super fun to actually be awake when the jam started! I got to see the hype in the Discord, and see the reaction to the theme. 

Ah yes! The theme. A critical part of running a jam is picking a good theme, and communicating it well. 

Most jams have really vague and interpretive themes like “waves”, “duality”, or “reversal”. That’s cool, but that doesn’t really fit GMTK. I like to set a strict restriction - dual purpose design in the first one, and genre without mechanic in the second - that really makes people think about their design. 

The tradeoff is that it’s quite hard to communicate the theme quickly. Giving examples is good, but then you run the risk of having lots of people just go “platformer without jumping you say? I’ll do that!”. I wanted it to be restrictive, but I also wanted people to really run with the idea, not take “genre” and “mechanic” too literally, and really surprise me.

Next year, I’ll try to shy away from examples. Or maybe outright ban the example I give. 

Judging was also a challenge last year. I had a small team of people to judge the games, but had to bring more people on board once we saw just how many games there were. I didn’t like asking Patrons to do this task for me, and it was too much work for myself, and so I couldn’t have that happen again in 2018 (especially if we got even more games… which we did!).

So this time I’ve gone for public judging, and will use that to make a shortlist of games I’ll actually play. It seems to be going okay so far but I’ll be giving this a lot of though going forward.

You’ll have to answer a thousand questions

Throughout the jam, I was asked every question under the sun. Such as:

Can I make new music, using samples I recorded before? Can I submit the game to multiple game jams? Can I use an idea I thought of before the jam started? Can I make a tabletop game on paper and upload a PDF? Can I change the artwork after the jam ends? 

The takeaway for this is that the FAQ needs to be absolutely robust and, to be blunt, idiot proof. And I should update it more as questions come in. To make things clearer next year I think I’m just going to remove all restrictions on art and music. The jam is about design, after all, and I don’t really care if you made the graphics that weekend. I just want to know if your game is fun and interesting.

Maybe I’ll have a public-facing FAQ for the main questions, and then an internal one shared among my Discord mods where we can copy and paste answers to less frequently asked questions.  

Everyone will be late

The moment the jam ended, my Discord DMs, email inbox, and Twitter mentions were filled with people who wanted a time extension.

Unity crashed, itch wasn’t working, their team member fell asleep, their computer exploded, they lost track of time. Whatever the excuse, I was surprised by just how many people failed to meet the deadline. I know if it was me, I’d be so scared of messing up that I’d have the game uploaded with an hour to spare!

But mistakes happen, so I allowed a grace period afterwards to accept late submissions. And then I closed that, and got even more late submissions. At which point I had to put my foot down or it wouldn’t be fair to everyone who did make their game in the allotted time.

Next time, the jam will “end” after 48 hours, but I’ll make the whole thing 49 hours to allow an extra hour grace period for late uploads and last-minute bug fixes. If you miss that, then it’s game over.

You can’t make everyone happy

With everything in life, you can’t make everyone happy. And this is so true of game jams. 

The date was great for some, impossible for others. The time was perfect for most of the world, but too late for some Europeans. The theme was a thrilling challenge… or a ridiculous roadblock. The judging makes sense for us, but has angered many jammers. And my livestreams were cool if I liked your game, but a crushing blow if it wasn’t to my taste!

You’ve got to figure out what’s most important in each situation, and make the choice that will negatively impact the fewest people. And then stick to it. And grow a thick skin, to deal with all the negative comments. 

The experience was amazing

The jam was hard work, but the experience was incredible.

Watching the Discord explode with "HYPE!!" messages before the theme was announced. Seeing photos of people’s work stations and teams. Seeing the work-in-progress games on the hashtag. Watching the number of submissions creep up at closing time (My girlfriend practically screamed when it went over 1,000). Playing incredibly innovative games on the stream, and feeling like I had some tiny weeny role in their existence. All brilliant.

I’d do it all over again. In fact, I will. August 2019. See you there. I might just join in myself.