I just took part in the GMTK Game Jam 2024, and holy crap did I f**k up so many things! Here is a step-by-step guide on how to stumble your way through a game jam, inspired by the actions of yours trully!

1. Brainstorm for an hour, then find an exciting idea and get straight to work.

If you want to overscope like crazy, have insanely messy game design and basically no real vision of what your game will look like in the end? Then make sure to instantly start working on the first cool idea that pops into your mind. Do not write out the features necessary for the game, make a mini-gamedev doc, simplify the idea then simplify again. I repeat, do NOT do this.

2. Make art first, then code.

Always be sure to make your art assets first before having an MVP, to be sure that if something needs changing, you wasted a healthy amount of time on art assets that will not be used.

3. Do not sleep whatsoever

Make sure that in a 96 hour game jam, you get no more than 12 hours of sleep. You need to make sure you are functioning at your worst potential!

4. Only work on your game for the entire jam

Only. Work. No. Play. Make sure to not take breaks to play football with some friends, play some video games, watch some TV, spend time with family, etc. This is too healthy for you, and will obviously end up producing a worse game.

5. Make sure to only export your game at the end of the jam

Do not upload game builds as you work to ensure the WebGL works fine so that you deal with any common issues ASAP, this is very counter-intuitive. Make sure to only export it when there is around 2 hours left then use the stress of the deadline to motivate faster work efforts!

Ok, ok enough with the sarcasm, but you get the point.

I didn't FAIL the jam, I made a game I'm quite proud of, a fun little cozy farming game. But if I wanted to have made the game I had envisioned, making sure I avoided these all too common mistakes could've helped out a lot!

I hope this post helps someone in their future game jams :)