I first started Game Developement about midways through year ten. I'd always been a bit of acomputer guy,
and especially at that point enjoyed playing different kinds of video games. While in year ten, I was
apart of a Junior Plus class, basically we got four lessons a week where we could work on specific projects
we decided at the beggining of the year. I first decided I would write a book. Then at one point I decided I
would do a blender animation instead.
However about halfway thruogh the year, I randomly sat down, downloaded and installed unity. It took a little,
but my laptop was able to handle it. I played around a little bit, eventaulyl followed a few tutorials, and found
myself hooked. I changed my junior plus project to making a game. But never actually really did much for that, instead
I mostly played around with my own things. I did my first game jam, and found I really loved it.
The biggest help I got into with unity was from Brackeys, I'mm not sure what I would have done without that guy.
I followed many of his tutorials and created seceral projects with that channels help.
Maybe about a year later however, I found Godot. Not quite as popular as Unity, but it seems to be pushing through
the ranks, even Brackeys has acutally switched to Godot now. Godot is open source, which is instantly a good sign, but its
also simple and lightweight. While still ebign able to create good projects.
I havn't touched unity much since, but could probably get back into it if I really needed to. However I know primarily
use Godot, and have done several game jams over the course of the last two and a half years.
I love game development, I can create just about anything I want, and then once I create it, I can interact with it with the rules I set. I love coding and trying to use logic to figure out how to do specific things. And overall I just love being able to get some models, get some code, and play it. Sitting back and thinking. I made this. Its crazy to me sometimes, even just simple things. I made it, and I love that.
I have learned a huge amount from getting into game developement, like that area is probably the core area that has helped me to learn
so much. First off is coding, I actually wasn't really much of a coder before I started getting into game developemnt. But it really helped
me to learn both c# and python, which has led me to do other projects that are seperate from game design.
In terms of game jams, the biggest thing I've learned from game jams, seems to be that overall I work better solo. Honestly the games I made
with teams did seem to be slightly less quality than the others, and wern't as enjoyable experiences. Simply becouse I found it was a little stressful,
having more people be depending on me to get it done.
However through that I did learn some skills for working with others, some things specific to game jams, like this helped me to get a little bit
more experience with Git and github. Mostly things like fixing problems with merges and whatnot.
Overall through game developement its helped me to learn team skills, coding, figuring thinks out logically, and more. Its given me more expereince with
some game modelling in blender. I've had experience with creating a mobile game, infinite runner games, 3d platformer, horror, and more. I have learned a lot
from game developement and have really enjoyed it overall.
| Status: | Occasionally |
| Skill: | Mediocre |
| First Started: | Mid 2022 |
| Game Jams Done: | 6 |
I have done about six gam jams overall, as of the point of writing this. And will try to look back and get a general list of what I've done. This is kind of in order I think. I don't really remember so it may or may not be correct.
This game Jam I actually wont be able to find. I deleted the account that I used for it, having switched to another. So
I'm not actually sure which one this was. Maybe I would be able to find it, but it was likely sometime around 2022, If I
remember correctly. The theme was 'Alone.'
For this Jam, I made a game I called Statues. The general Idea was that
you were moving through a mansion. The mansion is filled with statues that will always be mvoign towards you, unless you're looking
at them with your flashlight. So yes, the first actaul game I made was a horror game, and I think I did pretty well considering.
I think this may have been my second game jam, that or there was another that I've lost to time. Otherwise it was a bit of time between my first two james. This was another Brackeys Game Jam, but instead of using unity this time I used Godot to create the game. It was an infinite scroller and I called it You Gotta Dive a Little Deeper. However I later renamed it Deeper Depths. After the Game jam I actually redid a lot of the game and made it into a mobile game. I then put it on google play, and it actually wasn't too bad. Making my first mobile game was definately painful, but a very good learning expereince.
My third game Jame, I did like one month after Deeper Depths, This game jam was hosted by Godot Wild Game Jams. They do a game jam every month, and I've done a few of them by now. I called this game The Amulet Of Katari. Its a simple 3d platformer that you go through. There were a few hiccups, mostly with moving platforms, but otherwise, being the shortest Jam I'd ever done, it wasn't too bad. Since brackeys Jams were about two weeks, While Godot Wilds are about a week and a half. I think so at least.
This Game Jam was a very interesting one. Becouse see, it was the first ever game Jam that I did with a team. So isntead of going Solo, I actaully got a team of three other people to work on it with. The game was called A Sunny day at Vamperville. I worked with two other 3d designers, and one audio guy. Being my first expereicne working with others, I definately learend a lot, and it was a little bit more stressful. I had to do all of the coding, and couldn't just quit at any point if I wanted to, since others were relying on me. It was fun however, and I think we got an okay game out of it.
This game Jam was actually even more interesting than the one before, you see I remember before this jam, I don't think I was even considering about doing it,
but at one point I got a message on discord. It was one of the guys I had worked with in the last jam. He said he'd found a team, and asked if I wanted to join and
help out with the next jam. I said yes, and joined an even larger team than before.
We called the game A Humbling Request. And it was definately an interesting experience. But a very big learning
one as well. The team was large, they had a discord server with maybe eight of us, but several didn't join with this game Jam. The game didn't end up working out very well,
we easily could have used another day or two, we had likely just set too much work for the time frame, and considering we didn't have much in terms of coders.
I remember onyl getting a couple hours of sleep the night before it ended trying to get it to a point where we could call it finished. Since I had school and whatnot that day.
We got it out there at least, and I learned a lot. The team had a couple of voice calls and meetings throughout. I got to experience what is might actually be like to be some sort
of like software designer working remote. Something my dad does a bit, so that was actualyl pretty cool.
This game jam I went back to doing solo, (I did do another with the team before this, but I didn't do that much, having gone on holiday for half of it.) And this time I called the game Robos Large Scale Adventure. This is the shortest Game Jam I have ever done, being only about four days long. And it was frankly terrible timing. Due to time changes, I had even less time becouse it happened to start and end at inconvenient times. However I got a decent-ish game out of it, I was a little rushed at the end, but I think it was pretty cool. A space battle was the main part of it, and then a little bit of a first person shooter.