Wizard Jam 4 Feedback

[elvaq]

This jam has been a little strange considering all the work that went in to figuring out the name and what exactly the "heart of Wizard Jam" is but I'd still love to collect anyone's thoughts, ideas, or criticisms on how Wizard Jam 4 went.

 

Here are some sample questions to think about, just to get the ball rolling:

Did you ever feel restricted or confused by the Wizard Jam format? Conversely, was it all a little too loosey-goosey?

Do you feel like forming a team was easy? Was the Google Form people filled out with their game ideas and team stuff any more helpful than the team-forming forum threads of the past? Any general or specific ideas for ways the next organizer could improve team forming?

How did the Diversifiers go for you or your team? What about the process of selecting and voting on them?

Too much Dot Gobbler? Or not enough?

 

Wizard Jam 5 coming soon!

[Patrick R]

I think there was too much Dot Gobbler, but I imagine people will pull back a bit next time out. A fully 3D animated Dot Gobbler last time around was an amazing moment, but by the 8th Dot Gobbler I saw this time out I had forgotten what made him special.

[Twig]

as long as you let me have another week to finish my game i think it's great

[Ben X]

We were discussing on Slack the balance between no rules being a relaxed, encouraging environment while also perhaps allowing projects to slip into never-completed status. Perhaps people could be encouraged to hit some kind of completion for the deadline, even if they intend to do a ton of updates afterwards (Eyes Of Hitman being a good example of this). That could be a slippery slope into rules, though.

 

I thought the overuse of Dot Gobbler was hilarious this time and tied in well with the shared universe thing, but there perhaps should be a (suggested) moratorium on him for at least the next jam (this will probably be easier if a few more 3D models get shared)...

 

I can't speak to the rest so much due to the last-minute nature of my entry, but:

 

perhaps Jam organisers could pimp the team-building thread a bit more, even as an assistance request thread? Every time someone posts in their thread about needing a bit of voice-acting or whatever, advise them to use the team-building thread!

 

Diversifiers seemed to work well

[Zzot]

I was a first-time jammer and I’m too all-over-the-place with development and art to try to work in a team… however, for me everything was amazing. I had a lot of fun, everyone was helpful and, more importantly, supportive. I guess it applies to every jam, but working in parallel with other people is very powerful, especially in an environment like this one, where no one seems afraid of sharing issues, failures or just pivoting their game to something else mid-flight.

 

Diversifiers were a bit unclear, to be honest. The format I got from the podcast is: pick a title of an episode, add optional diversifiers, make a game. While, from what I understand, this year the title itself was a diversifier and you could do whatever you wanted. Which, in a way, is also good because it lowers expectations and constraints to the point of: let’s just make something.

 

As a final note, I really enjoyed the Slack channel over the forums for the Jam. The forums are great for stopping one second, reflecting and sharing what you are doing, while the Slack channel was fantastic for quick help and feedback.

 

Thanks for organising the Wizard Jam, I can’t wait for Wizard Jam 5.

[hedgefield]

I'll echo what Zzot is saying, it was a lot of fun! Even if I didn't have too much time to check in and hang out, I enjoyed the slack channel a lot.

 

Personally, I was glad the restrictions were so loose. It allowed me to shoehorn in an idea I had prior to the jam, and I could coast off the time pressure to actually finish it, whereas I would have tinkered with it for way longer if there had been no construct with a deadline around it. But I understand boundaries are good for productivity (and scope) too, so maybe one or two restrictions would be beneficial. But I feel like the title restriction being lifted this time was good, the rate at which we make games doesn't compare to the rate at which new thumbs episodes come out. It's getting hard to discern which Pizza-based game someone is talking about  

 

The diversifiers worked nicely to tie my idea into the Thumbs universe a bit. The selection process for it was a bit vague, though. Maybe next time we could make a Trello board with all the ideas on it, and then vote up the selection we want (Trello has a voting system)? That board could maybe even be persistent, with all the ideas from all the jams on it, and we reset the votes each time (not sure if that's possible actually, so worth an investigation).

I'm generally too scattershot in terms of free time to offer my help to others, so I have no thoughts about the team building, but it's nice that there's a way to do that. Maybe a subforum would be useful there? Gives a little more clarity to each separate request for help.

[keibo]

I agree with Zzot! It was my first time doing a game jam and although I've been interested in trying game jams before the tight restrictions (48 hour game jam for example) have always put me off due to my real life commitments. I liked that the rules and diversifiers felt more of a guidance to add quirks etc. to the game, rather than hard-fixed rules, although I can actually understand that more rules could make the whole thing more structured which can also help people out! My usual issue with game development in general is that my ideas are too vague and maybe not realistic, so I usually never end up completing anything on my own because I lose interest. Rules could help as they would focus and narrow peoples ideas down...

 

Also as Zzot said the slack channels have been a pretty good help for motivation, and seeing snippets of everyone's progress is always fun. I also found it very hard to spend 20-30 mins writing up a post on the forum when I could be spending those minutes coding... (I did actually enjoy creating the posts though)

 

I never signed up for the teambuilding because as this was my first jam, I honestly had 0 clue of how my schedule was going to go and I didn't want to commit to something with a team and having a project fail because I couldn't pull through. Although from what I saw on the thread it seemed to be organized pretty well (now I can't really speak much because I never formed a team)

 

Overall I really enjoyed the whole experience so thanks for organizing! I'm currently adding some extra touches to the current project (hopefully in time before the stream); however I'm already having a look at some other little projects to make as I really want to practice and get better

[Nappi]

This was my first time participating in the Wizard Jam (or any jam for that matter) too, and I liked the experience a lot! I prefer to have the diversifiers/"rules" as sources of inspiration and not restriction, and the jam was very good in that regard. I also agree that not having to base the game around an episode title was a good thing.

 

As for the relaxed atmosphere vs never completing the game: I tried my best to complete the game within the two weeks, and mostly succeeded, i.e. the game is fully playable, but I would still like to add music and some sound effects (probably today actually!). However, if for some reason, I would have had to miss one weekend of jamming, I might not have been able to finalize the gameplay and therefore release the game in time. Estimating the time it takes to complete something is really hard, especially if you are making your first game or using an engine for the first time, and it is not always possible make the deadline simply by cutting content (e.g. when the key systems are not implemented). Therefore, I think accepting late submissions is very important in maintaining the relaxed, "everyone is welcome" atmosphere. Of course, participants should still aim for, and be encouraged to, have a more or less complete project by the end of the jam.

 

Anyway, thanks a lot for jam organizers for their hard work and for everyone here (and on Slack) for their kind words and support! Although, I was occasionally frustrated and often tired, this was a very nice experience for me.

[Ben X]

4 hours ago, Zzot said:

Diversifiers were a bit unclear, to be honest. The format I got from the podcast is: pick a title of an episode, add optional diversifiers, make a game. While, from what I understand, this year the title itself was a diversifier and you could do whatever you wanted.

 

Yeah. Chris kept saying on the 'cast that you had to pick an episode title, but that has only been the case for Jams 1 & 3.

[Patrick R]

As someone who was following the jam but not participating, it would have been helpful if, when you listed the diversifiers you used, you also included descriptions. Every time I saw the list of diversifiers on someone's page it was totally meaningless because I couldn't keep track of what all 20+ meant in my head.

[njoos]

I am not a big fan of people uploading an empty submission just to have all of the pre-stream time to make a game. 

[ke51n]

Maybe there could be some awards next time? I know we want to keep it open and friendly, but some small awards to really praise high quality games and good concepts could be nice. Also, a bit more emphasis on feedback after the jam would be cool and really encouraging. 

On jam deadlines, I think maybe there should be two categories of games, one for games people just want to tinker with for a weeks or months, and one that is a more jamlike experience. (Maybe even less than two weeks) This could be like Ludum Dare with two different levels of jamming. (I propose the casual one be called the baby wizard Jam)

Dot Gobbler- not too much Dot Gobbler, but not enough creativity with the Dot Gobbler. Just slapping Dot Gobbler in a game is fine, but making Dot Gobbler actually mean something is the goal.

[SuperBiasedMan]

I think the issue with awards is that it turns the jam into more of a competition, where people feel pressured to perform in order to "win", even though one of Wizard Jam's strengths is that it's relaxed enough that people feel inclined to jump in with little knowledge.

 

I'm not sure how to manage people doing protracted post jam development, but maybe it's worth reminding people that the jam has most momentum in the two weeks, a lot of games don't get played as much after that and while the Thumbs stream is a big thing, it's better to have the game wrapped up before then because it's hard to know when it can be scheduled.

[Twig]

I know I joke a lot about how I'm worthless trash in Slack and that's why I never jam etc, so I'm going to share my relatively serious thought process behind delaying my own personal wizjamgam.

 

The reason I'm doing it post-jam is because I was busy as fuck for one and a half weeks during the jam and literally did not have the mental energy to even put serious thought into it beyond one funny idea (which I ended up not doing). Props to everyone who managed, but I'm not that strong of mind. Then I had an idea I liked and started it, but was still exhausted from work. Ultimately, I would probably finish this weekend, and then have spent less time than I would have liked on the thing (and certainly less than the allotted two weeks). The only reason I allowed myself this extra time is because I was under the impression that WizJam is super chill and not strict about things.

 

If the time limit is one of the few strict elements of the jam, then that's fine, I'll just let it go. It's not a huge deal to me. (I still want to finish the thing, but if necessary I'll just remove it from the official jam thing on itch.io!)

[Rilen]

This was my second Wizjam that I was aware of while it was going on, and the first one I seriously participated in. I thought it felt better organized and more visible than before, but part of that might be being a part of the Slack. On that note, I think we should write up some kind of guide to the Slack, because new people A.) couldn't see it at first and B.) might not know how to access the channels once inside. 

• I found the team-building thread impossibly helpful. I literally would not have made a game without my team and I owe everything to them. 
• I am worried that if the jam gets bigger again next year, things might get more confusing. It was hard to keep up with the devlog posts on the forum, but I loved everyone doing them and it did enable some last minute assists from other people. 
• My biggest take-away is that I think we need to keep up the level of accessibility and open-ness. I think the Thumbs were much more specific about the jam this time around and that helped people come on board? I think ensuring that signal gets out there early is good, and that we make sure that people know about things like the relaxed timeline, the team building, and the diversifiers. 
• I found the format great this time around, and I think the Dot Gobbler saturation is fine as long as we don't do it every year. It has weirdly made jam entries easier to show to friends, because everyone knows Pac Man and I can show them where it came from as an intro to the weirdness, rather than "here's a bunch of in-jokes for a show you don't know!"
• I think trying to have something playable by the deadline should be considered the "spirit" of the jam, but there should be no penalizing and it should be understood that you can continue polishing up to and indeed after the stream.
• I would love some form of community awards. I understand the fear of introducing competition and I do not enjoy competitive environments overall. But this whole jam I have been wanting to let other jammers know how much I admire and appreciate what they are doing, so maybe voting on some different community awards each year could be a thing. They could be silly titles, kind of like the approach the Steam Awards took this year.  EDIT: I have been convinced that this would not be a good idea, and heartily disavow it. 
• EDIT: Looking back over old jams I see something cool we didn't do this year which was having a support tree, ie on the main jam post say "these people are semi-experts in the following fields and you can hit them up for help". The Slack has really removed a lot of the need for this, but it's good to know and not everyone uses the Slack.

[SuperBiasedMan]

18 minutes ago, Twig said:

If the time limit is one of the few strict elements of the jam, then that's fine, I'll just let it go. It's not a huge deal to me. (I still want to finish the thing, but if necessary I'll just remove it from the official jam thing on itch.io!)

 

Really, 2 weeks being a long jam means that it's very hard for all participants to have those be a free 2 weeks. I didn't miss any of week 2 but was less productive because of illness. It's just going to happen, especially with exams, Christmas lead up, holidays etc.

 

I really don't think it should be strict at all, because the relaxed welcoming attitude is such a selling point. Multiple people have made their first game ever as part of wizard jam, and if they were told "No it was too late, it doesn't count" it'd be deflating. I think just casual reminders to not just completely disregard the deadline are more helpful, because they give meaning to getting something done along with the community without boxing people in to a relatively arbitrary end point.

[Rilen]

14 minutes ago, SuperBiasedMan said:

I really don't think it should be strict at all, because the relaxed welcoming attitude is such a selling point. Multiple people have made their first game ever as part of wizard jam, and if they were told "No it was too late, it doesn't count" it'd be deflating. I think just casual reminders to not just completely disregard the deadline are more helpful, because they give meaning to getting something done along with the community without boxing people in to a relatively arbitrary end point.

I agree, and on this note, I think the reason for it is just that it feels shitty to commit and try to hit a deadline and then maybe have someone more skilled and accomplished than you take as long as they want and just make something that seems incomparably better. I think if people were not free it would be fun to suggest still trying to do it on a deadline, ie a different two week stretch or what have you. And still polish as much as one wants, whenever.

[ke51n]

Yeah, timing and deadlines are hard to do. People are busy with their lives.

I do think there is a strange pressure, at least for me, to do something a bit bigger than an ordinary jam game because there are two weeks. I feel like there is a lot I can do in two weeks and then when I don't, I feel slightly discouraged.

[Twig]

Well if the fear is that I'm going to out-quality other games, hahahahahahahahaha.

[Ben X]

39 minutes ago, Rilen said:

• I would love some form of community awards. I understand the fear of introducing competition and I do not enjoy competitive environments overall. But this whole jam I have been wanting to let other jammers know how much I admire and appreciate what they are doing, so maybe voting on some different community awards each year could be a thing. They could be silly titles, kind of like the approach the Steam Awards took this year. 

 

There is already a way to let other jammers know that: post on their threads and itchio pages! I don't really like the idea of awards either, even if they are silly. Feels too stressful, and I'd much rather get a handful of comments on my thread...

[ke51n]

Could we get some famous game devs to come in and critique stuff? Perhaps Famous himself? Not really to pass out awards, but to say what's good and how to improve? (I'm just spewing random garbage now. 😛)

[Ben X]

I like that idea, as long as it's made clear only those who ant the feedback will get it. (I'm not sure I could take the embarrassment of Tim Schafer politely trying to think of something positive to say about Buble Bloodborne Bloodbeef!)

[Patrick R]

I think bringing in outsiders would be a wrong step because once you get removed from the Meme Stream™ of the podcast a lot of this stuff is just nonsensical. 

[watermelon]

This was my first game jam. It got me back into doing some 3D work after years due to a lack of confidence. While I didn't finish everything by the deadline I handed over most assets to my team by Sunday. One thing I'm even proud of. I was working the last three days of the jam so I wasn't really in the mood to refine textures or model the last prop. Honestly, I spent probably three or four hours after the deadline on art. I came to the jam on the promise of a non competitive vibe and enjoyed that most about it.

 

I worry that people will give up half way through if they know they can't meet a strict deadline. They wouldn't come away feeling like they have completed something, energised and ready to make something on their own time.

[GammaBit]

This is only my second WizJam - so here's a grain of salt to wash down my $0.02:

• The good: I love how relaxed the game jam is. I get the strong feeling that Wizard Jam is really about the process of making games, not the result. Allowing 2 weeks + flexible deadlines allows people with time to tackle ambitious projects, while also allowing the rest of us busy folks to chip in with some smaller projects.
• The great: Nice comments on a dev thread / itchio pages! I find these much more meaningful than awards.
• The "maybe-could-use-improvement-but-I'm-not-totally-sure": I found the list of diversifiers to be a bit overwhelming. Sometimes less is more (well, not literally, but figuratively).

Finally - thanks everyone! Thanks everybody that had a hand in organizing, and thanks to everyone who forms this bizarre and wonderful community. You're a good bunch.

 

#TeamDotGobbler #LetThemEatDots #NoRulesIsRuleTwo #DotsDotsDots