Over the years, game jams the world over have thrown up loads of indie success tales. Surgeon Simulator, Superhot, Gods Will Be Watching, and Titan Souls, amongst others, have gone on to vital success, however their lives began as prototypes stapled collectively as a part of a jam. Which is why I used to be intrigued to see a jam put ahead actively discouraging builders from engaged on their games.
Earlier this month, indie developer Sophie Houlden posted a game jam pitch on itch.io. The guidelines had been easy – “don’t make a game, don’t work on a game, do literally anything else.”
Houlden says that the concept for the jam got here within the wake of 7DRL, a seven-day roguelike jam, and whereas they are saying that “it was a good experience and I’m really happy with the work I did […] even with the laxest rules I always end up pushing myself harder than I should.” A jam encouraging builders to take a break was an amusing sufficient concept that Houlden put up a web page on itch.
Don’t Make a Game wasn’t “really an attempt to highlight anything in particular,” however Houlden says that it’s helped shine a highlight on the truth that “[indie developers] are all working too hard, and most of us don’t really have a choice about it anyway.” They go on to say that “I think indie dev absolutely has a high rate of burnout but I can’t think of any creative work that isn’t just crushing the people who put their lives into it. I see it a lot in gamedev because that’s where I’m at, but the glimpses I see elsewhere of stuff like comics or writing seem to be much the same.”
Read extra: Here are the best indie games on PC
Despite Houlden’s good intentions, some individuals don’t appear to have been capable of cease themselves from placing games collectively. With three days to go till the tip of the jam, there are already greater than 30 submissions, and whereas most of them declare to not be games, there are at the least just a few entries that I’m fairly suspicious of. Houlden’s unsure that they’ll be capable of maintain off from making something for a complete week, however says that “I guess it’s nice for us to acknowledge that ‘Hey we should take better care of ourselves and one-another.’”
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