After so long I finally decided to participate in a GameJam. So much time passed since I created a game (almost eight years).

I kinda miss the first thing that I was looking for from a GameJam, to work with other people, but because of jobs and family time constraints, I decided that was best alone to manage my own pace.

I actually didn't begin at the start of the GameJam, I was undecided if I really wanted to enter this journey, and on Tuesday, May 24th, I started to look for some assets, and I started enjoying prototyping so I finally decided to create a quick game.

Only when I kinda finish the project I realize that itch.io has a blog section, but well, these are the notes that I took from developing this game. I spent roughly 35h creating this game.

May 24th (3h):

Late at night, after putting the kids to bed, I started looking for assets. Art's my Aquiles heel, I can barely create anything... but I knew what I wanted for game mechanics: An infinite runner in 2D space, and if I got time do also a part one with an infinite runner in 3D space, and I wanted also a leaderboard.

I started to look into 2D assets but I came to realize that I need 3D assets even for the 2D gameplay, 2D art needs to be damn good I wasn't finding anything to my liking.

Finish the initial project setup in Unity and some scripting for the 2D runner. 

May 25th (7h):

Setup git repo. Looking for 3D assets!

Worked hard with only 2h break, which ended at almost 3 am.., Swearing because I'm not an artist (probably artists swear about not being coders :D)

Finish platform spawner (custom platforms with infinite platforms using pool instantiation) and finish game score and have a first draft of the 2D runner.

May 26th (10h):

Sleep deprivation started... Created main menu, finish leaderboard and finish first draft of 3D runner.

May 27th (5h):

Kinda complete 3D runner (still need some adjustments), connected game elements: Menu -> 3D Runner -> 2D Runner -> insert leaderboard -> Menu

Basic game logic is done by this day but a good amount of polish is needed and UI, sounds, etc elements are still missing.

May 28th (2h):

My dad's happy birthday and even tho is Saturday I can't make any decent progress. Only added some sounds to the game.

May 29th (7h):

I really wanted to finish the game today, even if more polish is needed (well polish phase can be infinite).

Wasted some time with mobile controls, Unity's new input system with mobile kinda sucks, I forget this because isn't my target platform. I spent a lot of time fiddling with gameplay and added some fonts, UI elements, and sounds.

Upload to itch.io

What a ride it was, and I kinda surprised myself accomplishing something looking like a game done in 35 hours (yeah I know it isn't a great game but is a game). I think being a 10-day GameJam hurt me more than planning a weekend to do a weekend GameJam, and working at the same time was a real challenge... But I was pleased to practice a bit more game development in Unity. I really think this will not be my last GameJam!