Smithy of the Fishy

The First 47 Hours Were Dreamlike

As many jams prove to be, this GM48 was a huge learning experience for me. I enjoyed this jam a lot. I am very proud of our game. But I also am not satisfied with how it ended, and the result we are now presenting to people. What could have been an incredible game turned out to only be somewhat good in my book, due to a simple matter of instability.

Saying "I don't think we're gonna make it" to Ben was extraordinarily hard. There was just minutes left in the jam. We were furiously fixing bugs. Right when we got it perfect, GM hard crashed, and we somehow lost an hour's worth of fixes. With no time left, I had to upload what we had -- an unfinished game.

And it's a shame, because BenStar and Failpositive kicked ass on this project. We have countless sprites, most animated, that are just gorgeous. The level of polish and juice in the entire thing is absurd. We have 5 whole original tracks on the soundtrack, and the sound effects were baller. Though it's hard to blame myself for a crash like the one we had, I definitely feel responsible for the outcome of the stability, and there was a lot I could have done better.

This isn't to say that the experience wasn't positive though. I gained a lot out of this project, mainly that this team really works well together. And looking back, if you ignore the stability concerns, I think this game is really awesome. Super fun. I am confident that if further developed, stabilized, and beefed up, we could have a seriously awesome game on our hands, and I really can't wait to explore those options more.

Overall? Not the jam I expected, but the one I needed. No matter where your skills lie, no matter what your team looks like, you can always find invaluable lessons to take away from a game jam, and GM48 is one of the most incredible, accepting, and well managed jams out there.

I wish everyone the best of luck with their games! Thanks for reading my rambling :)