Jeff On Games

Today I realized another thing that went wrong with our GGJ product, that I felt needed sharing.

1. Starting At the End: This one is twofold. First, we spent a lot of time working on the end boss battle of the game, which, while awesome, had to be integrated with the rest of the game at the end of the jam, mostly in the last hour. The core mechanic of the game, the destruction and rebuilding of objects, suffered as a result. Second, when the game was pitched, I included a portion "at the end" where it turns out you're a horrible person for destroying the world. We never got to this because the game took precedence.

Basically, I've found that almost any game jam game that has the words "and at the end of the game" never gets to that point because developing the core mechanic and building gets in the way. And if you need the end of the game to keep with the theme of the jam, you're going to end up breaking theme.

I will say in defense of my team that it was mostly me talking about the "end of game" theme. Amanda pretty much spent the entire time telling me we wouldn't get to it, so this rest squarely on my shoulders.

In the end, I don't think Quest For Stick fit the main theme of the Jam (deception), but I think the core mechanic was awesome, and I'm happy we decided to make it instead of making something that would obviously fit with theme.