Benjamin Vermot, Victor Vermot and I, aka. VeryKoolGames, participated in March 2024 at the UPsi Game Jam. The event was hosted in Neûchatel at the campus Arc 2 de la HE-Arc by Alexander Wohlfahrt. The goal of the game jam was to create a video game in forty-two hours under the theme ‘confined’ and publish it on itch.io.

“Incroyable, la qualité des enigmes, c’est insane. Et très beau design. Bravo!” – comment by Krucksy on itch.io.

🎮 Play our game here, then read how the entire process went during the jam.

It was challenging to make a game out of a well-known and somewhat negatively connotated word: “confined”. Because it was not our first game jam together, we discussed prior the event on the improvement of our workflow. Indeed, we felt we were moving way too fast to the coding and designing aspects before even having a strong core, story or level design. We were also interested in making a game using a cube to be able to use the 3D engine of Unity.

This is what we did in the first hours of the game jam : to set a strong common ground. Being crystal clear about what our game is, what is its genre, what is the story and what is the primary mechanic. It is also important that we, as active members and part of the group, are being assigned tasks that would drive us and fit our individual growth needs. We then built the story behind the game mechanic to make the theme fit : our main character is “confined” in a cube and the player must solve puzzles to set him free.

Right. We know the time runs amazingly fast in a game jam and we must set our limits. How many puzzles then ? How do we share the tasks between us ? What are the deadlines ? Alexander gave us an advice on the Discord channel with the MoSCoW method : Must do, Should do, Could do, Won’t do. We then did our classical brainstorming, during ten minutes, writing as much puzzle ideas as possible, then present them to the team without being interrupted. We then discussed the ideas and tried to fusion some of the ideas together if we saw complementarity. Finally, we chose four puzzles to dispatch along the six faces of our cube. During this phase, I had a clear idea and the programming logic for the current third face, which was challenged by Victor. I had to defend my idea by demonstrating step-by-step how I would make the puzzle work. I liked how Victor naturally took the role of a devil’s advocate because it obliged me to be clear on my proof demostration.

Since we already knew each other, tasks-sharing was based on our field of expertise. Our lead graphic designer, Ben, was creating all the visual assets. Victor and I shared the programming of the puzzles, I was mainly on the three first faces and Victor did the three last faces. When I wanted to do something else, I wrote the story and we also found the music and audio effects together with Victor.

This game allowed me to be more familiar with animations. Moreover, group-wise, we were genuinely satisfated by how we planned our tasks because at the end we had a solid gameplay core with four challenging puzzles. Our game was playable from the begining until the end at the end of the jam – let me remind you we did it in only forty-two hours !

Also this game was the first for us to win a second place 🥈 in a competition ! We are grateful for everyone’s feedbacks and positive evaluations, it makes us want to move forward and continue what we began together !

If you haven’t done it yet, please follow our Instagram account @VeryKoolGames and we would be delighted to have a friendly comment or a DM if you liked our game !

A take-home message if you want to do a game jam :

  1. Set a common ground where everyone is aligned on the group direction and where you can meet one of your need. For example, brainstorm on the game ideas and direction then decide what you will do by explicitely communicating to the group one of your personal goal / need : “I would like to do (task assigned) because I can (personal acquired skill) and I want to develop (personal growth need).”
  2. Set your limits. By limits, I mean in terms of your skills and the time available. Before going to the jam, be clear about yourself and what you can offer to a group. Overselling your self here is not necessary if you cannot do what you said you can do. And once the game idea is commonly accepted, set strict deadlines.