#bitjam

Last week I participated in my very first game jam, the Bit Jam which was hosted by one of my favorite game developers out there; Daniel Linssen (Birdsong and Roguelight).

In this jam the point was to make a game with a very constraining set of rules:

A 1 bit game , with 1 pixel by 1 pixel of display, with maximum use 2 colors, no sound, text or additional feedback.

And I figured this would be the perfect jam for a rookie like me, one that is more focused on game design rather than game programming.  I was so excited because I would design a game so cool and unthinkable with only 2 simple blocks of color, I would make something so complex and emergent from such a simple set of rules that it wouldn't matter how visually poor it was.

Long story short, I spent 6 days working on a poor design that didn't work as I expected, I over-scoped my game and didn't paper-prototyped it as thoroughly as I should, otherwise I could have foreseen that it wouldn't work. 

In the end, that complicated the programming to disproportionate levels and only when I was almost finished, did I noticed that because of the design itself, the game was unplayable.

With 2 days left to submit, I was almost ready to ditch my first game jam. I had spent so much time on the game that it seemed like a gargantuan effort to go back and rework the concept from the ground up. Instead I decided to rely on the most simple and clichéd game narratives and designs I could link to the 1 bit theme, so I could make something as fast as possible. I guess by that point I just wanted to actually finish a project and submit it, just for the sake of it.

I made a little local multiplayer game called   BIT-BOMB , loosely based on Bomberman and Zombie Dice. And I even got the time to make a second game called  "WHY WRITE A LETTER THAT YOU'LL NEVER SEND?",   where you play-pretend to write hateful comments or tweets to someone in order to let the steam go off, something like a virtual simulation of the act of screaming into a pillow.

Bit-Bomb:   https://itch.io/jam/bit-jam/rate/65358

The thing is, I don't think the first game is a terrible game, it's just mehh... and can still use lot  of tuning in the manual and explanations department. In regards of the second one... I find the idea kind of interesting but not that much, it was a really lazy effort on my part ( I made it like in 10 minutes).

Why Write A Letter That You’ll Never Send? : https://steanbuck.itch.io/why-write-a-letter-that-youll-never-send

What bothers me the most is that the intention of making an innovative (but good) game got thrown away by the idea of making something quick and  safe, just because I had to get something out there before time ran out. It was kind of sad really, but it was all my fault for not designing under a proper framework from the start.

But then I got to see most of the submissions made by other participants and I got more depressed, because it was not only me who decided to lazily design the obvious. Not saying they were bad games, but a lot of them were concepts taken from traditional videogames, just simply stripped down to fit the jams rules, not a lot of thought put into them I presume and not very interesting as games.

So in short, lots of clones, little interesting stuff...

This got me to think that this seemed kind of analogue to the creative environment that big and "indie" game developers face in today's market. They may not be competing on a gamejam but they are constantly competing against each other, against a severely faster clock, that counts down the depletion of resources, both economical and human.

There's a lot less amount of people out there willing to take the risk of developing new ways of interaction , representation and narrative in games(and in anything really) because that’s not the most feasible thing to do. In big companies, where there are so many people and families at stake, having such an aversive attitude is probably the correct thing to do. The more people depend on you, the more difficult it becomes to accept risk. That is, unless everyone is on the same page and works with the purpose of innovation on the first place and economical reward on the second, but let's be honest, not a lot of people are that crazy.

For an industry that tends to pride itself so much on creativity and innovation, it's ironic how safe most developers need to play because of the market environment.

[NOTE: I am not saying there are not studios and developers out there that are making great innovative things, it's just that their numbers are just minimal compared to the other kinds of developers.]

I guess, to be able make work that moves the medium forward,  there is a very special set of conditions that have to be met. 

The right tools, methodologies, business practices and organizational structures that could help make good professional game development easier are still slowly appearing but haven't got to that special sweet spot where experimentation can be fully embraced as a daily practice by big and small companies.

Game jams provide many of such conditions and it's up to us students to take advantage of them while we can.

I personally would like to be able to make a mix of both worlds, traditional games and innovative concepts. 

Will I have to adapt to this game development environment that we as consumers and game creators have built or will I make that environment adapt to me?

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Here’s a list of the games other people put up for BitJam and that I found the most interesting :