Hi all.
I recently decided to create my first (which I showed publicly) game on Godot as part of Game Name Jam. I had 14 days and was very interested in it.
I'll tell you right away. Nothing worked out for me... 😭
Process
The beginning of a jam is always more fun than the end (which I'll talk about later). I started with full enthusiasm. I decided to make a Roguelike game inspired by Hades. I used Godot, Blender and Krita.
1st week
In the first week everything was fine - I successfully created a working prototype, rendered the graphics (I had a pre-render + real time style, in short a 2.5D mixture as in the reference). And perhaps this was a mistake.
2nd week
The game's graphics caused huge problems. I've already overloaded my editor. I started to burn out. Lately I haven't had time to make a game. I barely published it until I completely burned out.
Result
The game turned out okay, IMHO. True, there were so many bugs and crutches in the last week. What already disgusted me
The players rated my game much worse than I did. And I think I agree with them, but one thing infuriated me.
| Criteria | Rank |
|---|---|
| Theme | #197 |
| Enjoyment | #215 |
| Creativity | #225 |
| Audio | #225 |
| Art | #229 |
| Overall | #229 |
Crap. THE ART I WORKED ON FOR A WEEK WAS RATED BELOW THE GAMEPLAY...
Summary
I'm tired of it. All these game engines are garbage. I don't know. All because it is OOP. I hate OOP. Create a modular structure, etc. 👎
This failure didn't really surprise me, but I'm tired of making games, so I'm leaving GameDev. I don't know when I'll be back. And is it worth it?
Discuss
Do you think this is normal? (yes probably)
What would you do if you learned about such a defeat?
What would you choose - not to give up, or to leave anyway, so that you can possibly return (or not) with new strength?
game link: itch.io, source code
This article may be too short, but I don't know what else to say
Top comments (23)
Hey Ember! Hope you are well. Thanks for sharing you experience and great work on your first game!
When I am making games (don't know If I mentioned this to you yet), but I also used Godot!. I think Godot is a good game engine because of its simplicity and easy to get in to. Although I never got into a "competitive" gamejam, I have been into game jam that was hosted at my University. Even though it lasted for a week, it was the first time being part of a Game Jam and I enjoyed it!
Mentioning that "I'll tell you right away. Nothing worked out for me... 😭", is common in game jams. It is design to put you under pressure and to be fair, that pressure will be in a professional setting as well. Gaming companies put Devs under pressure to reach deadlines and ensuring the game comes out in a timely manner. I believe that practice is unethical and I don't recommend pursing a career as a Game Dev in the AAA space.
If you enjoy making games, I recommend just being an indie dev. That way, you get to make your own schedule and games turns out to be REALLY good based on the track record of indie games so far like Hollow Knight: SilkSong for example.
With your questions, yes, it is normal, especially for first timers. Just keep on trying and learn new things in Godot. That is better than just quitting. If it turns out it is not for you in the long run, feel free to try something else. In my opinion, don't quit on something that you just started. It takes discipline and that is in anything you do, even if it is a hobby. For example, I consider Dev.to as a hobby. Initially, I didn't like "writing" posts because I just hate writing in general. However, after being on Dev.to for sometime, It open for me that writing is not so bad after all since the reward I get for writing blogs is other people seeing it and providing useful feedback.
If you like, we can organize a GameJam on Dev.to. I think @ben and @jess would love to have that event for everyone and it can be a month game jam! I think it sounds fun to think about!
Also, for a tip on game jams. Make the game small and sweet. I tend to have this issue myself where I go "Full Send", but it leads you to problems. Games are good if they are simple and unique.
Hope this helps! Keep trying @embernoglow! Right now, I am rarely using Godot (even though me and my friends are currently working on a game in Godot). Someday, I will get back to it :)
We're definitely interested in a community big game jam — we'd probably like to make it an official challenge but @jess I do think this is overdue :P
Thanks. Organizing GameJam sounds interesting, but setting up itch.io will probably be the hardest part.
Godot is really good, but I hate the UI (No, it's not overloaded, it's simple, but I just don't like drag-drop.). It's weird, but after all these years, I've come to love the terminal. Even though I'm on Windows, where the console isn't all that great, I've been wanting to switch to Linux for a while now, btw...
I'm actually thinking about changing my perspective on game programming. I recently watched a video on YouTube (can give a link if needed) where a guy was talking about how tired he was of Godot and why he switched to a programming language and graphics library called SDL. It sounded very similar to my situation. But I'm not crazy enough to go and make a simple 10k-line cube mapping. So I want to rethink my perspective on Godot. Before that video, I didn't even know what OOP was, even though I used it every day, lol. Basically, I'm thinking about cramming the game into a single script and using shared functions for different objects. It might sound confusing, but it'll definitely be around 2k lines (just the way I like it). Okay, I'll go give it a try.
I think the itch.io will be fine. I would assume that it is not exclusive to Game Engines in where people can make a game using simple Web stuff like HTML, CSS, and JS. My guess is that it will be hosted like any other Dev.to events and that you have different ways of submitting the game (like linking your itch.io page).
I guess that fine as long as it works for you. Me personally, I would just practice OOP since it is good practice. You don't have too, but for readability sake (especially for people wanting to learn the code), then it would be best. :)
I am still interested in the question of where the jam will take place - on itch or dev.
And about OOP - I spent this evening trying to avoid it and shoved all the game logic into one file. A hundred lines of code for a simple fps controller. Okay, I take it back, OOP is really good. But I will still finish this prototype, maybe this approach will manifest itself in the later stages of development
Kudos that you started and finished something, aside the result and how you feel. GameJams are exhausting :)
GameJams are tough. And I mean "The Dark Souls of Game Development"!
If you like the grind and can handle yourself to survive, learn, prevail and conquer, the result after 10, 15, 20 tries can be so encouraging, you never want to stop.
But souls-like games are not for everyone. Same accounts for GameJams.
Game Development is such a complete but challenging software development topic as it has so many touch points: coding, game design, art, logic, creation, compiling etc. Engines may help but necessarily to your benefit.
It really depends (as always ^^). And one thing I noticed very very early on: just because I like to play games, doesn't mean I like to develop them :) I like the technical challenge, the engine, the architecture. Art... darn I am bad ;) Game Loop? Geez... I am too stupid ^^'
I should say "Never give up", but it would be a bad advice. You said this was your first public Godot Game. Good! It's better to finish something than to never start anything!
To find out if this is for you, you can only reflect and try for yourself.
Maybe another GameJam, maybe just a carbon-copy of a Game you like with some free assets from itch.io to figure out, where your strong points are: coding, art, game logic or something else. If nothing works out, so be it. But you will be stronger, better and more knowledgeable afterwards. And that is always a good thing ;)
I am a frontend dev and have nothing to do with game dev
but I really appreciate your msg
We need more people like you
Thank you! In general, I'm already thinking about a new project... Yes, for several days I told myself that I needed to rest... No, idleness is hard work. ^^
I like that you are experimenting and building things! It takes courage to put things out there in public.
If you are passionate about game dev then I would encourage you to try again. Take this as an opportunity to collect tangible feedback from your testers so that you can take this forward as learnings for your next project.
Thank you. The strangest thing that struck me at the jam was how rate4rate spamming the community. It was strange, and at first I didn't want to "promote" the game. Few people played it, so I decided to leave a link, and to my surprise, my game was seen. Well, at the next jam I'll post the game early and do more marketing.
Nice try! 👍 I keep making bugs and mistakes and failing every day. I need to keep trying too.
Thanks for support!
I couldn't get on with Godot either, and my sole attempt at entering a game jam was a disaster as well, I didnt even submit in the end.
I recommend raylib - it's not an engine with an IDE/UI but a library.
It's based on GLFW, but can also use SDL and export to web.
Natively it's C but you can use other language bindings.
Yes, I know about RayLib. My biggest pain is the setup. It'll start messing around with C and compiling DLLs again, plus you'll have to invest a lot of effort manually, not to mention the physics. I still prefer Godot because it's the laziest and most functional.
first jams are brutal. everyone shows up with big ambitions and ships a box that barely moves. the 14-day crunch tells you more about your dev interests than a year of side projects.
Thank you. Comparing MVPs to ambitions is always sad. 😭
haha yeah. that sadness is kind of the whole lesson - next time the scope starts smaller
Good job! What if, instead of relying on traditional services that take 15–30% of your sales, you used a licensing service that generates keys for your users?
Thanks, but what do you mean? The game is free and has source code distributed under the MIT license.
I was just curious about your roadmap—do you plan on monetizing this? Usually, that’s when those high commission fees start kicking in.
No, it's just a game jam project. The code and concept aren't all that great, so it's just a learning curve. Moreover, monetizing open source code other than through voluntary donations makes no sense.
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