To Jerbob jam or not to Jerbob jam

I had planned to enter Jerbob’s Silly Jam.

I always knew that I didn’t have time - when you’re losing a whole day in a weekend jam that’s significant. If it wasn’t billed as a silly jam I wouldn’t have even considered it, because I knew I couldn’t execute on quality.

What actually killed it was my idea. I had such a strong sense of what I wanted to build before the jam which fit within the remit of silliness and the time I had available.

I’d convinced myself that the idea would fit into any theme. But when the actual theme was revealed, Go to town, no way did it fit.

Having done week long and almost month long game jams, I’m not sure how I feel about the duration.

• Weekend is probably too frantic, unless it happens to be in a holiday period.
• Week long you have to work solidly and methodically, but I at least have little time for mistake or polish.
• Month long gives you time to relax and think, but the bar is going to be higher. Ultimately that’s a lot of time when you could be working on a real game.

I’ve now collected some many game ideas, that game jams are looking like a distraction. Whilst I consider game jams could be a vehicle for building those games, this jam proves perhaps not.

I’m tempted to focus on developing a few of my game ideas in the spirit of a game jam (short time, needs to be published). This does go against my new year’s resolution of focusing on game jams this year as a means to experiment more.