MCBACON JAM (2?) POST MORTEM
Posts
Ok, so a lot has happened and McBacon Jam 2 has ended. Successfully? I suppose that depends on the metric it's being measured by. If by number of turned in entries, then its been a flop more or less. By the experiences people have had? That sounds far more acceptable of a metric to go by. The thing is though, some things need to change, and must change for this to do anyone any good.
The goal here is more about teams than gam mak, and I feel I may need to further emphasis team activity and make it more inviting without losing it's principles. As for the complaints I've received about theme; again, theme isn't a big deal with this event, it's about teamwork and working with new people more than anything. If anyone is still interesting in more of these in the future, speak up, and tell me what you think! I'll keep doing these if people keep wanting these.
The goal here is more about teams than gam mak, and I feel I may need to further emphasis team activity and make it more inviting without losing it's principles. As for the complaints I've received about theme; again, theme isn't a big deal with this event, it's about teamwork and working with new people more than anything. If anyone is still interesting in more of these in the future, speak up, and tell me what you think! I'll keep doing these if people keep wanting these.
Yeah, there are a few teams which did quite a lot of work on their entries but didn't finish on time. They did get a lot of extensions though, and sometimes the extensions added extra stress to the calendar. However, I'm happy to be in one of the teams that got a build uploaded in time and I've gotta say thanks (again) to you, Zeig. You're right in that the number of entries submitted to the event page doesn't represent the amount of work that went into games over the past month. This excludes games that didn't get finished on time, those whose production cycle was aborted due to team conflicts, and other reasons.
Congratulations to the teams that finished on time, and another congratulations to those who are still working on their games or created incomplete games that they didn't want to upload for undisclosed reasons.
Hooray, friends!
Congratulations to the teams that finished on time, and another congratulations to those who are still working on their games or created incomplete games that they didn't want to upload for undisclosed reasons.
Hooray, friends!
Aw, so not all the games got done? I was looking forward to playing all of them. :<
Still, congrats to everyone who took part (and sorry to the team mates I left behind thanks to my shiternet. >.<)b
Still, congrats to everyone who took part (and sorry to the team mates I left behind thanks to my shiternet. >.<)b
I think it's more successful if you have 1 person in charge of making the game and who is going to complete it no matter what. In my experience of working with other people like Rad or Short Star, I wasn't completely dependent on them completing their part (though I'm very thankful for what they did.) In the end I was going to finish my game no matter what.
The problem I see with these team games is that you have no real 1 person who is going to make sure it's going to get finished. Another problem is that the game doesn't really belong to just one key developer. If one person pushes their agenda too far they end of stepping on the toes of other people who have an equal input into the game.
I have tried on a couple occasions to participate in some team making game efforts, but never to any sort of success. It just usually never ends up going anywhere, from my personal experience.
I joined the jam knowing fully well that I was going to be busy. It didnt help that I have real life issues to sort out (e.g. bank stuff like today). But my entire team was sweet to work with and we'll finish it. Just not the jam's deadline as we hoped. I felt bad for disappearing too often.
I'm echoing Liberty here, well other than the internet issues.
Time to go and see what did get done and to bookmark those still in progression.
Also deadline-shemedline, as long as you had fun.
Time to go and see what did get done and to bookmark those still in progression.
Also deadline-shemedline, as long as you had fun.
author=Zeigfried_McBacon
The goal here is more about teams than gam mak, and I feel I may need to further emphasis team activity and make it more inviting without losing it's principles. As for the complaints I've received about theme; again, theme isn't a big deal with this event, it's about teamwork and working with new people more than anything. If anyone is still interesting in more of these in the future, speak up, and tell me what you think! I'll keep doing these if people keep wanting these.
I kind of feel like no matter what you actually do, the entire productivity of the team lies on the team itself.
From what I could tell, it seems the lack of submissions (I'm putting that too lightly, there were only THREE), was due to poor management within the teams themselves, rather than the event. I think if this community had more guidance on how to work with other people to make a game, this would be alleviated.
Real life just bulldozed our entire plan and time to work on it.
We actually have a game profile sent to the submissions queue like 3 hours before the deadline but I didn't have the stamina to stay awake any longer unfortunately!
I had a lot of fun with my team though, and we ended up making something that I think looks incredible in comparison to all my other projects. It's just a shame that throughout the event I've gotten my free time nibbled away by real life issues (bank payment, flight sorting, TGS, etc) so I couldn't devote more time to actually working on it.
We're going to continue working on our game, and one day finish it for sure, though!
We actually have a game profile sent to the submissions queue like 3 hours before the deadline but I didn't have the stamina to stay awake any longer unfortunately!
I had a lot of fun with my team though, and we ended up making something that I think looks incredible in comparison to all my other projects. It's just a shame that throughout the event I've gotten my free time nibbled away by real life issues (bank payment, flight sorting, TGS, etc) so I couldn't devote more time to actually working on it.
We're going to continue working on our game, and one day finish it for sure, though!
author=Archeia_Nessiah
I joined the jam knowing fully well that I was going to be busy. It didnt help that I have real life issues to sort out (e.g. bank stuff like today). But my entire team was sweet to work with and we'll finish it. Just not the jam's deadline as we hoped. I felt bad for disappearing too often.
It's a lot of fun, though. It's really great to interact artistically with really talented people. And we really got too much work into the project to stop now.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Only three games, huh? Man. One or two others were probably done and just didn't manage to get submitted properly, as usual.
The real question is, which of those, if any, are actually finished?
The real question is, which of those, if any, are actually finished?
With my own experience, there was always this sense of "we'll do such-and-such after the jam", and I think that's part of the issue. The plans for gammak aren't necessarily contained to the event. Then, as the event comes to conclusion, maybe, there's a sense of "well, we did what we could, but, we are so done with this game". Or something like that? I dunno. All I really know is that Myriad Cypher could have been the only jam-game to be significantly worked on after-jam (I could easily be proven wrong, though).
To be honest i leave this jam with a bitter taste in my mouth, but i guess i cannot complaint at all since i was only the team's musician and therefore don't have the right to whine about us not submitting a game or demo in time. The bitterness is there though.
Oh, uh, we actually had a demo ready for this event, but we ended up not submitting in time. Yikes! It's coming~ We're gonna finish ours!
I learned a lot from this. I'm almost tempted to say bring on McBacon Jam #3 now, because I'm very ready to use my new knowledge.
Kory said that having gam mak rest on only one person is the right way to go about it. Not so sure about that. It's not inherently bad, but for my team, this ended pretty bad because ofLibby's my shiternet, as well as my terrible immune system. I was determined to finish (with a demo at least), but I couldn't really take into account internet/health issues. Whoops!
I learned a lot from this. I'm almost tempted to say bring on McBacon Jam #3 now, because I'm very ready to use my new knowledge.
Kory said that having gam mak rest on only one person is the right way to go about it. Not so sure about that. It's not inherently bad, but for my team, this ended pretty bad because of
After being in two of these, I'm feeling really defeated when it comes to team games. I'm really happy to see that others have had good results with the jams, but I really haven't enjoyed these. This isn't a complaint, as there's really no one at fault, but I don't think I'd enter a third one of these, as it's extremely frustrating to put in a lot of effort and have things still not work out.
author=unity
After being in two of these, I'm feeling really defeated when it comes to team games. I really happy to see that others have had good results with the jams, but I really haven't enjoyed these. This isn't a complaint, as there's really no one at fault, but I don't think I'd enter a third one of these, as it's extremely frustrating to put in a lot of effort and have things still not work out.
No hard feelings, though would you still be willing to give teaming up with me a chance, if not for an event, in general at least?
Right now, aside from work I owe people, I don't want to think about anything team-related. Perhaps I'll change my mind at some point, but for now I have to say no. I'm very sorry.
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
Maybe you said it already, Zeig, but can I ask why there were multiple deadline extensions? A day, two days, I could understand. But this just felt like overkill*. I feel like it would have been a LOT less stressful if the initial deadline was set for at least that extra week. I won't lie: seeing that first extension come up the day after we pulled out felt like a real kick to the gut. That, plus seeing you say that it was probably a common occurrence for McBacon Jams to have these last minute extensions really put a damper on my eagerness to join another one.
*: Then again, even with the extensions, only three (wow) games were submitted on time, so take what I said with a grain of salt. Still though, there are so many, "what ifs" going through my head even now that I can't help but feel a bit bitter about this whole situation.
*: Then again, even with the extensions, only three (wow) games were submitted on time, so take what I said with a grain of salt. Still though, there are so many, "what ifs" going through my head even now that I can't help but feel a bit bitter about this whole situation.
author=Red_Nova
Maybe you said it already, Zeig, but can I ask why there were multiple deadline extensions? A day, two days, I could understand. But this just felt like overkill*. I feel like it would have been a LOT less stressful if the initial deadline was set for at least that extra week. I won't lie: seeing that first extension come up the day after we pulled out felt like a real kick to the gut. That, plus seeing you say that it was probably a common occurrence for McBacon Jams to have these last minute extensions really put a damper on my eagerness to join another one.
*: Then again, even with the extensions, only three (wow) games were submitted on time, so take what I said with a grain of salt. Still though, there are so many, "what ifs" going through my head even now that I can't help but feel a bit bitter about this whole situation.
Yes, the extensions were a bit much, and I intend on having a looser, more laid back format in the future, though how to implement it, I'm not sure as of yet. Please accept my apologies for whatever grief it cause you though red. :(
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
No need for that. There were a few good lessons I learned from the jam, so there's still some good that came out of it. If anything, the time away from my solo project helped clear my head and I'm more productive on it now than I have been for awhile. Always good to look at the positive side of things, right?