Game Jam frequently asked questions

Need a guide to game jams? Want to find out how game jams work? Considering joining a game jam? First time taking part? Your questions answered.

7 min readApr 20, 2018

Tonight marks the start of the 41st LudumDare and 26th GM48 game jams, two large game jams that run a few times a year.

What is a Game Jam?

Game Jams are a gathering of game developers of all skill levels to create games within a small amount of time. Programmers, designers, artists, and musicians can take part either solo, or in small teams (sometimes formed just for the game jam), to build their game within the time limit — 48 hours for GM48, and 72 hour for LudumDare. Games must be submitted within the time limit, and are usually available to the public to play and provide feedback. Jams are usually themed; some jams release the theme ahead of time and allow early planning, other jams reveal the theme only at the beginning of the jam period to prevent pre-work.

For many first-time game jammers, the idea of taking part alongside game development and game jam veterans is a daunting one; for some it’s the first time they’ll be working in a team, for others it’s the first time they’ll be developing games beyond a casual hobby, which no doubt adds to the pressure and anxiety one might feel about taking part.

Hopefully this blog post can help demystify some of the culture and practices that surround Game Jams, answer frequently asked questions about taking part in game jams.

How do I register for a game jam?

Each game jam registration process is slightly different. Most game jams do not require pre-registration, and simply require you to register in order to submit your completed game before the end of the jam. Check the game jam’s website for guidance on the registration process.

Should I still take part in a game jam if I don’t have a chance at winning?

By gods yes! Game jams are not about winning; game jams are about joining like-minded others in a glorious shared struggle to create, however small, a completed game that can be enjoyed by others.

While game jams may have some competitive aspects to it, it should by no means be the main focus of your jam experience. Instead, the biggest rewards for all are the comradery, the experience, and hopefully a finished game that you make.

The high-scorers on the 41st LudumDare game jam

Do I need to be a professional, or have lots of experience to take part in game jams?

You can take part regardless of whether you’ve been making games for 10 days, or 10 years. People of all skill levels take part, enjoy, and benefit from game jams.

Just the sheer concentration of game-making juices in one time and place fosters a great sense of community, motivation, and inspiration, that benefit makers of all levels: beginners stand a good chance of learning more in the 48 or 72 hours of the game jam than they could in weeks outside of a game jam. Intermediate makers find it a great opportunity to get some released games under their belt. And advanced-level makers will take this opportunity to practice specific techniques methods that they don’t have the chance to try out on bigger projects.

What if I can’t finish my game on time?

Don’t worry! Game Jam timelines are challenging; not everyone finishes, and virtually nobody gets as much done as they would have liked. You should aim to submit anyway, even if it’s incomplete, or even if there are chunks missing. Don’t be ashamed about taking part: you built something, and while it may not be a whole thing, you built more, learned more, and made more friends than the next person who spent the whole weekend merely playing games. Wear that with pride.

You can always keep working on your game after the jam. Some successful games have come out of an initial concept that was built in a game jam, and then turned into a longer project. For example, the VR game SuperHot, started life in the 7-day First Person Shooter Game Jam (take a look at the Steam LudumDare curator list for more games that were born from game jams).

Game Jams are a regular occurrence, so if you aren’t satisfied with your performance, you can always get practising and try again next game jam. If there’s one thing game jams teach best, it’s how to prioritize tasks, and that’s valuable experience.

I don’t want to work alone, how do I find a teammate for the game jam?

Most game jams allow teams. For those that do, they will often run an official Crowdforge page for finding teammates:

GM48: https://crowdforge.io/jams/gm48
LudumDare: https://crowdforge.io/jams/ludumdare

Also look for community forums, subreddits, or Discord servers. Some game jams run their own; there are also game-making groups, as well as game-engine specific usergroups. You will be able to find many people in these communities who are either taking part in the jam, or would be interested in teaming up. For example, the GameMaker community Discord is an extremely active Discord server for individuals who use the GameMaker engine, many of whom take part in game jams. The invite link for the channel can be found here: https://discord.gg/By6u9pC

Help! My teammate dropped out!

Unfortunately this does happen sometimes. If it happens to you, you could try and find another teammate if the time allows for it (there are often people who haven’t found a team by the time the jam started but are still interested in taking part), or try to make it to the end without your teammate.

It might require a drastic change in the project, or you might have to submit an incomplete project, see the “What if I can’t finish on time?” questions in that case.

Game jam veteran, Meseta says:

In a recent game jam, unfortunately our artist wasn’t able to deliver the art we had planned. Fortunately we had built the game using placeholder graphics, so at least the game was playable when we had to submit. Unfortunately those placeholder graphics were “borrowed” from Pokemon, please don’t sue me!

This jam game (mine) might have a certain resemblance to a certain other game…It’s not ideal, I should have started with royalty free place-holders, but at the time I was more certain about our artist being able to produce replacement art.

What if I can’t find a team, but I need art/sounds?

If the rules of the game jam allows it, an option is to incorporate free art or sound assets into your game, letting you focus on design and code.

Some places to download free art assets for your game:

Game-icons.net: http://game-icons.net/
OpenGameArt: https://opengameart.org/
Reiner’s Tilesets: http://www.reinerstilesets.de/
Textures.com: https://www.textures.com/

Some places to make or download free sound assets for your game:

Bfxr: https://www.bfxr.net/
Incompetech: https://incompetech.com
IndieGameMusic: http://indiegamemusic.com
Zapsplat: https://www.zapsplat.com

But make sure that the game jam rules allow it, and make sure that the assets are free for you to use.

How do I prepare my body for the Game Jam?

Eat! Sleep! Poop!

It is sometimes tempting to push yourself to the limits in game jams, you’ll have creative juices flowing; and if you’ve joined an online community for the game jam, or follow other game jammers, you’ll be seeing a continuous stream of updates at all hours thanks to different time zones. Sometimes you just don’t want to turn the computer off and go to sleep.

Not sleeping might give you a few extra hours of work, but it comes at the cost of productivity and health. Needless to say, eating and pooping is just as important.

Pace yourself, and take care of your health!

Professional game developer, Juju Adams says:

- Take an hour off in the morning for breakfast + a shower
- Take an hour off for lunch
- Take an hour off for dinner
- Take an hour off before bed
- Get at least seven hours of sleep.
24-(7+4)=13 hours; that is how much you should aim to work. I’m of the opinion that no one can sustain >13 hours without doing damage and needing recovery time (at least I can’t!)

How do I pace myself and manage my time optimally?

The secret to completing a game is in pacing and time management. You have a very short amount of time to build a game, and there are a lot of things to do. Spend too long on one aspect of the game and neglect the other, and the game can end up unfinished.

As a general rule of thumb, you’ll be doing three things when you build the game:

Building the game framework, which includes the game mechanics
Adding game content, which includes art, sound, and level design
Polishing the game, those small touches that make the game pop and play well, including finding bugs, game balancing, visual effects and sound effects.

You will need to do a good balance of all three of these things, so you should plan out your time, and hold yourself rigidly to that plan. It’s very tempting to spend more time than planned to add “just one more feature” and eat into the time allocated for the other aspects.

Exactly how to balance the three things depends largely on the type of game you’re making, and your skills, there’s no one-size-fits-all. Just make sure you get around to doing a bit of all of those things, and you’ll be a lot better off than only doing two out of the three.