What in The World!?: A Jam Postmortem

Since the dawn of my game development days in college where I learned more than RPG Maker and some very basic GMS visual coding. Jams have eluded me in the sense that I could never finish them properly.
Often the jam game is overscoped, I run into too much to do over the course of the jam, I tried something I literally had no idea how to do, I never had the time to start with; I just don't know how to keep something simple. It's not usually fun for me :D

And the Mini-Jam #98 was no exception as I did basically all of those.

What went RIGHT!?
So, I knew I wanted to do something 3D but I didn't have time to mess around with 3D models during a jam. Last time I used 3D models and tried to do animations it didn't work out. There was too much messing around to get them to work to really make it a valuable thing to focus on. I haven't done a jam in a group in quite a while so I'm all I got.

This went great! I had some issues with the 3D movement but I got it down enough to say "Good enough!" and it really only took an hour and a half during my lunch break and a few after my day job ended at 5am.

I grabbed some Kenney 3D assetsto get the ground up and going. Slapped a little area together and polished it up for another hour or so! I was just having fun since I was super ahead.

After that success I went home to get some sleep, woke up and started working on the harder part that I still wasn't sure of. I figured out pretty quick I wanted to have it be a world creator; but VERY simple yet still feel in-depth and fun. I wasn't sure how I was going to do this but I knew I needed to get an intro into the game so I didn't have to try to plug it into the other systems later. In a full commercial project absolutely would've built the intro later on. But, this is a jam where code and assembly rarely get the proper attention they deserve.

I wrote up a little story, scripted some voice lines, recorded them; and then got them into the game. I'm not the best voice actor in the world; but it's a jam game and I can get any line I needed on the spot. I had fun and started creating this little character that was a bit arrogant, talented; and full of themself in a fun way. This wasn't intended but just happened through redoing lines again and again to find some personality in there with a short time.

Once this was good I coded a little node based system that would allow me to quickly make scripted events like a cutscene. This is where I'm actually proud of myself. I avoid in-depth walk you through tutorials even when they're needed. But, I wanted this project to be special so I conquered my fear and did just this; and it worked out really well!

Basically you'd have an Event Manager Node. This would contain the basic "Play event" and "Go through the event"; a very bare bones code runner with an index to keep track of the event progress.
Then you had Action Nodes that would contain all the heavy code that made things go VROOM! Such as dialogue, playing audio; and other things. This all worked really well very quickly with very little issue which was nice.
I was halfway through the first day, still 2 days after to go. So I went ahead to work on some minor style and accessibility mainly for people who have hearing issues. This is BIG for me because I have some hearing impairment and my fiancée is essentially deaf. I wouldn't want to make something she couldn't play or watch me play without confusion. And I know it's a common issue that's super easy to address.
So, I created a text dialogue system based on older JRPGs I loved as a kid and now! I remember sneaking up to hop on my GBA at night to play Final Fantasy Tactics, Golden Sun; or Fire Emblem! Or sneaking into my Mom's room to steal my GBA back after my step-dad had taken it from me earlier on when at her place; real life Thief.
Anyways, I made this little dialogue system without much issue and spent some time polishing it. This included setting the text size for each dialogue piece, breaking up voice lines to make them flow better; and that kind of stuff.

Once that was done and I had a cool little intro cutscene with what I thought was a fun story with some dark undertones. But, then I had to create the entire world building system and all that! This is where...

THINGS WENT WRONG!!
So, where did it all go wrong? Well, I created these collectables called "Reality Spheres" which are used to create new land and characters. I only got around to adding in one land but I got it all put together pretty nicely and it was cool! Very smooth, then I just had to create an interface for it. I decided to do a full 3D interface which wasn't super hard and worked pretty well. And in a few minutes of tippy tappying my keyboard I was able to twirl around a 3D sphere with land in it and generate it! Cool right?! So now I just had to do it again and make sure it would keep doing it again.

I had to go and do some laundry, clean some dishes; and pick up my apartment some. Then I spent some time with my fiancée, while I REALLY wanted to work on the game I figured I had gotten far enough to where it would be fine. I was still technically in Day 1 as I was above 48 hours left.
I then watched shows with her, took another nap before work at 10pm; and woke up to head down!
It was a super busy night thanks to college getting back into session, so my normal break was more or less broken up into 5-10 minutes at a time of me trying to get the crossroads done. The crossroads are an area where you'd be able to create new land. I got the general aesthetic done in this time. With some of my friend M's help I created a mix of Elder Scrolls and Halo for the crossroads, there is a rock slate with two spires that hold 2 mana orbs above them. These orbs tell you whether or not the crossroads are connected to a land already. Then I added in a cool little bridge that would extend like a Halo energy bridge. Once the two lands connected you'd be able to travel between them!

I spent an hour after work trying multiple ways to make sure the new land would hook up at a crossroad to the current land's crossroad. I tried making them spin with no collision until a ray cast from a crossroad would hit the current land's crossroad. Then it would drag the new land to the attachment point to connect. This worked somewhat with very minor success and barely able to get the crossroads to dock.
HOWEVER! I realized that this would create a huge issue later of elevation. If the two lands were at a height difference they wouldn't detect each other properly or dock correctly. I could've spent hours putting together a sick algorithm to make this work.

Or instead get a headache for the entirety of day 2 making me unable to actually do any work. Instead I went home, took  a melatonin; and slept the entire day. I tried to work multiple times but just couldn't do it. This was bringing me down. All night at work I wasn't able to solve my issue and my head still hurt. I got no break that night due to the restlessness of college students marching to their local gas station to harass us to make them food we didn't have the ingredients ready for due to how much we had made all night.
Try telling a frat boy no; they word no is a word they literally cannot comprehend.

After all that I went home and was going to stay up until I finished this game to a satisfactory level! I was determined! I had a few bucks to get a coffee and sit at a local café to finish this! By the time I got home and saw my bed I was ready to collapse though. Knowing from previous experiences if you don't rest right your brain won't work and you won't be able to get work done. So I slept. I woke up around 3pm that day and knew I had to make a full world editor in order for this to work right.
I avoided making an editor for players to move around and rotate land chunks and fit them where they like. But it was the simplest solution to my problem that I knew how to do and it would add value to the game.

Later on if I added more content players would be able to position their new land strategically or artistically. Plus it would give you more of a feeling of being a god! Which was the idea of the game anyways! I figured this approach would take longer but it really didn't and I'm glad I got pushed into doing it this way.

By 5-6pm my brain was fried, the game was at an "Eh I shouldn't upload but I probably should to at least show my effort and concept" mood state. I had almost called it quits several times after day 2's entire incident. I was super stressed and wasn't sure if the jam was a good idea. But, after I polished a couple more things and uploaded. 

I knew even if this was a hot pile of garbage. There would always be time in the future to pull it out of the fiery wreckage and breath new life into it. I also got enough code to update my Godot Character Controller assets with some new features!