VN game jam.

[Veri]

Hullo, hullo. I was considering about listing a visual novel game jam on itch.io this summer. However, there's little use of a game jam with only a single participant, so I thought I'd ask around in case the community might have some interest.

As per game jam features, the jam would include a theme and rules. The theme would be improvement and project management. Exciting, yes? :D The participant would be required to finish a visual novel inside a time frame while keeping a public progress journal by means of a blog/tumblr/itchio gj thread or similar. Not unlike your art college's usual project course, mm? This is my project brief, this is my plan, these are my reserved hours for each stage, this is my timer and this, ladies and gentlemen, this is my panic button...Offering feedback to your fellow jammers (not so much on the result, but on their workflow and -load) would be encouraged but not required. The main purpose of our jam-course would be personal growth and a finished thingamajig that you could proudly (or not so proudly but at least you passed) stick to your portfolio.

But! Seeing as even a small visual novel takes a lot of work and time, and people usually have their own long projects in the making - how's your summer? Busy? Absolutely hectic? Maybe loose enough so that you could pen 2-3 hours jam time into your daily schedule for a while? Or maybe you could incorporate a part of your big project into this jam? You know, get all game assets done and placed by these deadlines?

Cheers~

Edit. I realized I was unclear! Theme meaning the overall spirit of the jam, not the narrative theme of the game content itself.

[robovelociraptor]

I like this idea! Having to keep a public log on what you're doing adds some pressure to actually finish what you're doing, especially if you've garnered fans. I think it's a good kick-off for people who don't really have time to do anything in March for NaNoRenO and have never created a VN before. Plus, the encouragement of giving feedback is always a good thing... and a huge motivator!

Personally, I don't have much to do this summer, and I wanna do at least one solo project to show that I can actually get something done, so I'm really biased lol. Still, I hope maybe this can gain some traction, or if not, that I can force myself to do something like this without any external motivation. ;;

[parttimestorier]

There was a game jam hosted by the VN engine TyranoBuilder recently that also required people's projects to fit a general theme, and it got 50 entries! (Including my own. ) So that shows that there's definitely some interest in something like that - I imagine you could get way more entries than that without the restriction of which engine to use. Although I guess some people might be intimidated by the requirement to keep a progress log, but I think it's a nice idea, and plenty of people already do a fair amount of that on blogs and work in progress threads anyway.

[TheJerminator15]

I'm very interested in a game jam such as this. Mainly because my project management is awful at the moment. :^)

[Scribbles]

I've got other stuff so I'd be way too busy to participate, but for little one month projects lots of people might attempt it. It would be cute if it had a real theme though, or genre or something as opposed to just your overall "project management" idea though. I think the theme is probably what draws people dev's and players

[Veri]

Well, I was afraid of a radio silence so this interest sounds good indeed!

It would be cute if it had a real theme though, or genre or something as opposed to just your overall "project management" idea though. I think the theme is probably what draws people dev's and players

That is true! I haven't thought of a suitable marketing profile for it, yet. It should be something that won't exclude people, something flexible for different circumstances. The closest equivalents I can think of are indeed the NaNoRenO that robovelociraptor mentioned, and the Finally Finish Something -jam from January. Perhaps some inspirational tiers or loose project briefs to choose from? With a snappy title and a professional front-page. But an identity check is definitely in order!

[timepatches]

I'd definitely participate! Been looking for a jam to give me that final push into actually devving and not just brainstorming, and the progress-journal aspect is a good way to show progress and keep progress going mid-jam ;w;

[Banya]

I'd like to join too!
Summer is definetly better than March to Came up with work