Octo's GameDev Journey Journal 1
Hello, I'm Octo! I am an indie solo game developer and I draw, code, write, and make music for my games.
A lot happened recently and this is my first blogpost, so I'll try to fit a summary of everything in this post, but I might elaborate later on. Since starting on Christmas 2025, I have made 4 games. Life has been really busy so I wanted to take every chance I can to pursue game development.
This was my first ever game uploaded on itch.io (and finished). It was an entry to Mini Jam #200. It had a time limit of 120 hours and the theme "freedom" (optional) and the limitation "finite quantity" (mandatory). I interpreted the limitation through giving the player 8 towers to work with in the tower defense game. I was not able to integrate the theme, but it's definitely possible to integrate with the concept in a future remake/remaster.
It ranked #74 overall out of 109 entries, with an overall score of 2.472
My entry was pretty bad, I admit. I took more time on the coding implementation of the idea rather than the actual game design. As a result it was difficult to understand and too easy, making it pretty unfun. However, It gave me a great template on how to make a game work from start to finish that I can work with for my future games. This is because it's basically complete in a way, with a menu, background music, win lose screens, etc. It was also my first experience exporting to HTML5! After wrangling with that the first time, exporting any game to HTML5 has become a breeze :D
I entered Mini Jam #201, held 2 weeks after. The theme was support (so I did a priest/cleric-type player ) and limitation was 'only one shot' (so I made the player die from a single hit).
I think I drastically improved in this one compared to my Mini Jam #200 entry. I got to add animations and it had more polished graphics. The coding was a lot simpler too because it had similar logic from the previous game. I'm satisfied everything worked as intended and looks pretty polished but it still had the same problem of being unfun. The problem for this one was that it was too monotonous. This time was different though since this was so much harder to play.
It ranked #35 overall out of 86 entries, with an overall score of 3.077. I'd say that's a huge improvement from before!
I also entered into Alchemy Jam #7. Alchemy jam's pretty different because it revolves around the pixel art asset by the host which should be in the game. It was a bomb, so I basically made pong with bombs.
I made sure that my scope was really simple so that I could get the minimum viable product done right away. I think that it's pretty fun and neat conceptually, it's just that there's no sense of progression yet with the boss. I might change that but I still want to enter Mini Jam #202 so I'll have to prioritize that. The voting's not done yet for this one.
Very recently, I tried entering into Trijam #354. Trijam was insane to attempt, since it involves aiming to finish a game in only 3 hours. Overtime is allowed, but you won't be able to get 1st place.
I heavily underestimated Trijam . Even though I thought my concept was very basic, I could not pull it off within the given time. I decided to submit my entry anyway because it's technically "a finished game" (a game that can be won and lost). It's incredibly boring though since the enemies don't fight back. But, at least I managed to submit something to Trijam, which I think is a W on it's own right.
The voting results went way above my expectations. I thought it'd be getting last place!
It ranked #19 overall out of 28 entries, with an overall score of 2.920. In my opinion, that was way above what it deserved. Still, I am grateful for getting this score. I'll do my best next time I try trijam!
Why did I enter so many game jams?
Well, I thought that each game jam would be really fun to try. Plus, it's aligned with my game dev goals.
Ok so what are my game dev goals?
I want to enter at least 2 game jams a month this year. Each game I make should result in a module I could use in future games, so that by the end of the year, I would have a few ingredients I can use for a larger project. They're simple modules but would be time consuming to make, especially in one go. So, I thought that having smaller games that only focus on one each would be fun. Plus, I get to practice polishing my games and making it more fun along the way.
Things I realized after entering game jams
Player feedback is really the most valuable thing you can get out of a game jam, besides finishing a game. Due to my lack of reach, not many people would be willing to play my games, especially since they're obviously rookie stuff. So, game jams are a win-win since people will rate games so that theirs would be rated too, and these feedbacks will help me know what to do next time!
I want to join Glam Jam and Mini Jam 202 to wrap up the month. Mini Jam 202 is my minimum goal but maybe I can submit my Mini Jam 202 entry to Glam Jam. Stay tuned!
Though, it might be detrimental to my other life goals if I pursue this... so I'll have to lower the scope significantly. Let's see.
dailybridgerton
origamiaround
prguitarman
gummygunk
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stormborns
