Game Jam Retrospective

The ranking period is over for the Game Jam and the results are in! Overall, Catzpah ranked 10th with an average overall score of 3.25. I would say this was pretty good for my first game jam!

Goal Achievement

My initial 3 goals were to finish a game, learn to use Blender, and have fun. I would say that I absolutely had a ton of fun, and that came through in my game jam scores with "Fun Factor" being my highest scoring category at 3.917. Although there was still a lot of polishing work I felt was needed for Catzpah, I think I submitted a complete game. There was an intro (the main menu), some gameplay that built upon itself, and an ending. As for learning to use Blender, I think I did OK. I used a lot of the Kenney assets, but I also made a lot of models as well. I made 17 3D models for the game including cat paws that curled up on grip. I did not make any models in SolidWorks, so I would say that I accomplished that goal as well. 

The Good

 As far as the game jam goes, there was a lot of good to come out of the process for me. Catzpah was truly a lot of firsts for me. It was

• My first Game Jam
• My first completed VR Game
• My first game in Godot

All of those things were a lot of fun. The timeline on the game jam really helped me stick to my original scope and get a game distributed. Godot was pretty easy to work with, and came with a lot less bloat than some previous projects I have worked on in Unity. I will most likely continue using Godot and the XR tools in the future. 

Getting feedback from others was immensely helpful. It is pretty tough to find strangers willing to test and provide feedback for small games like this, and I am so grateful for those that did provide feedback. On the topic of feedback, my proudest moment  of the game jam was hearing Bastiaan (one of the hosts of the jam) giggle and laugh while playing the game which can be found at this recording on YouTube. 

I was inspired to add more and refine the game throughout the ranking process, and will release an updated version after the retrospective. 

The branding of my game ended up being exactly what I was hoping for. I think that I did a great job keeping similar color themes and a general vibe throughout the itch.io page, posted images, and actual gameplay. I am proud of the results my work in that area achieved. 

The Bad

In future game jams, I should be more aware of the ranking criteria. I did not put enough focus on haptics, and could have spent more time with audio than in creating the last level. Refined audio and haptics are added into the post-jam release, so there was some growth there. 

Bastiaan pointed out a game called "I am Cat" that is out in pre-release which does look very similar to this one. I wasn't aware of that game when making Catzpah, and my actual inspiration for the game is documented in my dev log as being Tony Hawk Pro Skater. Even if it wasn't purposeful, I should do better research in the future for similar games before committing to an idea in a game jam. 

Game optimization is an area that I need a lot of help in. Catzpah could still use more optimization even after the post-jam version. I may post on the Godot Discord server to ask for help in that regard. I would love to get my game running as smoothly as "Who's a good boy?" (the winner of the jam - https://itch.io/jam/godot-xr-game-jam-july-2024/rate/2821459). 

My game ended up being larger than most in the jam. I have got this pinned down to audio. My post-jam version is about 320MB in size, with 240MB of that being audio. That includes level songs, collision sounds, as well as other small sound effects. For future game jams, I should emphasize keeping the file size smaller so that the game is easier to test on any device. This thought process should happen in the design phase, or maybe I should get more creative when re-using sounds. On the topic of sound, a few people mentioned that my levels had spatial sound for the background music. This is true, but it's only because that's the only way I know how to add sound in Godot! If there is a different way, someone please tell me.

The Future

The post-jam version of Catzpah includes several quality of life updates as well as some major features. I will go over the additions in a follow-up dev log. 

I will continue using Godot, as well as the XR tools to make some fun experiences and games in the future. I already know of a project that I will create early next year using these tools, and I'm sure I can find a couple other projects in between now and then. 

I intend to request help in optimization, and general user experience in VR games from the Godot Discord server. Hopefully some people will help me out in those things. If I can make some progress, there may be a true Catzpah v2 coming with those new bits of knowledge applied.