TigerJ(am) was a game jam that ran from April 27th to May 4th. The rules for this game jam were pretty standard, and the theme was 35 (for Tiger J the game jam's host birthday). In the last game jam, I felt as though I was able to scratch the tcg/ccg itch that I had. This time around, the rpg genre was itching my game dev skin.

What I Thought Went Well

This was yet another enjoyable game jam. I would say from the design of the game, to the execution was much more smoother than previous game jams. I'm usually trying to figure out how to implement last minute features, but for the Tiger Jam I had things much more under control. I think this was due to a better scoping of this game compared to my other jams. Though not perfect, I also enjoyed the music. I have an unofficial goal of making different types of games per game jam and I think I'm at least accomplishing that. Maybe I should do a puzzle game for my next game jam?

What I Thought Didn't Go So Well

One thing that bugs me is the lack of attack animations in the battles. I think I could have planned at least some type of movement in battle to bring life or "juice" to the game. I would have also like to have different sprite variations for the different level of enemies. This could have been achieved with a color palette swap, but I didn't finalize the palette until a little later in the dev cycle. I usually create a mock up of the game when I first start, but I don't add in GUI elements. I'll make sure to conceptualize the GUI earlier and have the art foundations done a lot sooner the next time.

Conclusion

When I entered my first game jam 2 years ago (GB5Jam), I felt as though I was unprepared and it was a struggle just to push that game out in time. Fast forward to my fifth game jam, and I'm feeling a lot more comfortable and at ease participating in game jams and making games. I'm pushing to increase the quality of my games through game jamming and it's nice to have a post mortem to reflect on every game I submit to a game jam. Tiger Paws was a joy to make and I can't wait to enter the next game jam, stay tuned!