A developer, who goes by @LandonDevelops on YouTube, posted on Heartbeast’s discord server to see if anyone wanted to do art for Godot Wild Jam 92. I had seen some of Landon’s devlogs and had a feeling he was a really solid developer. This was a really good opportunity for me to put my art skills to the test and meet another developer. So why was I feeling so torn about saying I would be open to team up?
The first excuse that came to my mind was that my art skills were too weak to be the sole artist on the team. Even though I have been learning 3D art for a little over 3 years now, I still lack the confidence when sitting down to make even a small asset. I have convinced myself that my modeling and texturing skills aren’t at the level it needs to be for making video game assets.
The second excuse that came to my mind was that I have no time at all to commit to someone else. Between family, work, and grad school, there’s not a lot of time left for anything extra. Sometimes even hours of sleep go by the wayside.
For some reason, I felt compelled to tell Landon that “I'm really torn. It sounds like fun, but I'd be worried about my own time commitments and art skills.”. Great first impression on my part.
Here’s what Landon had said back, “Honestly, for me it'll be a pretty low-key jam for me since I don't have capacity to crunch a lot this week so it might be perfect since I don't really have high expectations either! No pressure though”.
He had, very kindly, passed the ball back to me and said that it was up to me to call the shot. He was also busy, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to just do something. This was the friendly nudge that I needed, and so I agreed to try it out and we started brainstorming ideas.
Over the following 9 days, we exchanged messages about ideas, designs, bugs, and feedback. It was a situation where we each were using the other person’s progress as our own motivation to push the project further along. In the end, we created “Perpetual Potions”, which you can check out on itch.io.
In total, I ended up creating 6 small assets, some furniture, a floor texture, and the logo for our submission. This is way more art than I’ve ever created in less than two weeks. Once my initial excuses and fears had been put aside, all that was left for me to do was push myself to see what I could do.
The biggest thing that helped me was focusing on what was important and creating something that I was 70% satisfied with. Since a game jam is meant to be much closer to a prototype than a finished product, there is no need for me to spend extra time polishing everything for minor details. Instead, I just focused on getting the form and color balance correct while letting everything else be what it ended up as.
We’re still waiting on getting feedback from the jam participants, but so far Landon and I are both proud of what we created and many of the other players thought what we had was fun. One player even said our game was very polished (ha!).
The biggest takeaway for me from this jam was learning to be more aware of how my own mindset holds me back from just making games. I have a lot to learn as a game developer and I will not make any progress if I allow myself to choose to not participate. Instead, I want to take Landon’s approach and keep seeking opportunities to say “Let’s do it”. I really can’t thank him enough for helping me get out of my own shell.
Landon and I did discuss what might happen next with the game. We’re just starting off brainstorming ideas again, but send me a reply if you have any thoughts about the jam version of the game. I’d love to hear what others think as well. Until then, I look forward to talking to you again soon.
Cheers,
Connor