Kyle Pulver Breaks Down Game Jams

This principle works in two different ways: the first – learning quickly and efficiently, and second – keeping your communities happy.  Kyle Pulver talked for a short while about game jams, something I feel is a rapidly growing game development avenue.  He said some of his most heightened creativity was during the game jams he attends.  He described it as a type of focus only attainable while working under time constraint and with limited resources.  He took this as far as attending weekly 2 hour game jams to expand his knowledge of ActionScript, and found that he built his skillset much faster this way and through traditional methods.  Each week he would focus on one system during the 2 hour jam.

Andy Schatz’s development philosophy on Monaco is to implement features rapidly within a day at a time.  He advocated working on at least one thing small and cool everyday… but only for one day.  Make sure it’s something you completely enjoy working on, and after it’s implemented make sure it’s enjoyable within the context of the game.

Lastly, Arthur Humphrey brought up the Pocket God-esque type development methodology.  He made the point that when you start off selling a small game and slowly add to it, the community will remain happy.  This “service” mentality allows you to focus on building great small features while funding it via the game’s sales.