STL Game Jam 2011 – Day 2

Day 2 began with a win and a whimper.

As I mentioned a few days ago we’re sort of pressed for space. There’s a huge debate tournament happening at Webster today, and nearly all of the rooms were reserved before we could get to them. Austin Bennett and Amanda Walker were able commandeer an awesome library computer lab with seats for just about everybody though, so that basically solved what I thought would be the biggest problem.

I was wrong though.

When everyone showed up at 10:00 AM rearin’ to go Webster’s wifi went down completely almost immediately. Who knew a debate team would use so many computers?! This didn’t keep everyone from working, but it made it almost impossible for a few teams to function, so when 11:00 hit, I went home to grab a few of my own routers to use instead.

As soon as I got back Webster wifi began working again, of course, but the extra routers bought us some reliability. Good thing to note for future events.

With all of the issues out of the way, people hunkered down and began working. With Dan’s art skills, Ryan’s algorithm chops, and my XNA Experience, our team was able to whip together some cool stuff for our Meteor game immediately.

At around 1:00 PM we brought in a ridiculous number of pizzas for lunch from Little Ceasers, courtesy of the Webster University Video Game club.

At around 3:00 PM I roamed through the other groups, checking out their progress and supporting wherever I could. There were a few teams that had gotten in over their heads, but everyone seemed to be making the right decisions for their teams and either starting over or getting the help they needed with little to no prompting.

Because they were using XNA I was able to help Elonka’s team solve some tough collision problems. It was pretty fun!

At around 7:00 PM we brought in some dinner from Q-Doba that was provided by Simutronics. I feel blessed that our jam had so many groups willing to provide locations and food for our jammers. At some sites people have to pay to participate, have to rent space, and have to pay for every meal. Thumbs way up to Webster’s groups and Simutronics for saving us from that.

At around 8:00 PM someone from the Webster news crew showed up to watch me ramble for a while. I have no idea what it’s going to end up as, but she asked what I thought of the school and I went all out with praise. It really is a great location, and the students were a lot helpful than I would have been 9 years ago (has it really been that long?!).

As for my project, I would say that today was the big “see-what-works” day, and tomorrow will be the “make it work” day. We have a neat hook where slicing at felt dinosaurs causes felt to shoot all over the place, but we don’t really have a game yet. Dan and I stayed until 1:00 AM making an Agile Kanban-like board to prioritize Sunday’s development, and I think it’ll help us stay on course.

Regardless of what happens with my game, I’m confident that the rest of the groups will end up alright tomorrow. We have a lot of talent in every group and a lot of good decision-makers. They’ve made my job as organizer easy, just like I hoped they would.

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