Global Game Jam abroad - Double trouble!

More than one week has passed since the Global Game Jam 2020, I wish I posted something earlier, but among all the great memories I brought back home from the jam there was also some fever, and I also wanted to provide subtitles to this video in three languages, which took me more time.

I finally fulfilled my dream to move to France a couple of months ago and I plan to stay here as long as I can.

Unfortunately, I am not as fluent in French as I am in English, so deciding to participate to a Jam in French was already a suicidal mission, let alone knowing that my partner (who almost does not speak French) and I (both of us with no video games related skills) might have ended up working just the two of us. 

Which punctually occurred.

One might ask why should a localizer put him/herself to the test realizing a videogame, and I am not sure if I have a proper answer for this, but the truth is just that I just love challenges, pushing my limits, kicking myself out of my comfort zone and participating in creative activities. Otherwise, I get bored. 

Not to mention that it is always useful to understand a bit more about how a game is developed when you have to deal with bugs and malfunctioning. Plus, you never know if any good networking contact could hide behind the corner; in the end, we are still talking about the huge video gaming family!

So there we went! And it was the right choice. 

We spent 51 hours in an amazing venue, with an excellent organization and activities: arcade cabinets, recording studios, Twitch live streams for speedrunners almost all the time, board games sessions, party games to be shared live on the stage... and free coffee/snack corner, in addition to delicious food freshly prepared for us three times per day by a lovely and caring chef.

As if this was not enough, Saturday night was Da Place To Be, I truly enjoyed some great French hits from the '80s that I could finally sing out loud. We brought our devices to keep working in the cafeteria because I just could not miss the party being locked in the programming room!

This post is also to thank the flawless performance of 3 Hit Combo, and their kindness and patience in welcoming a mostly English-speaking duo.

We were invited to do some brainstorming all together as soon as the theme was revealed, but I was not bold enough to interrupt ongoing discussions in French, and my partner could not play his usual friendly+problem solver role in a language he only (and not totally) understand, therefore we just gave up and started discussing among us, knowing we would have to create a game from scratch with his programming skills, which are absolutely non-gaming related, and my skills, which are... well, completely useless in order to create a video game.

Still, I came up with the idea. Being obsessed with spiders and how fragile they are - probably the main reason behind my arachnophobia - we had a weird but promising starting point. With a touch of profound reflection as a moral upon scoring game over.

Apart from this, the only things I could help with were graphics (pretty good at hand-drawing, complete disaster with digital art) and sound effects/browsing/improving the core game/finding a catchy title (it is a very basic phonetic overlap only making sense in French, but I am decently satisfied with it!)

The game is a very basic one, we aimed for something easy we could both deal with, in terms of coding and art complexity. It can be played here using the keyboard's keypad, but sometimes the spider gets shy and runs away from his web (this spider is more buggy than his web!)

While the game is far from being masterpiece, this experience brought out a patient side of me I never knew I had, the side that dealt with filling and erasing pixels one by one, that allowed me to create a basic yet working "legs animation" (8 legs are way too many!) and that helped me staying focussed for the longest hours on repetitive tasks, which are something I am usually not very prone to. I also had to fight my perfectionist nature, the one always unsatisfied with details unless they are in a workmanlike manner. It costed me a lot, but you just cannot waste time on cosmetic issues when having 48 hours to deliver a working and enjoyable game.

I had to learn to enjoy the breaks, forcing myself to just let go of my worries and recharge my batteries from the frustration of having to deal with tools and skills I never worked with. I underwent several full immersions in frustrating video tutorials that never get to the point you need. And I faced physical pain. You never get muscle ache when translating, as you don't have to stay for hours in the most uncomfortable and unnatural position, holding a pen, while trying not to touch the tablet with the rest of your hand because it is just a touch screen and not a professional graphic tablet.

And communication was key. It always is. We shared a lifesaving task manager to always be sure who was taking care of what and to add and assign tasks and roles as we were creating new features. It worked like a charm, and it was essential as, in a two members team, it is vital to supervise each-other. 

Being a longtime couple who almost never actually worked side by side in stressful conditions, we both had to find a new and more aseptic way of communicating, free from personal and emotional vibes, for the sake of the project. As if we were complete strangers, not to risk to overwhelm each other with frustration and dissatisfaction, which in these cases can easily occur. Cheers to us!

But the challenge wasn't quite over yet. After hours of combining our defective skills, the worst part (for me) was facing a francophone audience (and the live streaming) describing our project and how we got there. In French. Having a high fever.

The performance can be watched below, with subtitles available in French, English and Italian. Thanks to 3 Hit Combo's Twitch streaming!

We left the Jam with a huge sense of satisfaction and accomplishment, sleep deprivation, some nice memory of chatting with curious people - mostly interested in why I was so masochistic to create a game like this while being arachnophobic - and half a dozen of freshly shazammed songs that are now being played while I'm writing this. Definitely willing to try again next year, hoping we'll both be more comfortable with the language and therefore able to join a bigger team.

Last but not least, I bore the longest hours of watching, browsing, studying, drawing and animating my worst phobia, and so far I haven't had any nightmare. 

Isn't this a great goal already?