Last week a group of courageous Estonian people went to the Spelkollektivet Halloween GameJam. It is a one-week of life in most pro game dev places in Europe. This adventure was possible thanks to EAS (Enterprise and Innovation Foundation) project aimed at the development of support structures for the creative economy (Eesti mängutööstuse arendusprogramm).
Two games were made:
DaBook
https://innovaxion.itch.io/dabook
The Life of Banana Cat
https://ankisword.itch.io/the-life-chapter-of-banana-cat
Comment from one of the participants:
So what about Spelkollektivet and Jam. Since I had little understanding of the process of creating games up to this event, and from my experience I only had a theoretical vision of how the game would look like. And it turned out that I had to learn quickly and immediately put my knowledge into practice. So I realized what it’s like to be a game developer who crunches 24/7. It was a real challenge for me, as a person who loves games very much and would like to understand how this art is created.
All these 4 days I was completely immersed in the process of work and at some point, I got so deep that I lost track of time. Moreover, due to the fact that I was very worried about what would happen, I got micro burnout when I accidentally deleted all my prefabs. An unforgettable feeling.
However, despite this, I redid half of the levels and managed to bring the game at least to the stage of a playable alpha for presentation.
The atmosphere in Spelkollektivet was so wonderful that I had no desire to stop polishing my game. People are extremely friendly, and responsive, there is always someone to turn to. I strongly advise everyone who is just thinking or has already decided to start their way into the gaming industry.
