Utah Indie Game Jam

What a crazy weekend! It almost feels like a dream.
I wasn't able to get my print done to make up for lost time last week unfortunately. I don't want to make a big deal about it because I did some major working this weekend. I'll be able to play catch up in the next couple of weeks with two prints that are almost finished.

This weekend I attended the Utah Indie Game Jam with Vince!
What's a game jam?
A game jam is when you and a bunch of other people make video games in 48 hours.
Crazy? Insane? Yes. But! It was a pretty fun experience and it was great to be in an environment with people that are like you and you're forced to work your butt off to come out with a complete product.
You could choose to team up with other people or do it by yourself. I opted to team up with myself.

Some background info:
I have never made a game before. Ever. Never even tried coding, illustrating for one, or designing. I just played them.
So it was a pretty new and interesting learning experience to be surrounded by people who pretty much live, eat, and breath software and games.

The game I created was made with the program Twine and it was just a simple choose your own adventure type of game.
I did 100% of the illustrations and coding myself! And it actually turned out pretty great.
I'm not sure how to upload it to the blog itself but it will be posted on the Utah Indie Game Jam website so you can play it for yourself!

I'm really proud that I was able to finish my game. I was worried that I wouldn't get it done. And during the event I was pretty tempted to just not bother finishing (however I gave my pitch in front of everyone so I definitely had to finish it).
I actually even ended up winning the prize of best art! How neat-o is that?
I'm really happy Vince convinced me to go. I met a few interesting and really awesome, good hearted people. I met people that are striving for, and working hard to achieve their dreams and goals.
Want to get motivation to succeed?
Hang out and talk to a person who's designing and making video games.
Those people are the real deal.
There's just something about hanging out and being around fellow nerds that's very comforting.
I felt more comfortable and at home being at the Game Jam than I did at the Granary Row festival (which didn't go super well. I only sold two prints and it wasn't as busy as I thought it'd be ((we ended up leaving early to go back to the game jam. Lesson learned!)))
Here's a glimpse at some of the images and one that will become a future print (can you guess which one?)
Play the game to see more and see better high resolution images!