Sort of.
I took part in the 2025 Game Maker’s Toolkit Game Jam and was recruited to a team as the writer/narrative designer. Admittedly, when I first signed up, I wasn’t sure how important a writer would be for a game jam, especially since you only get 4 days to make a game from scratch.
Thankfully, that game doesn’t need to be very good… or even finished.
Even though we didn’t finish what we started and we never ended up implementing all the ideas we had, and the fact that working across multiple time zones is a huge pain in the ass (especially when several teams are relying on other team members being awake while they complete their assigned tasks), we managed to get something submitting on time.
We had one of the largest teams, weighing in at a colossal 11 members, which was as exciting as it was detrimental. On one hand, it’s great to have a bunch of people from random corners of the internet/world come together to complete a passion project, and on the other hand, trying to coordinate 11 strangers would prove to be a nightmare for our project lead.
I especially felt bad because, compared to other people, especially our artist, Pepple, I was able to complete my tasks every day in about an hour or two, depending on the size of the task and whether or not I was actually devoting my full attention to completing it.
The rest of my time was spent being a cheerleader for the team, helping other people bounce ideas, and being a designated “vibe enhancer” as I cheered the rest of the team on from the sidelines. Whenever we were awake at the same time, at least.
Overall, it was an enjoyable experience, and I definitely learned a lot. It turns out that when you learn in business and technical writing school that “scope is everything,” your professors might actually know what they’re talking about. Next jam, I’m hoping to join a team that isn’t nearly as large, but just large enough that they can squeeze in a space-filling cheerleader like me.
I’ll even bring my own pom-poms and miniskirt if I have to.