One notable difference between game jams and working on a project by yourself is that you don’t really question the initial idea (at least I didn’t) or whether you should even be working on this game. It’s a jam, so you just brainstorm for a bit, then get on with it. That’s kind of the point. The usual paralyzing fear and self-doubt don’t really kick in when there’s a collective deadline and hundreds of other participants working with the same theme. You tell yourself the quality of the result doens’t even matter, since this is a jam, and you’ll likely learn something from it.

I told myself I’d adopt a jam mindset going into this solo project. It’s the first that I’m doing without a game jam for context, and frankly it scares me a little. I’m going to have to learn to adapt the “just finish it” mentality into something that can also infuse more quality into my work without compromising my ability to finish this game or adding too much mental clutter. Experiment that it is, it might not have an ideal result, but it’s kind of inconvenient finding a jam that fits the length (2+ weeks) and timing I want. Relying on jams all the time to finish projects probably won’t benefit me and might even cripple me from trying out my own ideas at my own pace.