When my friend approached me about writing the story for a game, I was a little hesitant. I have plenty of experience writing a story; I have a book that is being published in December. I have, however, no experience in coding beyond learning some CSS in the early 2000s.

My part was the easiest: come up with a compelling story, make it sound good, and do the bare minimum coding so that it could be plugged in seamlessly to the foundation that Jay build from absolutely nothing. I didn't have to do the art and the music, I didn't have to make the scenes transition smoothly or make sprites or assets--that was all him. All I had to do was learn a tiny bit of JSON (which I had never heard of before now), think of different outcomes for different choices and do what comes natural for me--tell a story.

But suddenly, I was in a whole new element. I was not only learning a new code, but I was downloading Notepad++ to check my brackets and tags. I was running my completed code through a lint program to check for errors. I was pleading with my little, refurbished Surface Pro 4 to successfully run Gadot. On top of having to master these things AND write a story, I only had three days in which to do all of it.

The reason I say this is because you all amaze the hell out of me! To see these games completed within three days (including Jay's work) when my tiny part took so much energy and attention to the tiniest details makes me watch in awe at the things everybody is creating. When these things are new to you, everything seems so incredible. From the simplest animations to the most complex artwork, it is all absolutely outstanding.

No matter what you think your game should have or could have been, give yourself major props if you finished it for this jam! Artists tend to be critical of their own work, but for somebody who spend three days with little sleep, squinting at her screen, looking for that missing comma or bracket and learning just the barest of basics of a code, you all are inspiring as all get up!