For me, every jam is an opportunity to focus on something I felt that I missed last time. This was also my return to solo-jamming after four team jams, and I had to acknowledge that I couldn't do everything on my own. But it also felt like an opportunity to focus on the things I wanted to. I really wanted to focus on feedback: how the player knows they are doing the right thing. For that, the designer needs to know what the right thing even is.

What I originally envisioned ...

was a tile laying game similar to Dorf Romantik, except you would be laying resource tiles and road tiles to expand a network of towns trading goods in their own "tiny economy". The features I planned were: 1. Tile placement in a hexagonal grid. 2. Collection of resources from nearby tiles. 3. Connection of towns by roads. 4. Trading of resources across towns.

This seemed like a decent enough framework to me. I assumed the objective would appear somewhere in the amassing of resources. Not to mention the UI and sound.

What I didn't expect ...

was that hexagonal grids are a lot of work. I began with some guidance to start, but then realized I would be better off lifting someone else's solution. I came upon Catlike Coding, which had a really robust platform -- more than I really needed. I spent a lot of Saturday understanding what was there and what I needed, and building my own tiles from Kenney into it.

It wasn't until after the first 24 hours that I had the core mechanic (Feature 1) implemented. I was way behind.

What I ended up doing ...

was ditching the "stretch" features and instead forming the game around what I could get done. Generating a starting map, drawing from a deck of cards, counting resource tiles, and a basic UI was all done in the next 24 hours. I even gave up one of my labors of love (music), knowing that I needed to support the experience rather than my own pride. To focus on what you want, git rid of what you don't need.

I felt good about this pivot, that I had salvaged something playable.

Here's a snapshot of the build progress from hour 24 to hour 72. I had to work on Day 3, so I didn't get to put in so many hours. But by the end of it, I felt like I still had something playable and polished. But was it ... fun?

What I forgot ...

was that a mechanic does not equal an objective. When you have to pivot, make sure the game's objective wasn't tied to something that got cut. I got so wrapped up in doing that I forgot to revisit my design framework to see if what I had still met the criteria for a "game".

Really understand the differences between the "mechanic", the "challenge", and the "objective". This is what was unfortunately missing from my final entry. Sure, the mechanic was there, but what the player was supposed to do with it (the objective) was just missing. Something that underscored this was the lack of an end screen. How did the player even know they were done?

I'm not being down on myself. There are reasonable explanations for the final result. It's just a good reminder of the aspects of a game that might go overlooked: feedback and measurement.

So if you've made it to the bottom, reading all this, and you are still interested in seeing what I made, please stop by!

Play Tiny Economy

_ -Hawkin_