Learn You A Game Jam Post Mortem

The Learn You A Game Jam was my first attempt at learning the Godot Engine!

I did in fact achieve my goal of learning Godot and preparing a curriculum for my summer course. I’m really happy I took on this challenge. The new Brackeys videos definitely helped kickstart me into Godot learning. Once I got comfortable in the engine, my hubris started to take over and I increased the scope of what I was trying to accomplish with the project.

Went well

• I learned Godot In One Week. It was cool to check out the engine!
• It was neat to be a beginner again, and remember those frustrations.
• Thanks to Captain Coder for hosting the jam.

Moving my summer curriculum to Godot was an excellent choice. A lot of the laptops the students brought in were running ancient hardware. ADDITIONALLY, one student brought a chromebook in, so that student is now actually able to make a game in their browser and follow along in class. If I hadn’t taken this challenge on, that student would not be having a good time.

Didnt Go well

• I was too ambitious for what this project should be. I wanted it to be all four of these things at once:

1. A learning curriculum for the class I’m teaching this summer
2. A learning project for me to learn Godot
3. A Cool entry in the Learn You A Game Jam
4. A Youtube course filmed in the second week of the jam

These four things pulled against each other and I ended up just landing somewhere in the middle. I had to strip a lot of the project features out for the summer course I am teaching after realizing my curriculum was a little TOO intense. Sometimes it’s just nice to have a good time playing around with a game engine.

I learned a ton and I’m very happy I participated in this jam!