This is my first dev log and I have no clue how this works, but here we go:

After 2 weeks on Holo game jam 6, I've finished another game. This one felt different to me because I felt like my skills were improving in asset creation, game play, coding cleanliness, and understanding game loops. 

Key take away:

-Don't over scope your project. One huge thing that helped during the jam is that I understood that I had to under scope my project as much as possible. As much as I wanted to over scope the project, I had to be realistic and understand that I'm only one dev and I can only do so much in 2 weeks. This is completely fine for a game jam. Once the jam is over, I can add more features and updates into this project.

-Keep yourself consistent when working on a project. The biggest project killer for me is when I use a burst of my time and energy to work on a project for a few days and quit. I've noticed this pattern whenever I want to quickly prototype or make anything. What made me stay longer and focused on this jam was that at the end of every dev session, I would reflect on things I would need to do, things that needs updating, bugs that need to be looked at, and what else can I do to make the player's experience more fun. Once I've locked in my priority, it helps me focus on what to do next on the next couple of days.

-Take a break or day when needed. Sometimes we need a break. We are human, we get tired, and it is fair to give yourself a break or even a day to reset. I find it best to do this when you feel unmotivated on working on any project. Give yourself a mental reset by doing something else. Once my mind starts to think of what to do next or things I want to add, I get excited again on working on the project. This has helped me a lot when I would grind too many hours on the project.

As the jam is ending, I'm thinking to myself what else can I add to this game. I could wrap up this project here and now but overall I feel pretty happy of what I've made. However, with what I have made now, I feel like I can add a lot more to make the game more interesting and fun.

Regardless, I'm happy how this project turned out and will be working on more projects again during the summer. Maybe new updates on the way?