Post-Mortem: GB Jam 14

This is the fourth jam, and the third and final game jam, in my Five-Jam Gauntlet from mid August 2026 to the end of September 2026. If you missed the previous entries, you can read about the first, second, and third jams.

Game Boy (GB) Jams are always so much fun, and always a great chance for me to push the limits of my game development skills. I participated in two previous GB Jams (11 and 12), and I had been looking forward to participating in GB Jam 14 since earlier in the year.

The timing for GB Jam 14 was a bit wonky; it started a day after the second music composing jam began and ended about a week before that same jam ended. So essentially GB Jam 14 was nested within the music jam. More on that in the fifth and final entry.

When the jam began, the theme announced was “Old Gold.” I set to work, as I typically do, with brainstorming and creating a word association list. I like making these lists because it stretches the bounds of what I can do with a given theme. Usually this carries me quickly (an average of one or two hours) to a concept which I can develop into a game. This time, however, it took me about eight hours - approaching the evening and well into my shift at my Part-Time Day Job™ - to find a concept.

There is a misconception about people who are creative: that creative folks have some otherworldly, magical gift to just know what it is which must be created. This idea is far from reality. When I talk with people about creativity, I liken the act to tuning into a frequency, as if the creative person is an antenna, and the creative person must be ready, willing, and available to receive creative thoughts at any time.

Another way I think of it is wandering through the fog: some portions are thicker and far more obscured, sometimes you become lost, sometimes the destination is lost completely, but if you keep wandering, you will eventually find a spot where the fog thins, your surroundings become defined, and you will find the way forward that you need.

This is very much what it felt like while brainstorming for GB Jam 14. I was lost for most of that first day. My concept list was about 10 ideas deep, none jumping out at me as The Idea. My word association list was even longer: about 10 words related to “Old” and over a dozen related to “Gold” yet I was lost in the fog.

One of the core design ideas which kept tugging at me was non-linear level progression. In other words, a handful of levels which the player could play in any order, but all must be cleared in order to beat the game. This offered some clarity in the creative fog - the outline of a landmark, if you will.

I also kept in mind existing games, mostly arcade and from decades past, from which to draw inspiration. Rally X, a maze game developed by Namco in 1980, was a foundation of inspiration. Whereas I modeled a portion of my previous jam game, The Witching Hour, on the symmetry of Pac-Man’s level design, I wanted to abandon that in favor of Rally X’s asymmetrical level design.

Continuing to brainstorm as I went about my Part-Time Day Job™, I was of course getting antsy about not yet having a concept nailed down. At some point late in the afternoon, halfway through my shift, something “clicked” and the vision came into focus: a game about a treasure hunter who must recover pieces of an ancient key to access a lost temple and take the treasures within. It was The Idea I had been trying to find. Very Indiana Jones and very Wario Land 4.

Screenshot of the overworld.

In the previous two games, level design was kept to a minimum: generally contained to the size of the screen (small layout), symmetrical (mirrored layout), or just an open (no layout). With this new game, I opted for larger level sizes, less mirroring, and plenty of obstacles. Not only that, but when the player reaches the farthest point in the level and finds the treasure, the level layout changes (monsters are present, new pathways open up, and a Mario-style timer begins). The player must navigate this new layout in order to escape and beat the level. But this decision also meant each individual level was, essentially, two levels in one and I had to design double the amount of levels.

I had toyed with including a combat system; after all, it had been part of the previous two games and the mechanic I had been working on refining. After beginning the level design and quickly understanding how much more time and effort I would need to dedicate towards making each level unique and fun, I was torn between keeping combat and removing it altogether. The deciding factor was thinking back to the initial inspiration: Indiana Jones does not fight the dangers he encounters, he runs from them out of self-preservation. There was my answer. Combat was binned.

Oddly enough, the same line of thought led to the name of the game. The player is to grab the treasure and get out as quickly (the Mario-style timer I mentioned earlier) as possible. It’s a “grab and go” situation, I thought to myself. Oh shoot, there’s the title. Grab ‘n Gold.

With jams, and really any project, I do my best to have the project in a workable, functioning state by halfway to the deadline. That did not happen this time. With the extensive level design, along with several other “back-end” and “under-the-hood” systems I had to program, unique music for each of the five levels (and a few brief tracks for other screens), sound effects, and general polish, I was up past 3am on the final night finalizing everything. There was still time, which I made sure of by focusing on the most critical parts that needed refining. I was able to sleep late the following morning and had ample time to submit the project, which I did in the early afternoon with 16 hours to spare before the submission cutoff.

Title screen.

It was a great reminder to mitigate The Crunch as much as possible.

Out of 630 entries for GB Jam 14, Grab ‘n Gold ranked 167th (top 27%) overall, 49th (top 8%) in the “Gameboy Soul” category, 159th (top 26%) in the “Soundtrack/SFX” category, and 163rd (top 26%) in the “Gameplay” category. More importantly, other participants enjoyed the game while also providing useful feedback.

Despite The Crunch, I had fun creating Grab ‘n Gold. It was overscoped, yes, but not to the point of complete collapse. I kept it manageable, the limits of which I pushed with each game jam in this Five-Jam series. Had I attempted to create a game like Grab ‘n Gold for the first game jam, I would have failed tremendously. But in a matter of about a month, I was able to grow my skills AND my confidence in game development enough to create a game of this scope. The games are fun to make; the growth is rewarding to feel.

The next entry is the fifth and final of the Five-Jam Gauntlet. Please look forward to it.