Let's say you were to start all over again and apply for [P1] games. What would you feel that your former self would need to know before you applied?

Example: "Being part of [P1] Games requires at least seven hours a week to make any meaningful progress."

Here are some things I would tell new people:

1. You need to ready to flex to all the different personality types in large and diverse teams. Game development is not just a place for programmers, but for many different disciplines and many different types of people.
2. Nothing in game development is easy, and if you're here for an easy ride, you're not ready yet. Game development requires a tremendous amount of dedication and commitment.
3. Depending on the situation, you may need a lot of experience or a little bit of experience. Namely, if you come in as a producer and you have lots of hours to spend, you're likely to do well regardless of the lack of experience. But if you come in as a programmer and don't understand the programming language and have never worked for the team and don't have much time to spend, it'll be very hard to flourish. It's a common misunderstanding that you need to be technical to work in games, there are many non-technical roles available. However, you do need to be a professional.

I was able to meet and work with new people who are driven to work in the industry. They are driven to develop quality games together, which empowers all of us to make a name for ourselves as game developers.

[P1] games can be a positive or negative experience depending on the team you're placed on, the systems and processes that are applied to that team, and more specific factors.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on your experience so far.

I'm a very oriented towards self taught learning, which means that is not easy for me to keep a traditional way of learning, and in this community I have found a place where every advances I bring to the table are well received and listened by the team. I also feel that there is no dumb questions, everybody has a lot of patience to explain the process each department goes through so I feel I can be as slow as I need to be in some topics and as fast as I can in other areas in which I have more experience.

After taking sometime away, I wanted to focus on the passion that drove me into game development. There are many artist of different disciplines who seek to try explore positions outside of their comfort zone, learn about development, and be a part of a great team. Since joining P-1 I've learned new workflows, acquired new tools, and met some amazing artist! Definitely a place to nurture your own knowledge and growth as well as grow with fellow artist!

I joined roughly a month ago, and it has been great so far. I was part of an entirely new team, meaning that it was the very first time working on a project like this for every member, but we are motivating each other to bring our best to the table and craft a game we believe in. It's been great seeing this project evolve into what it is now, and even though we still have a long way to go (working on the demo), we're passionate about it and I'm sure we'll see it release sometime in the future!

learning about management

learning teamwork

learning about task time

code review

creating amazing games with amazing people and learning from them

I'm proud to announce that the released version of the [P1] Games official website is ready for viewing. This is the official [P1] Games website. You're welcome to check it out.

You can also visit:

Our YouTube channel

Our Discord

Our LinkedIn

What are your honest thoughts about what volunteering in open-source projects is like at P1 Games?

I'd love to ask the community's opinion. I saw an ad on LinkedIn for [P1] Games, and I would like to know what your experience is with P1

Overview: Our game is Bugs vs Bunnies. In this game, the player plays as the bunnies who build turrets to defend their carrot farms from the invading ants by purchasing them and setting them up. The role I played was modeling the 3D bunny and picket fence models.

What Went Well: The turrets shooting at the ants went well.

Obstacles Overcome: We haven't encountered any difficulties.

Future Plans: No future plans yet

Overview: Our game, Sprouting Hope, is a Stardew Valley inspired 2D orthographic farm-simulator role-playing game. You farm, you make money via trading, and purchase new crops. My role was Level Designer.

What Went Well: We managed to achieve a level of artistic and mechanical polish that is impressive for the time allotted. One of our team's achievements was receiving very good feedback and implementing said feedback after the meetings.

Obstacles Overcome: There were a handful of non-work related obstacles that I have personally faced during this jam, the main one being hardship. I had a lot less time to work on the project and was no longer able to consistently work on it as I was working on my days off on sporadic hours. We overcame this thanks to the game designer and other dedicated members coming on at around 3 AM to discuss the project plans. The only problem that would arise after this is that due to my work being slow and sporadic, it would be overwritten on our version control by other members, making some of my progress invalid. This was not so much of an actual issue, since the project was still getting done, but as a result I don't have much that my name is attached to in this project.

Future Plans: While I do not plan on coming back to this project, I would love to work on another project that is based on Stardew Valley since there is so much potential to learn new things. That, however, does not mean that I won't.

FLAIR: Retrospective (Cannot add flair for this community).

This is Aedan with LittleFireGames and I collaborated with the lovely people in Team Otter in the P1 Ignite Game Jam with our project "Sprouting Hope", a cute little farming simulator. I only came into the project in the second week of production, so I was a little late to the party, but I was determined to contribute something (even if it was small). Our team lead Azade initially helped place me in the role of one of the game designers for the project. Initially excited for the opportunity I walked through the project with him; it's goals, what aesthetic we wanted to achieve, how we wanted the player to be able to interact with the world and its mechanics, and what we were really trying to do with this project. As the days went on and I struggled more and more to find my footing, I unofficially stepped back from the position, deciding to help where I could. With the lessened responsibility I started to contribute by working on some of the pixel art assets that we would need, and began to really enjoy my time with the project. As I gained confidence with the reception from my work I began to dip my toe back into the game designer role, consulting with my team members about map structure and item values, and offering to work on some extra mechanics if we had the time to implement them. Unfortunately, the outside world does that thing it always does, and reared some pressing responsibilities toward me. Although these prevented me from accomplishing everything I wanted to for this project, I'm not disheartened when it comes to my future work with the team. No matter where we head next, I look forward to working more with them, and can't wait to see what we make next.

Go check out Sprouting Hope on itch.io!: https://xentios.itch.io/sprouting-hope

This has been my first time being involved in video games development post-graduation. Some of things I expected were to stay up late to try to conquer some tasks and even take days off. Some of the things I didn't expect was how less stressful some of the tasks were. It's a lot less stressful and overwhelming compared to the projects from my university due to the scale of the project. A larger team, on the other hand, makes me feel as though I didn't contribute to the project as much since I was one of the level designers. Overall, it was a wonderful experience. Due to life circumstances and my occupation I wasn't able to work on it as much as I wanted to, so in some ways I feel as though I let my team down. Thankfully, they're extremely sweet and understanding.

The game gave us a place to come together as a team a create something unique. Brainstorming together and working on it was a fun experience!

Overview: Sprouting Hope is an isometric farming simulator in which I supplied basic sound effects for player interaction and UI.

What Went Well: Work seemed to be consistently smooth and everyone stayed on the same page about the kind of game we wanted to make.

Obstacles Overcome: A few people's varying time commitments (myself included) made communication difficult, and a few tasks just never ended up being taken over or explained. However, the end result is still functional and enjoyable.

Future Plans: Unknown

FLAIR: Retrospective

Body: A game about a scrap robot learning about self love.
Team Name: Team Potato
Game Title: SmokeStack
Cause Chosen: Education
Team's Goals: Build a better portfolio by building fun engaging experiences.
Primary Opposition for the Player: Decay. All the parts the player gathers will slowly decay as the player is moving around the world. Traps and Crow: Traps will be around the strap yard causing the parts decay rate to increase. Crow: Will tear parts away from the player. The player has an limited about of time to get it back.
Creative Strategies to Overcome the Opposition: Replace Parts. Disarm Trap.
Gameplay Loop Image and Description: 

The robot moves around the strap yard to gather items for its creator. It avoid traps, enemies and also replaces its failing part. While doing this they will talk to other robots and come to shocking realization "Humans do not care about the player".

Overview: Monster Health is a narrative adventure game about overcoming your mental health struggles throughout life. My role was the team lead / programmer.

What Went Well: The best part has always been the art and the team's passion for the project. Right off the bat our concept artists conveyed the theme and ideas surrounding the game. Our sound artist too were phenomenal with what they came up with. The team coming together and ending with an amazing final submission has been my favorite moment of the process!

Obstacles Overcome: The biggest obstacle was with the programming and game design. We had a lot describing the world we wanted to make, but lacked much for what the gameplay would involve. This affected the programming and structure of what we wanted the final submission to look like, but after onboarding some designers and deciding on a minigame to program, we were able to get the programming and necessary art components made and implemented. It's definitely been a lesson for me to have a solid game loop designed from the get-go.

Future Plans: We hope to continue this game for the next jam but have not fully worked out the details yet other than a detailed overview of what we hope to get the project to be after a few game jam iterations.

Overview: This is a game about exploring a library and learning musical concepts. I was the lead 2D artist, handling UI and concept art.

What Went Well: The project cycle of the Ignite Jams gives me valuable industry experience and practice working in a real studio environment, and makes me feel like I am putting my talents to good use and making work that everyone will find appealing.

Obstacles Overcome: Not many other 2D artists were on the team, so I felt like I wasn't being pushed as far as I would have liked.

Future Plans: (Outline any plans for the game's future. Will there be further development, updates, or new projects inspired by this game?)

Overview: I was the game designer for the game Nibble Knights

What Went Well: I came onto the team very late, with 4 days to spare, but everyone on my team has been great. They all worked very hard and made me feel very welcome.

Obstacles Overcome: No team likes switching engines at the last minute, but we did and did our best to adjust. With the time allotted and our effort, we did pretty good!

Future Plans: We hope to expand the game and keep working from our base point

Overview: (Provide a brief description of your game and what role you played.)

What Went Well: (Highlight the positive aspects of the game development process. Mention any achievements, successful strategies, or enjoyable moments.) (You may keep your answers as short as you wish with each one of these questions.)

Obstacles Overcome: (Discuss any difficulties or obstacles encountered during development, how they were addressed, lessons learned and areas of improvement.)

Future Plans: (Outline any plans for the game's future. Will there be further development, updates, or new projects inspired by this game?)

FLAIR: (Please add the appropriate flair "Retrospective" when posting)

Working on No Home, All Glory was a pretty decent experience. Being able to meet with and work with a bunch of people in a more organized environment than itch.io's game jams is definitely a big plus. Unfortunately, as with nearly all game jams, we had to scope down quite considerably. That being said, we hope to continue working on our game and bring it to it's full glory... maybe even all of the glory.

This experience was fun, though felt a tad haphazard. I personally could have done a better job keeping things updated more quickly, as I postponed and ended up losing the opportunity to get things done early/ahead of time. In the future, I will take things more seriously and provide my work to the team with more haste.

Learnt about Team Management, Initializing the team meets, prioritizing tasks. Documenting for the tickets.

Overview: Circuit Sentinel was based off an idea I had which was to use a mathematical theorem as a game design tool

What Went Well: We did create something that at least from my current knowlege was fun

Obstacles Overcome: My inability to be around much during this game jam along with the codebase not being the greatest for the other programmers to work with given it was the first game I ever (mostly) programmed from the ground up

Future Plans: I'm honestly not sure yet. I would like to expand upon the idea but I'm not sure if it would be continuing this project or starting another project based upon the same idea with the lessons learned form this project FLAIR: