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This weekend was the Alberta Game Jam. You know what I did. I didn’t do the Alberta Game Jam. 
I thought about it. I registered for it. I forgot about it. I noticed a message about it a few hours before it was going to start. I watched the theme reveal. I got an idea for a game I could work on. Then I didn’t.
I don’t really feel bad about that.
Since using Twine a few years ago for a game jam, I have thought about using it again.
Twine is a sort of framework for text based, choose your own adventure and interactive fiction. It’s fairly easy to use and surprisingly powerful and flexible. As long as the game you are making is primarily text based. 
When I made that previous jam game, I came up with a way to use 2D arrays for maps and navigation could be handled semi procedurally. I then found out that other people had the same idea and there were instructions and frameworks for just such a system. I ended up making a sort of hybrid. Taking parts of the system I found and the system I came up with to make something that worked for the random escape game I created. 
Like all jam games, there were ideas that I wanted to implement that I ran out of time for. Like most jam games, I never went back to add those features. 
I thought “here we go”. I had the opportunity and the idea that would let me add those missing elements to that Twine framework.
So I sat down and added those features.
I tested those features.
The features worked.
And I was done.
I found I didn’t really have any interest in making the game. It wouldn’t have been great. I don’t think I would be that happy with it. What I really wanted to do was tinker with that engine and add the stuff that I wasn’t able to before. Once I did that, well, I was done. And that’s just fine.
Sometimes you just want to make something. That something might not be that useful, or something that you need to share with others. Sometimes you just have to make a thing for your own damn self. 
So I did. And I liked it. And I was okay with finishing it there and moving on to some other writing that I do want to complete. Something that I do want to get into a state that I can share with others. So I changed gears and did that instead. 
All in all, not a terrible use of a weekend.

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