THYME TO COLLECT

is a GameJam project created for the second GameJam at the University of Ulm in December 2024. The theme was „Time to Collect“. When creating the game we wanted to think outside the box and as we soon realized, thyme and time sound the same. With this being the main point of reference for what our project should be about we began working on the project.

Buy, grow, prepare and sell thyme. You take control of a thyme shop and have to fulfil the wishes and needs of your customers. The whole game can be played only using the mouse, dragging and dropping the thyme from one station to the next. Players can sell nine different types of thyme, each with unique effects on the satisfied customers, like them going up in flames or shrinking down to the size of a mouse. As time was a focus in the theme, we also sprinkled in many different time-based elements into the ame, like a thief trying to steal the players seeds, thyme slowly becoming old, wehen growing to long, thus losing value and customers leaving after a certain amount of time, when not getting their order.

GENRE

Shop Simulator

DEVELOPER

Team Junga Sigma

MY ROLE

Programmer

CHECK THE GAME OUT

PROJECT TAKEAWAYS

Troubles

First game-jam project: This was the first time any of us had ever participated in a game-jam. This led to several problems such as poor time management, overscoping, and unbalanced role assignments.
Overestimating myself: This project showed me my limitations as a developer. At the beginning, I believed that I would be able to easily integrate everything we thought of into the game. As it turned out, that wasn’t the case, and I quickly ran into my own limitations.

Successes

Teamwork: We were able to really grow closer as a team and develop bonds that went beyond just working together as a team. This can be attributed to our long and sometimes unnecessary breaks. Which leads me to conclude that they weren’t all bad.
Learning experience: This experience taught me a lot about teamwork and time management. It taught me that sometimes it is more important to take a break to keep morale up than to keep working and crunching to finish a feature.
Killing your darlings: The inventory system was something I put a lot of time into, and when it turned out to be a hindrance to the fun of the game, I had to throw all that work away. It was frustrating at first, but when I looked at the big picture, I realised it was the best way to move forward. It also didn’t take away the things I learned while creating the system.