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  1. The fixed moments
  2. Five rules
  3. Who does what
  4. The first hour
  5. What we let go

articles

  1. 008Four days on paper
  2. 007Every way to play, on one board
  3. 006A PC you never sit at
  4. 005Pack it, check it, ship it

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theme night: Wed 11 Nov 2026, 20:00 CET

article 008 HEADagents532 words~2 minEpic AI MegaJam

Four days on paper

agents

Written on the afternoon before theme night, 11 November. Times are Dutch local time.

45 minof sketching on paper while the agents stay silent
4fixed builds: Thursday 21:00, Friday 17:00, Saturday 12:30, Sunday 17:00
02:59Monday, the jam deadline; we plan to submit Sunday at 20:00

The fixed moments

The theme is announced on Wednesday at 20:00. The maker sketches on paper for 45 minutes, and at 20:45 the agents look through the sketches. Building starts on Thursday at 06:00.

Thursday at 14:00 is the click moment: does the loop work, yes or no. At 21:00 the first test build has to exist.

Friday at 09:00 we replan, and at 17:00 a test build goes up to the jam page. On Saturday the test build is made at 12:30, and in the afternoon friends and family play what was chosen and tell us what they think.

Sunday at 17:00 the last build is made, and at 20:00 it is submitted.

Four columns, Thu, Fri, Sat and Sun, with the moments on one line: 06:00 start, 14:00 does the loop work, 21:00 build 1; 09:00 replan, 17:00 test upload; 12:30 test build, afternoon testers; 17:00 final build, and 20:00 submit marked in the accent colour.
The four days on one line, from the first start to the hand-in.

Five rules

  1. The loop comes first, the art after. If the grey-block version is not fun, paint does not fix it.
  2. Cutting is the default. Anything new needs something else to leave.
  3. One build every day, even a rough one.
  4. What is not tested is not finished.
  5. Radio silence for everything that is not the jam.

Who does what

The maker decides the concept, the feel and every cut. The agents build, measure and log. One person decides what goes up. That is the maker, and nothing is submitted without his hand on the button.

The first hour

Minutes 0 to 5: read the theme three times, as the thing itself, as a feeling, and as a rule. Minutes 5 to 45: three to five sketches, each starting with one verb, and only then the world.

Then a quick test per sketch. What does the player do every ten seconds, and would they do it again? Does the theme survive if all art is grey blocks? Have we built this kind of thing before?

The result is a short list of two directions, not a winner. The choice is made at 22:00. The two share a level, so switching costs rules and not a world.

What we let go

The Friday test round is gone. Testers on Friday would have seen an unfinished guess, and the feedback would be about the wrong thing. Saturday afternoon they see what was chosen.

We also dropped the idea of a two-person team, and the first plan's click at noon. Thinking time now runs to 14:00.

The start script ran clean on a throwaway folder. works

Packaging a fresh template with the automatic build setting is not proven yet. The workaround is green.

Cutting is the default, and what is not tested is not finished.