10.1f — 2-Button Jam: Showcase & Retro
Six days ends here: the room becomes an arcade for half the class, then tells the truth about itself for the other half. Ship, show, celebrate — then retro like engineers, because the point of the jam was never the game; it was discovering what you can do with two buttons and a deadline.
Format: the arcade row. Games on machines around the room, sticky pitch by each keyboard. Two modes, alternating:
- As a player: play at least four games. For each, one star vote: BEST FEEL (which two buttons argued best?), BEST IDEA, BEST JUICE (which feedback taught fastest?).
- As a host: stand by your game only to fix CRASHES. Watch first presses without explaining. Count silently: how many players smiled (10.1d smile-omics), how many read the pitch sticky, how many stayed past 60 seconds.
Every team is host and player in equal measure — the jam community's contract.
The retro board — all four quadrants, team by team, 3 minutes each, honest:
- Went well: one process fact, not a feeling — "the sticky-note risk got cut at 15 min and saved the game"
- Went wrong: same honesty — "we tuned feel on Day 1 before the loop existed" (10.1b rule, learned the hard way)
- The two-button discovery: what did the CONSTRAINT give you that free choice would not have? (Every jam has one — name yours.)
- Next jam (10.2a): one rule you adopt. From this class's combined retro notes: which process fix is universal?
Reflect: the constraint's receipt
What did limiting your entire game to two buttons give your design that free choice would not have — and which single decision this week made the constraint feel like a gift rather than a cage?
Checkpoint — before moving on, you must be able to:
- Show the build, host silently, and take the smile/count data
- Give one honest "went wrong" and one "went well" with evidence
- Name your constraint discovery in one sentence
- Leave a tagged repo + RETRO.md as the jam's artifact
Reference Docs
Need a deeper explanation? These pages cover the same concepts:
- Unit 10: Jam Season — showcase + retro formats
- Projects — your work, collected
Saved on this device only — the Dashboard tracks your progress.