Game Jam Game Jam #3: Discussion

[Deo]

Hey there, everyone. I hope your entries are going well!

Time sure flies, and August 10th is slowly sneaking up on us. While ten or so days may seem like a good chunk of time left, I suggest that you start finalizing your entries and begin to test, bug fix, and polish. Of course, I'm sure many of you have been playtesting and squashing bugs as you go along -- but for those who haven't: have a couple of playthroughs of your entry and see what you can spot. If you have a team, let them do so as well. You'll be impressed when they catch a bug that you may have missed.

In past game jams, I've heard of a few entries that fell off the radar and ultimately weren't finished on time due to game breaking bugs popping up. If you're creating additional content to be played in the final days, it's very easy to miss something that might create an issue with your entry, be it a crash or something not working the way you had planned.

So please: reflect on where your entry stands right now. What do you have left to do? How soon can your game be considered playable from start to finish? What polish can you add that will make the overall experience a better one? How much time will you have left to do all of this? Talk it over with your team, and consider making a schedule of sorts.

Most of all: don't be discouraged and have fun with it! You're almost there! Me and the other judges are rooting for you all, and looking forward to playing what you've been working on!

 

[Dragonite]

have a couple of playthroughs of your entry and see what you can spot

Better yet - have your little sister play the game. She'll find all the ways to break it that you never even dreamed of, and then a few more. Source: that's what I did and the number of things I have to fix is almost infuriating.

 

[qnibru]

Can we know somewhere how much people participating the Jam ?

 

[aiyinsi]

well the deadline is in 4 days ... everyone who publishes a game until then is in ... there's no way to know how many people participate because a lot of people don't make it on time or just didn't say anything on the forum and discord.

But then again ... 4 more days and it will be clear :)

 

[Roenais]

only just discovered the jams going on, but im still totaly gonna try my best in the time ive got. good luck to everyone!

 

[Phoenixsong]

only just discovered the jams going on, but im still totaly gonna try my best in the time ive got. good luck to everyone!

Go for it! I'm getting a really late start, too, for a cavalcade of reasons that are mostly my fault oops, but if you've got an idea that you like and can buckle down it's still possible to get a lot done even with the deadline approaching! Will I make it in time? No idea, especially since I'm doing something I've never really done before and it's hard to gauge how long it'll actually take. But I'm already a lot farther than I was when I was just thinking about doing something, I'm learning a lot about the engine I chose, and even if I don't finish by the 10th I'll still have made progress and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Time well spent, I'd say, even with all the rushing. So do it! Anyone else who's got an idea they'd like to at least attempt, do it! It's worth it no matter what, as long as you try! (And as long as you're not going to be too stressed out by the short deadline, of course!)

And good luck to everyone else who's actually been working at a sensible pace, haha! So excited to see everyone's finished games; the teaser screenshots have been really tantalizing!

 

[Deo]

Only a few days left! Please remember that when submitting your thread, you also need to be submitting a resource pack through our tutorials and resources section. This is to make sure they're easy to find.

While you submit your entry, you should have also assembled a resource pack. You must submit your resource pack through the Tutorials and Resources section, in the Game Jam Packs category. You can do so here.
When filling out the details for your resource pack, be sure to mention the entry name in the tag line and description, and link to your entry thread in the resource description. You should also provide a list of credits if people use your resource pack.
Giving your resource an icon is also ideal, but not mandatory.

If you haven't made your resource pack, consider starting a few days ahead. You never know what may come up on the last day.

And on that note: we're officially closing the game jam on 11:00 PM PST on the 10th. You can submit your thread up until that point. If you should for some reason not be able to make that deadline due to unfortunate circumstances, drop me a DM and we'll have a chat about it.

 

[Phoenixsong]

Ah, well. Looks like I won't be making it after all. Still, it's close enough to done (as done as something can be in ten or so days, anyway) that I'll probably be able to post it in the regular forums tomorrow or Saturday; it could, at the very least, do with some more beta-testing, if anyone even wants to bother with this weird thing, haha. Would've been kind of amusing if there'd been three legendary golem–related entries in the same jam, though! What could have been if I had managed to stumble upon a workable idea before August 1st.

Also, crikey, twenty games? (Maybe more if someone manages to squeak something in???) That's pretty friggin' amazing. And they're all so different, even the two that ended up tackling the same theme. Well done, everyone! Once I'm able to set this dang thing aside, I am excited to jump into all of these! Well done, well done, well done!

 

[Dr. Pikachu PhD]

Gah! Same. Just barely missed the submission deadline!! Oh well, it would have only been a demo as I didn't manage to complete it anyway ^.^ I'll be excited to play the 20 new games and see what creative approaches everyone took, it looks to be a very innovative jam!

 

[Deo]

And with that, the game jam comes to a close! If you still have an entry to submit, please drop me a DM. I'd rather see your entry get posted than disqualified or have you not post it because you missed the deadline!

Judging will begin in a few days, and there's no estimate on how long judging will take. For now, please give these wonderful fan games a play and leave your thoughts in the project threads!

Thank you for another successful year. Events like these are why I love Relic Castle. You guys go above and beyond every year. Much love. <3

 

[Shgeldz]

guys this is amazing.

seriously there's like 25 new games

I think half of the developers have never released a game before. that's unreal.

Congratulations to those who participated. Make sure to share your games with friends and family, it's amazing watching someone else play.

@Deo stream when tho?

 

[SmokedPaprika]

it's been a crazy time balancing my social life, development of two games, and work. I didn't want to sacrifice the quality of either games, and I'm really hoping I succeeded. I'm absolutely looking forward to playing everybody's games, and hopefully getting feedback on mine.

Congratulations for all your hard work, everybody, you all did an amazing job.

 

[Aki]

PSA: This is what Saved Games looks like. All the files are identical looking, so the computer sorts them into folders with the game's title.

If you don't change your game's title from "Pokemon Essentials", it's going to pull whatever save file is in the "Pokemon Essentials" folder. If you're updating your game, please keep the title in mind!
You can change the title of your game when RMXP is open, just look along the top bar for the "Game" option, and select "Change title"
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[Deo]

Judging is going well! We're starting to finalize what we feel the spotlights will be. Hoping it won't be too much longer.

I've also given out the first wave of badges, if you win a spotlight we'll swap your regular jam #3 badge out for a spotlight one. I also may have missed some team members, let me know if I have. I also may have missed some of the challenge themes, please DM me with how the theme applied to your project if I missed you. Should have got mostly everyone.

Something really cool: last year we gave out 15 game jam badges, this year we gave out 38. That's awesome!

 

[Deo]

Alright! The results are live, and all discussion should take place in that thread from there on!