The GMC Jam Rules Topic

[Evanski]

Originally titled:
How to submit a jam game the PROPER way!

Can't wait for "How to submit a jam game the PROPER way!"

This topic will go over and provide Discussion on how to submit a game for the jam.
There will be a small how to on the main announcement post of the current jam as well.


• Any GMC member can take part in the GMC Jam. You must use GameMaker to create your game.
ㅤ-If you are a gmc member and you are using GameMaker or GameMakerStudio 1-2, You're already heading on the right path!

• Games must be made between the start and the end of the jam time as stated in the jam announcement, and posted in the games topic.
ㅤ-the jam game you wish to submit must be made during the allowed time of the jam, The time and dates will be in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) (Time converter); Then you must have a submission post in the Games topic,
ㅤThe Games topic will be created when the jam officially starts, However the Announcement will be created before the date to promote hype for the jam.

• You may use resources such as graphics, sounds and scripts that were made prior to the jam, as long as the bulk of your work takes place during Jam weekend.
however, the credits should make clear where the assets come from and which were made before the Jam; The creators of the entry must have rights to all of the assets; unlicensed use of resources is not allowed
ㅤ-basically don't make a full game before the jam and try to submit that, That wouldn't be fun or in spirit of the jam. Also make sure you have rights to use any asset in your game and to credit them as such. There are a few people that ㅤstream or record their playthroughs of jam games and its no fun to be hit with a DMCA.
ㅤIn practice no-one has been disqualified on these grounds, but you will be at the mercy of those voting on your game with this information in mind.
ㅤTo include credits simply make a .txt file named "Readme.txt" and have it in your games included files, make sure the txt has the credits listed.

• Rules for A.I generated Assets and Resources
- You are allowed to use A.I generated assets so long as the bulk of your project is work created by yourself, or assets provided online by others with you having the right to use them.
If your game is nothing but A.I work then it is not allowed. I feel this should be the case as the Jam is to promote creativity and push yourself to create new things, also to make it fair to those that choose not to use A.I generated assets. You must credit and list each of your assets that are A.I generated works or if they are edited pieces of A.I generated works.

• You may create one post per entry in the games topic. You may create this post before your game is finished and continue editing that post to update your progress, in fact you are encouraged to write a devlog!
ㅤ-When the games topic is created, you will post your submission for your game, Only 1 post (submission) per game entry, if you have multiple games you wish to submit that you've made during the jam, you may make a single ㅤㅤㅤㅤsubmission post for each.
ㅤYou then are allowed to edit that post to provide more info about the game as you make it, and even a Devlog (a day by day log of your events during the creation of your game)!

• All entries must have a download link in the Games Topic before it closes at Jam End date.
ㅤ-Of course we need to be able to play your game! The link can be to Google drive, itchio, gamejolt, some place where we can download your game free and preferably without needing to know about hot singles in our area.
ㅤif your game is an HTML game, the link to the game will be fine as well.

• All entries should work on Windows as a standalone executable / compressed zip folder. No installers please.
ㅤ-Your entry can also work in HTML5 and on other platforms, but most voters will be using Windows and therefore your entry should work primarily on windows in order to secure a decent amount of feedback.
ㅤ(Temp licenses to export to desktop are provided when the Jam starts)

• All entries are encouraged to follow the Jam theme. It isn't mandatory to do so, but you'll often get more favorable reviews from your peers!
ㅤ-Each Jam there is a theme to make a game around, you do not need to add the theme to be able to submit a game, however the voters might have small qualms about that.

• You may create your entry alone or as part of a team. If you're looking for teammates, try asking in the jam topic or joining the GMC Jam Discord.
ㅤ-This is a rule that's been really relaxed, typically their is a limit to a max of 3 but there have been teams of 4 in the past, Please do not ask for team mates during a jam in this topic, as this topic is for discussion of these rules only.

• For the sake of our internet connection and the planet, please make sure to use the appropriate soundtrack compression options.
ㅤ-So please go through all your background music resources (leave SFX as-is) and in "Attributes", choose the Compressed - Streamed. With that your BGM should weigh much less in the exported file.
ㅤYou do not need to do this but it's recommended


Again this topic to get feedback from the community and to provide discussion on the rules that we have for the GMC Jams.
Happy Jamming.

Spoiler: Small joke from the thread creation

ps: @Nocturne to cover myself from your righteous fury and amazing powers of justice,
this is a good post and as the host of the jam I think its good to allow feedback on this in a determined
place rather then to repeat things per jam or to have unnecessary clutter in the discussion topics of the jams.
also you're the best!

 

[TsukaYuriko]

Absolute madlad...

For the sake of our internet connection and the planet, please make sure to use the appropriate soundtrack compression options.
-So please go through all your background music resources (leave SFX as-is) and in "Attributes", choose the Uncompress on Load - Not Streamed. With that your BGM should weight much less in the exported file.

Might want to change this to Compressed - Streamed, otherwise you'll be the one to blame for every jam game suffering from hiccups at the start of every level.

 

[Evanski]

Absolute madlad...


Might want to change this to Compressed - Streamed, otherwise you'll be the one to blame for every jam game suffering from hiccups at the start of every level.

you sure? I blame @Alice its her words lmao

 

[Alice]

Back then, @Micah_DS recommended Uncompressed on Load - Not Streamed, because Compressed - Streamed had some issues (it didn't loop seamlessly, I think?). If I recall, it was fixed in some version of GM:S 2.x.

On a side note, back when I was hosting the Jam the rules were stricter about unlicensed resources and crediting:

• the entry might use assets (graphics, audio, scripts, extensions, Marketplace resources etc.) created before the Jam, whether by team members or someone else; however, the credits should make clear where the assets come from and which were made before the Jam
• the creators of the entry must have rights to all of the assets; unlicensed use of resources is not allowed

I think it might be a good opportunity to bring these back, especially the part about unlicensed use of resources - some people included music from commercial games in their entries, and this is pretty much illegal and also can cause trouble with Jam streams/playthroughs on twitch or YouTube or somesuch.

In practice no-one has been disqualified on these grounds, but I think it's still good to have such a rule in place. That way entrants can't claim they didn't know about this. Maybe we'd see more complete credits too (right now, way too often I can't even tell if music is entrant's own or not, and most of the time it's not).

 

[Evanski]

Back then, @Micah_DS recommended Uncompressed on Load - Not Streamed, because Compressed - Streamed had some issues (it didn't loop seamlessly, I think?). If I recall, it was fixed in some version of GM:S 2.x.

On a side note, back when I was hosting the Jam the rules were stricter about unlicensed resources and crediting:


I think it might be a good opportunity to bring these back, especially the part about unlicensed use of resources - some people included music from commercial games in their entries, and this is pretty much illegal and also can cause trouble with Jam streams/playthroughs on twitch or YouTube or somesuch.

In practice no-one has been disqualified on these grounds, but I think it's still good to have such a rule in place. That way entrants can't claim they didn't know about this. Maybe we'd see more complete credits too (right now, way too often I can't even tell if music is entrant's own or not, and most of the time it's not).

I agree with this and have updated the thread to reflect the changes, well see how it goes for this jam

 

[Tete-chin]

Do we need to say somewhere "I join"? I don't see anything here about it.
I think I'm ready for my first GM jam.

.All entries should work on Windows as a standalone executable / compressed zip folder. No installers please.

I don't have the license, I'll use the temporary one you give, I hope you explain to people like me how to do that stand alone executable thing XD

 

[Evanski]

Do we need to say somewhere "I join"? I don't see anything here about it.
I think I'm ready for my first GM jam.

You don't need to officially sign up,
but if you want to submit a game, a post in the "games topic" of the jam needs to be created by you, with a link to your game submission before the jam deadline
and with that you are "officially signed up" for the jam

I don't have the license, I'll use the temporary one you give, I hope you explain to people like me how to do that stand alone executable thing XD

That's okay! A temporary license will be given out when the jam starts, it will be a link on the jam topic that you click.
You'll log into yoyogames and the license will be added to your account
When you are ready to export

you click "build" in the top left of GMS
"create Executable"
You then select create zip

make sure on your top right, your export options are for the platform you wish to export to (this is also the platform you have been testing your game on to see if it runs)

It will create the exe in a nice zip file, you can upload to itchi.io or to a google drive
Copy the link from the itch or google drive, and put it in your game submission post in the game topic

Good luck! Hope to see your jam game!
Feel free to message me with any questions about the jam!

 

[Evanski]

Rule regarding A.I

• Rules for A.I generated Assets and Resources
- You are allowed to use A.I generated assets so long as the bulk of your project is work created by yourself, or assets provided online by others with you having the right to use them.
If your game is nothing but A.I work then it is not allowed. I feel this should be the case as the Jam is to promote creativity and push yourself to create new things, also to make it fair to those that choose not to use A.I generated assets. You must credit and list each of your assets that are A.I generated works or if they are edited pieces of A.I generated works.

I want the GMC Jam to try and motivate people to create games and put effort into game making as well as try and motivate people to try new things. I am not outlawing using A.I as I see the benefit for some to use it as a tool as well as I myself have used it to generate scripts However, I feel it provides an unfair advantage to those that choose not to use/create A.I generated works, as well as prevents people from using their creativity and skills to create new works and push themselves to do better and motive themselves to try and make a game. The bulk of your work must be made of your own effort, not that of a computer.

 

[Dr. Wolf]

Rule regarding A.I



I want the GMC Jam to try and motivate people to create games and put effort into game making as well as try and motivate people to try new things. I am not outlawing using A.I as I see the benefit for some to use it as a tool as well as I myself have used it to generate scripts However, I feel it provides an unfair advantage to those that choose not to use/create A.I generated works, as well as prevents people from using their creativity and skills to create new works and push themselves to do better and motive themselves to try and make a game. The bulk of your work must be made of your own effort, not that of a computer.

Since you asked for feedback on the Discord...I dunno, I don't think this really reflects the realities of making AI assets that are actually of competitive quality.

Like, let's say two people both spend the first two days of the game jam making assets. The first person spends that time in a drawing program, moving around a stylus on a screen, pushing pixels around, layering, etc.; the second one spends the same amount of time tinkering with prompts, refining images by inpainting different areas with multiple models, tweaking generators with textual inversion to create a coherent art style, etc. They both spend the same amount of time, and also the same amount of effort-- but now the second guy has to categorize all his assets like "I didn't make this, don't give me credit for it"? That just doesn't make sense to me.

And what about combined workflows, where you're still doing a lot of hand creating, but you're *also* using AI to guide you with layout, fill in texture detail, etc.? Does using a little AI in everything all of the time completely invalidate all the human effort that's also going into it?

As I see it, AI is a tool, and what you get out is very much proportional to what you put in. Using any tool, or having a skill set relating to using a tool that happens to be particularly effective, is an advantage-- but not an unfair one.

 

[Evanski]

Like, let's say two people both spend the first two days of the game jam making assets. The first person spends that time in a drawing program, moving around a stylus on a screen, pushing pixels around, layering, etc.; the second one spends the same amount of time tinkering with prompts, refining images by inpainting different areas with multiple models, tweaking generators with textual inversion to create a coherent art style, etc. They both spend the same amount of time, and also the same amount of effort-- but now the second guy has to categorize all his assets like "I didn't make this, don't give me credit for it"? That just doesn't make sense to me.

I dont feel the same way on this, I think that the person working out the art themselves is doing more work and effort then a person typing out a prompt and waiting for something that looks good and not even made by themselves

And what about combined workflows, where you're still doing a lot of hand creating, but you're *also* using AI to guide you with layout, fill in texture detail, etc.? Does using a little AI in everything all of the time completely invalidate all the human effort that's also going into it?

That is the type of A.I work that I'm trying to allow, if you put effort into it other then just "Big hillside landscape in water colors", then that's completely fine
I still think you should state that the base of it was from A.I, such as you would state you downloaded an asset pack
but by working on the generated work and giving it your own work and effort into it as well, that is more valid in my opinion rather then just typing a prompt

 

[Dr. Wolf]

I dont feel the same way on this, I think that the person working out the art themselves is doing more work and effort then a person typing out a prompt and waiting for something that looks good and not even made by themselves

What you're describing though is basically the lowest, least skilled level of AI art though; it's not all there is. Even leaving aside prompting-- which is already an emerging profession where expertise is valued-- selection, and training, there's also inpainting, where you selectively apply different prompts and even different base models to small parts of an image, sometimes many times over, layering the effects of different words and AIs over the image to compose the final piece.

I'm just starting to get into this stuff myself, and so far I've been blown away by how much actually goes into it. It's assuredly not "push button, get art" when done at a level that would compete with traditional art for quality, consistency, and control.