GMC Jam Discussion The Classic GMC Jam 32 - 8 year anniversary

O.Stogden

Member
If I got to choose a theme, I'd go with ASCII. Just because I'm literally the worst at art and I would want to restrict everyone to using ASCII graphics. a la Rogue (1980)

So It's a good job I don't pick, as I would abuse it and make it work to my advantage!
 
My favourites have been "Everyone Is Dead" and "You Are Not The Hero"
I thought those were really good ones that had a wide variety of interesting interpretations.
 

Toque

Member
RE: themes and whether or not they are too restrictive etc. etc.

It's not like the jam host, or the community as a whole, "enforces" what counts as matching the theme. It's up to reviewers to decide whether the game they played used the theme in a decent way. I don't really see how we can police that without putting people off voting.

It's become pretty funny seeing how obviously I can use a theme and still get 1 or 2 reviews that say I didn't use it, almost like a challenge. But that's just the way it is! Some people will literally give entries 10/10 for theme use if the theme is in the title of the game and 0/10 if it was used just subtly enough that they didn't pick up on it. Just one of those things you have to expect and learn to love about the jam.

I don't have a problem with generic "noun"-type themes like pancakes or pizza, I'd be happy to enter a jam like that. But I also really like themes that make you think outside the box re: game mechanics. I wish winners would more often pick themes that are Ludum-esque like "The whole level in one screen" or "You are the weapon" or whatever.
Oh I like those Ludum dare ideas as well as pizza.

Pizza and the whole level in one screen.

There are lots of jams. So lots of opportunity to try different things.
 
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@SamSam Darksideeeeers! Yeah, I only tried out the first game because I'm a big fan of the artist Joe Madureira who designed the characters. Thanks for your comments, You totally got what we were doing and that's awesome.
 

Relic

Member
@Dr. Wolf Wow, made my day - and not just because you ranked my game number 1 spot. Everything you said about the nuances of the path setting and upgrades influencing resource gathering and combat were spot on and mirrored what was going on in my head during development. Super cool you appreciated the design to the same depth I tried to implement.
 

The M

Member
Congratulations! I'm also super happy to place in the top ten despite the game crashing for everyone. Sorry about that, by the way. ;)
 

Alexx

Member
As promised, 5 random entrants get a copy of new book:


They are:
Dr. Wolf
Ghandpivot
The M
Arabong
elijahmmin


If anyone else wants a copy, they can use coupon code jam for 100% off (free) here.
 
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Relic

Member
Thank you for hosting the Jam GameDevDan and thank you to everyone who provided feedback during the voting.

Thanks for the best dev log award too- that was unexpected.
 

GameDevDan

Former Jam Host
Moderator
GMC Elder
Thanks Relic, congrats on another high position and best-of award, these last 2 jams your record has been solid! :D

RE: Prizes. If you have won a Community Prize (i.e. one donated by an ordinary member) you need to PM them about it to get it! "Official" Jam prizes are being dealt with as follows:
  • The winner(s) will get the exclusive title of "GMCJam Champ" - I have asked an admin to do this, it may take a while so please be patient :)
  • The winner(s) will also get to decide the Theme of the next GMC Jam - In discussion with the winners now but obviously they have a long time to choose.
  • The top 3 entrants, as well as winners of the "Best Of" categories will win personalised banners for their forum signature and a place in the Hall of Fame topic - Done
  • YoYo Games have offered 3 gift codes for GameMaker: Studio 2 to the winner(s) of the jam! - I will be in contact with YoYo Games today to find out how to get these codes. The two people in the first place team will get 1 code each, and 2nd place will get 1 code. I already have GMS2 so that worked out nicely in terms of the number of licenses being given away! :p
 
Well done to the winners. I hope some of you at least keep working on your games!

Any of you winners get a spare GMS2 code you don't need, I'd be happy to have it ^^'
 

Micah_DS

Member
Fooey, I only played 4 of the games so far. That makes this the first GMC jam since the new forums where I haven't made a game or voted (I think?), so I ruined my participation streak. :( I'm really hoping I'll have a new work schedule by the time the next jam rolls around, because I may finally get a schedule with weekends free.

Anyway, congrats to the winners! ... which - in my view - is everyone who completed a game and/or learned something. :)
I'll have to play more of the games later.
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
Congratulations to everyone. Glad to see the winning game is a puzzle using a theme in an unconventional, yet fitting way (even though I've found its controls a tad too clunky myself). I kinda hoped our entry would rank better than it did, but the other entries were pretty good, too, so I have no complaints.

If there's one thing I'm missing it's the Best Reviewer award.
(personally, I'd give this to SamSam; I mean, these reviews have music and stuff)
 
Yeah apologies for not providing feedback for the entries. Had the intention and the motivation, just not the time unfortunately. Feels bad receiving feedback from people for my entry but then not returning the favor myself :/

Nonetheless, congrats to all the devs who participated! Everyone tried in some way shape or form so just be proud of yourselves for making something and gaining some knowledge out of it.

Definitely plan on making my way back into the gamemaking scene. In fact I've got a project in progress that I still need to make marketing graphics for, so I'll be making a name for that here pretty soon.

@Bingdom Yeah just message me whenever and I'll try to reply as soon as I can!
 

Apapappa

Member
A bit late but.. congrats everyone!

Was fun testing my abilities a bit during the jam.
If I join another jam later at some point, I will try to follow the theme better. :)
(and maybe not make a platformer)

I know I said I would try and make a big post replying to all the reviews, but I don't think I can find the time to do that at this point, sorry about that.
I would still like to thank everyone who reviewed my game and if I decide to polish the game up a bit later, I will take your feedback into consideration.
 
S

Slowpoke4DeWin

Guest
I know this is a bit late (hence my name) but Congrats to everyone, even if you didn't participate.
I had fun this game jam and there were so many great games and ideas even if those games didn't get finished.
I can't wait till I have the chance to compete again.
 

The M

Member
I figured I'd share some post-mortem conclusions I've found about my game after taking in everyone's feedback and looking through the game myself. In no particular order:
  • The concept of controlling a nation indirectly by influencing the decision maker is interesting, but ultimately I think it'd be more interesting for the player to make those decisions themselves rather than having an AI make them. It worked well for a jam but I would not make a full game about it.
  • With too little feedback on what the queen's decisions resulted into and too few ways to directly influence her mood/stamina, you couldn't make as interesting decisions. I think it'd be better if the queen was a little more extreme and if you could manipulate her more. Then the game would revolve around you making the queen happy or angry before having her make important decisions that would either succeed or fail.
  • Once again, I've made a bad decision regarding the font. I thought about it during development but decided to not spend more time on finding and implementing another font for dialogue. Readability should always be the highest priority if the text is supposed to be read. Had I had more time, I'd also make it possible to scale up the game window by a factor 2 to make it a bit bigger for people.
  • I used some ds_lists, stacks and queues for storing and handling visitor events. This was probably a bad move and I should have used a list of invisible objects instead so that each event object could have its own variables.
  • Having several possible options for what the queen might say makes it harder to test/debug/balance everything. I suspect it would be fine to make the game linear and not have many drastic changes to the story depending on the queen's actions, because you'll likely only play through it once (especially if it's difficult to lose).
 
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