GMC Jam Discussion The Frozen GMC Jam 43

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Micah_DS

Member
I swear, I'm trying so hard to not spam guesses, but... well, I'm just having too much fun guessing this time, both seriously and not:

DEFIANCE
DIAGONAL
FEELINGS
GUIDANCE
INSOMNIA
MACHINES
NINTENDO :)
OCARINAS 😃
ZELDANRY

PRISONER
SCAVENGE
SIBLINGS
ZOOMANCY

FATTEN UP (Turkey Day Simulator 2021)
HARDEN UP
HOT PANTS
JUST ONCE
NO CHANCE
POP SONGS (please no)
SAX SONGS (yes please)

IN A PINCH
JUMP IN IT
STEP ON IT
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
Behold! The new Jam Player Alpha 0.1!



So far it:
- allows the user to preview an entry
- allows the user to run the entry from within the Jam Player app
- allows reordering entries between the ranked and unranked lists

More functionalities to come as I keep working on it.
If you would like to help out or just want to see how the code looks like see the Game Jam Tools repository.

At the moment, you can test it out using the following steps:
- if you haven't already, get the GMC Jam 42 ZIP and unpack it somewhere; the ZIP is available here
- get the GMC Jam 42 Playertest ZIP file and download it to the GMC Jam 42 directory, right next to the old Jam Player
- unpack the ZIP from the GMC Jam 42 directory
- if everything went well, you should be able to open "Jam Player.exe" and see all the Jam 42 entries

NOTE: Jam Player requires .NET 5.0 runtime to run. It should be compatible with Windows 7 up to 11. That said, I hope no one here runs into problems with framework version.
 

Mightyjor

Member
Behold! The new Jam Player Alpha 0.1!



So far it:
- allows the user to preview an entry
- allows the user to run the entry from within the Jam Player app
- allows reordering entries between the ranked and unranked lists

More functionalities to come as I keep working on it.
If you would like to help out or just want to see how the code looks like see the Game Jam Tools repository.

At the moment, you can test it out using the following steps:
- if you haven't already, get the GMC Jam 42 ZIP and unpack it somewhere; the ZIP is available here
- get the GMC Jam 42 Playertest ZIP file and download it to the GMC Jam 42 directory, right next to the old Jam Player
- unpack the ZIP from the GMC Jam 42 directory
- if everything went well, you should be able to open "Jam Player.exe" and see all the Jam 42 entries

NOTE: Jam Player requires .NET 5.0 runtime to run. It should be compatible with Windows 7 up to 11. That said, I hope no one here runs into problems with framework version.
This is so dang cool! Would we need to create the thumbnails for our games?
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
This is so dang cool! Would we need to create the thumbnails for our games?
Technically speaking, thumbnails aren't necessary - if none is available, the jam-jar like placeholder is used instead.

But yeah, ideally it'd be the creator who adds the thumbnails., especially since they know best what's the most "thumbnail-able" in their entry.
You can provide two versions - big for the entry preview with recommended size 240x240 and small for the list with recommended size 96x96. If you provide only one, it will be used as both (with simple up/downscaling). Usually the small one would focus on the most important part of the large one, but as you can see in the screenshot above, they can be completely separate (rat for the small thumbnail, Pan for the large thumbnail).

I'll be adding the remaining thumbnails for this Jam at least (since it's a new feature). Whether I'll keep adding them in the future Jams also depends on how many people will add theirs- if enough people add thumbnails, I might as well add all the remaining ones. Otherwise I might just stick to those that have a screenshot posted in the Games Topic, since cutting a part of a screenshot is still easier than getting the screenshot from the game.

Oh, also, I guess the thumbnails might be used by @GameDevDan in his Jam statistics? Though I'm not sure what thumbnail sizes he would prefer.

(also, has anyone tested the Jam alpha version on their own machine? I'd like to get an idea of how many people have no compatibility issues, and how many met some obstacles along the way, if any)
 

Evanski

Raccoon Lord
Forum Staff
Moderator
Technically speaking, thumbnails aren't necessary - if none is available, the jam-jar like placeholder is used instead.

But yeah, ideally it'd be the creator who adds the thumbnails., especially since they know best what's the most "thumbnail-able" in their entry.
You can provide two versions - big for the entry preview with recommended size 240x240 and small for the list with recommended size 96x96. If you provide only one, it will be used as both (with simple up/downscaling). Usually the small one would focus on the most important part of the large one, but as you can see in the screenshot above, they can be completely separate (rat for the small thumbnail, Pan for the large thumbnail).

I'll be adding the remaining thumbnails for this Jam at least (since it's a new feature). Whether I'll keep adding them in the future Jams also depends on how many people will add theirs- if enough people add thumbnails, I might as well add all the remaining ones. Otherwise I might just stick to those that have a screenshot posted in the Games Topic, since cutting a part of a screenshot is still easier than getting the screenshot from the game.

Oh, also, I guess the thumbnails might be used by @GameDevDan in his Jam statistics? Though I'm not sure what thumbnail sizes he would prefer.

(also, has anyone tested the Jam alpha version on their own machine? I'd like to get an idea of how many people have no compatibility issues, and how many met some obstacles along the way, if any)
tried it kept getting it telling me to install net 5.0

i already installed

I think i might need to resart my PC before it realizes

I'll update if that did or didnt solve it
 
@Alice Some entries(Mine included) often have custom icons. I know my game icons have large and small versions. Is it possible to use the icon data in place of missing thumbnails?
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
@Alice Some entries(Mine included) often have custom icons. I know my game icons have large and small versions. Is it possible to use the icon data in place of missing thumbnails?
I would need to look into that. From a quick Google Search it seems possible to do, but I don't know how difficult it will be to implement, and there are still other features to be implemented. That, and I have no easy way of detecting programmatically if the icon is a default GM icon or a custom one.

Plus, the kind of pictures that are fitting for thumbnails are often different than the ones suitable for icons, so providing the separate thumbnails is still preferable.
Ideally, the thumbnail would be the kind of thing that reminds the player what the game they played was about and how it was different from other games (especially if their titles sound similar).
 

Micah_DS

Member
(also, has anyone tested the Jam alpha version on their own machine? I'd like to get an idea of how many people have no compatibility issues, and how many met some obstacles along the way, if any)
The program kept telling me I needed to install .NET to run it, but I already had it. It took me a bit to figure out, but I finally realized I needed the x86 version, not the x64 version.
It's working for me now after installing the desktop .net 5.0 x86 version. I didn't even need to restart my computer after installing.

After testing it out a bit, the alpha jam player seems to work well on my end. I was able to run games via the play button, everything appears to display properly, and I could move things between ranked and unranked.
So it's looking great so far, and I'm quite happy to see thumbnails are finally a thing. 😁

EDIT: Cool, png transparency works in the player as well. I was curious, so I tried it. I might actually make use of that.
 
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Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
The program kept telling me I needed to install .NET to run it, but I already had it. It took me a bit to figure out, but I finally realized I needed the x86 version, not the x64 version.
It's working for me now after installing the desktop .net 5.0 x86 version. I didn't even need to restart my computer after installing.
Thank you for your tests! They are likely relevant to @EvanSki as well.

I set the program to target win-x86 version, hoping it would be compatible with both x86 and x64 versions, but it appears it's not the case. So depending on whether most people use .NET x64 or .NET x86, I might ship the more popular version with the Jam ZIP and the less popular version separately. Or maybe I'll just include both "Jam Player.exe" and "Jam Player x86.exe" in the ZIP and the jammer will know which version to use.

By the way, it's possible to open ".jaminfo" file with Jam Player, so you might as well store the Jam Player in a fixed place (maybe in Program Files, or maybe in some main jam directory) and then use "Open with..." to choose the Jam Player as the default program for .jaminfo files. That way you won't need to wonder about which Jam player executable to open - just open the .jaminfo and you'll open the Jam Player with whichever user configurations will be added to the program.
 

GameDevDan

Former Jam Host
Moderator
GMC Elder
Oh, also, I guess the thumbnails might be used by @GameDevDan in his Jam statistics? Though I'm not sure what thumbnail sizes he would prefer.
The only ones I have so far are for my own games and they appear only on a game's information page like this: https://danjohnston.uk/gmcjam/game.php?id=2046

Mine are all 16:9 ratio just because it's the same thumbnail I use elsewhere on my website but I'd have no problem with them being 1:1
 

Bart

WiseBart
This new jam player comes as a nice surprise!

I also had to install .NET 5.0 which went easy enough with the version info given by @Micah_DS. After that it runs perfectly for me.
It's all very pleasing to the eye: the headers, the bigger list items for the entries... And the icons are definitely great.

A tiny idea that came to mind: would it be an easy addition to launch the selected game from Ranked/Unranked entries by pressing Enter?
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
A tiny idea that came to mind: would it be an easy addition to launch the selected game from Ranked/Unranked entries by pressing Enter?
It shouldn't be too hard, but I would avoid Enter as it will used elsewhere, e.g. in the feedback text box...
However, it should be perfectly viable to associate some other hotkey combination to playing the games. I just wonder what would be the most intuitive hotkey for that?
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
Does GM have a hotkey for debugging? I know that tools like Visual Studio have F5 or Ctrl + F5 to debug, so maybe we could follow this convention as well?
(I can't check myself at the moment, maybe someone else can)
 

Bart

WiseBart
It shouldn't be too hard, but I would avoid Enter as it will used elsewhere, e.g. in the feedback text box...
However, it should be perfectly viable to associate some other hotkey combination to playing the games. I just wonder what would be the most intuitive hotkey for that?
Ah right, the situation that I meant was actually when you're moving through the entries using the up and down arrow keys (in the list that currently has focus).
Though a general hotkey might be better alright.

GM uses F5 for running and F6 for running in debug mode. I guess those could be used, since they're some of the few available keyboard keys that won't change anything to a textbox.
 

Dr. Wolf

Member
Gave the new player a try; it runs after installing .NET 5.0 x86, but the "Play" button does not work for me. I'm on Win7, if that helps.

On a more minor note, it'd be nice to be able to drag the large game title/icon from the information window to the ranked list to rank the entry, instead of only being able to do it from the unranked list.
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
I decided to check the feature requests in the Jam Overhaul Thread and address them here.
The old Jam Overhaul thread will be closed, since there's already a discussion about the Jam Player here and there are also extra channels in the Discord server now. So with one thread here and the Discord server it's already plenty of places to check out, no need to add another thread to the mix.

---------------------

@Micah_DS suggestions reposted by me in this post.

Ability for the user to add new (missing) entries to the jam player.
This would allow the addition of valid entries that for some reason didn't make it into the jam player on the first go.
The new Jam Player format separates files related to Jam information (.jaminfo, .jamentry), so following the migration to the new Jam Player adding missing entries or correcting the information of the existing ones should become as trivial as unpacking a ZIP with overwrites.

Game thumbnails (I'm aware this is already being considered, but I'm basically just saying that I really, really want it), or perhaps functionality for the user to paste their own 'print screen' clipboard data directly into a slot inside the player (one slot per game), so the user could choose their own image to represent the game.
As the screenshot from the Jam Player Alpha 0.1 shows, the Jam-embedded thumbnails are already implemented.
Pasting custom screenshots from clipboard - let alone processing them - is much lower priority, but I don't reject it entirely.

Customizable export format - MY MOST WANTED FEATURE
This might be asking too much, but it'd be sooooo nice to be able to change some things in the format to save myself some post-editing time. [...]
Additionally, if I could save the format as a text file, then simply load that file in to the jam player in future jams, I'd always be ready to go after one simple action, as opposed to having to edit the format again. That'd be positively magnificent.
Export customisation (together with thumbnails and ranking options) is one of the major improvements planned for the new Jam Player.
They might not be available for this Jam yet - I want to focus on covering the existing Jam Player functionality first - but I definitely plan to get it done.

In the "Choose best-ofs" section: Allow drag and drop from the ranking list to best-of slot, instead of (or, as well as) the drop-down lists.
I plan to keep the drop-down lists for now, but I wouldn't mind getting the drag-and-drop system added on top of that. It's low priority, mind.

The "Rate" section of a game's page needs a total makeover, as many have already proposed.
I almost never use the Rate section, and I know I'm not the only one.
So, there appears to be two main goals to accommodate:
1. The ranking system is for the user, being usable to auto-rank entries based on scores.
2. The ranking system is for feedback purposes, able to be added to comments in the export.
That's another area for a major overhaul, though like the custom exports it might be a little much for this Jam.

First, I plan to set up a system where rating criteria aren't set in stone, but rather retrieved from configuration data.
However, the configuration would be fixed initially, probably with criteria like Overall + best of categories, rated from 0 to 5 stars or so.
This would cover the point 0, i.e. making the ratings work like in the current Jam Player.

Then - with all the basic Jam Player functionality done - the next step would be custom export templates, which would allow including the ratings in the template.
After that, rating criteria themselves could be customised (e.g. someone could rate audio and graphics separately, or rank story from 0-2 rather than 0-5) and stored in the Jam configuration.
This should cover the needs for the point 2.

With these done, finally the rankings customisation could be added, i.e. how entries would be sorted based on the various variables (game title, team, rating criteria; all of these either ascending or descending).
I might include an option to preview different orderings, with the main ranked/unranked entries as the default option, but also with custom ordering options like sorting alphabetically by title/team or team/title.
One of these rankings would be used to determine the overall ranking (with maybe additional condition determining which entries end up ranked or unranked). The user could apply the ranking manually, or it could be automatic.
This should cover the needs for point 1.

--------------------

From @Siolfor the Jackal's post:
Not sure how feasible this is(Especially since it would probably depend on the UI layout), but what I'd really like to see is readme.txt files embedded somehow. For instance, you click on a game and it brings up the game info(Name and authors), with the rating system buttons or whatever, and the textbox where we leave our comments. But if a readme.txt is available, it is automatically displayed somewhere on there too.
It would just be a bit nice to instantly see potential controls and other info without needing to open a text file.
For the release-ready version of the Jam Player, Readme will stay as it currently is (opened externally from the button). However, I do consider adding the in-player preview (though this might require some extra UI planning).

--------------------

Addressing @Dr. Wolf post just above:
Gave the new player a try; it runs after installing .NET 5.0 x86, but the "Play" button does not work for me. I'm on Win7, if that helps.
On a more minor note, it'd be nice to be able to drag the large game title/icon from the information window to the ranked list to rank the entry, instead of only being able to do it from the unranked list.
I'll check that once I'm near my old PC with Windows 7 installed; it will be in a few days.
I added both your comments to Discord list of bugs and suggestions (the "Play" not working on your computer, dragging the entry summary onto the ranking directly).
The latter is not very high priority, but I might add it once I'm done with remaking the existing Jam Player functionality.
 

kburkhart84

Firehammer Games
I haven't tried the thing yet, but I want to pipe in that x86(32-bit) systems are really not very common anymore and haven't been for quite a while. I think it would be neat to make a poll just to have everyone put what they have just to prove I'm right. That said, I know there are going to a a couple outliers(there always are). So I HIGHLY recommend you make builds for both x86/x64. I don't think very many of us will have issues. You can name one just normal, and the other something like JamPlayer(x86).exe. So the majority of us will just open the normal named one, and those couple of outliers(who I'm sure are quite aware they are on 32-bit systems by now) will be able to open that one instead.

I'm very much assuming that the few people who have 32-bit systems will be very aware that they have such systems, so seeing a 32-bit version of the exe in the same folder they will likely know to use that one because the world today defaults to 64-bit and you have to specifically choose 32-bit all over the place these days. This wouldn't be any different. And hey, for all I know there may be literally ZERO jam participants with 32-bit systems by now.
 

Evanski

Raccoon Lord
Forum Staff
Moderator
Thank you for your tests! They are likely relevant to @EvanSki as well.

I set the program to target win-x86 version, hoping it would be compatible with both x86 and x64 versions, but it appears it's not the case. So depending on whether most people use .NET x64 or .NET x86, I might ship the more popular version with the Jam ZIP and the less popular version separately. Or maybe I'll just include both "Jam Player.exe" and "Jam Player x86.exe" in the ZIP and the jammer will know which version to use.

By the way, it's possible to open ".jaminfo" file with Jam Player, so you might as well store the Jam Player in a fixed place (maybe in Program Files, or maybe in some main jam directory) and then use "Open with..." to choose the Jam Player as the default program for .jaminfo files. That way you won't need to wonder about which Jam player executable to open - just open the .jaminfo and you'll open the Jam Player with whichever user configurations will be added to the program.
X64 would be compatible with both, unless their is specific code needed for an x86 version
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
Alright, once I come back home I'll export an x64 version; if no one encounters more troubles I'll go for this one and maybe even won't make a separate x86 export until someone complains it doesn't work.

Though if there's someone out there with x86 system, I'd like for them to test the Jam Player as well.
 

rui.r6o

Member
@Alice I haven't tried the new version of the Jam Player (yet) but I was wondering if there will be any reference as to which things a submitter should do in order to take advantage of the Jam Player features (e.g. having a README file, an AFTERWORD, the thumbnails, etc etc). Since the feature list keeps growing it would be nice to have that go-to list of things to configure in your project.
 

ghandpivot

Member
A week's time is a little bit too much of a commitment for me and I don't feel like pushing hard for a few days to compete with games made by bigger teams in way more time. Good luck to all, I bet the games will turn out splendid this time around :)
 

Evanski

Raccoon Lord
Forum Staff
Moderator
@Alice I haven't tried the new version of the Jam Player (yet) but I was wondering if there will be any reference as to which things a submitter should do in order to take advantage of the Jam Player features (e.g. having a README file, an AFTERWORD, the thumbnails, etc etc). Since the feature list keeps growing it would be nice to have that go-to list of things to configure in your project.
A README.txt
a AFTERWORD.txt

a 98x98 Thumbnail.png
a 64x64 mini thumbnail.png

and your game
should be all set
 

Evanski

Raccoon Lord
Forum Staff
Moderator
A week's time is a little bit too much of a commitment for me and I don't feel like pushing hard for a few days to compete with games made by bigger teams in way more time. Good luck to all, I bet the games will turn out splendid this time around :)
Non-sense! All games big and small are welcome and appreciated! The jam isn't about winning or competing its about having fun and making something with challenge!
 

kburkhart84

Firehammer Games
Non-sense! All games big and small are welcome and appreciated! The jam isn't about winning or competing its about having fun and making something with challenge!
100%!!!!!!!!!

It's why I took the opportunity last time to do a pixel art thing(despite being horrible at it). It's why this jam I'm teaming up and focusing on just music/audio. I don't know how well the music will come out but doing it with time constraints will make me better regardless.
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
@Alice I haven't tried the new version of the Jam Player (yet) but I was wondering if there will be any reference as to which things a submitter should do in order to take advantage of the Jam Player features (e.g. having a README file, an AFTERWORD, the thumbnails, etc etc). Since the feature list keeps growing it would be nice to have that go-to list of things to configure in your project.
I suppose I could update the How to submit a jam game the PROPER way! topic to include the information about Jam Player files? Some additional emphasis in the Games Topic itself ("Hey, there's this thing called Jam Player that you can integrate with!") shouldn't hurt, either. How it'll look exactly we might decide closer to the Jam.
 

Spam1985

Member
So, what happens when people correctly guess the hangman? Do you use a crossword solver to find a new theme word that fits with the revealed letters?

Also I'm new to this, but I am going to assume the milk, cookie and the word "frozen" are not anything that should be attributed to this secret theme?
 

kburkhart84

Firehammer Games
So, what happens when people correctly guess the hangman? Do you use a crossword solver to find a new theme word that fits with the revealed letters?

Also I'm new to this, but I am going to assume the milk, cookie and the word "frozen" are not anything that should be attributed to this secret theme?
A few jams ago someone guessed ahead of time, and it was confirmed. That gave a slight benefit to me with the Red Team since we could brainstorm ideas ahead of time even if we couldn't start. However, the theme is chosen by the winner of the previous jam so it would not get changed. The host can certainly play around confirming/denying guesses as his whim though, so we don't exactly know for sure until the actual reveal. And no, I wouldn't make any assumptions about the milk, cookie, etc... being part of the theme. I ALSO wouldn't make assumptions that they are NOT part of the theme either.....you never know :)
 

Spam1985

Member
A few jams ago someone guessed ahead of time, and it was confirmed. That gave a slight benefit to me with the Red Team since we could brainstorm ideas ahead of time even if we couldn't start. However, the theme is chosen by the winner of the previous jam so it would not get changed. The host can certainly play around confirming/denying guesses as his whim though, so we don't exactly know for sure until the actual reveal. And no, I wouldn't make any assumptions about the milk, cookie, etc... being part of the theme. I ALSO wouldn't make assumptions that they are NOT part of the theme either.....you never know :)
Okay then... V A C C I N E S
 

Evanski

Raccoon Lord
Forum Staff
Moderator
So, what happens when people correctly guess the hangman? Do you use a crossword solver to find a new theme word that fits with the revealed letters?

Also I'm new to this, but I am going to assume the milk, cookie and the word "frozen" are not anything that should be attributed to this secret theme?
Currently nothing, we all keep playing Hangman and the person who guessed it early gets gloating rights

HOWEVER, I'm currently thinking about some sort of community prize to who gets it first.
I don't like the idea of confirming it as then well, what am I going to do for the next few weeks until the jam starts?
 

Spam1985

Member
Currently nothing, we all keep playing Hangman and the person who guessed it early gets gloating rights

HOWEVER, I'm currently thinking about some sort of community prize to who gets it first.
I don't like the idea of confirming it as then well, what am I going to do for the next few weeks until the jam starts?
I thought the idea of keeping it hidden was to stop people from cheating and getting started early! I suppose it's all just for fun though, not to be taken too seriously, and the hangman game adds to the fun factor.
 

Micah_DS

Member
I think it's fun to reveal early if someone guessed the theme correctly, but if it is done, I think this should only be revealed a day or two before the jam starts, and without giving any hints as to who guessed it correctly.

@ghandpivot I hope you'll reconsider joining. Last time we had a long jam, we had pretty similar results to other jams, IIRC, just entries were often slightly more polished and a few notably raised the bar, I think, but I may be misremembering. In any case, I expect there will be plenty of others who also do not have the whole time free, or even most of it free. It's up to you, of course, but know your potential entry will be missed.
 

dadio

Potato Overlord
GMC Elder
@ghandpivot I too hope you reconsider. Your games are usually really nice and something to look forward to. I think you're missing the intent of the "week long" format too. It's not so people can sink a whole week into a game. It's so people who always have work/family over weekends can finally enter something decent for a change.
I know that for me personally, the difference between this week long format VS the usual weekend thing = around 20 hours total into the Jam VS around 2 hours total into the Jam.
So (in theory lol) I can actually make a "proper" entry for once.
Really hope others don't think about the week thing the same way as you - cos I seriously doubt many/any people will be using the entire week.
 
I mean it's no different to the regular jam in the sense that not everyone has the same amount of time available. I'm sure like usual we'll see plenty of "Completed in X hours" that some of you brag about in your readmes 😉
 

Micah_DS

Member
Here's the win-x64 exported version of the Jam Player files (that includes files related to Jam 42):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/oyymgbeqrrao2kl/GMC Jam 42 Playertest x64.zip?dl=1

And here's the win-x86 version:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9gsehhm8bjamsga/GMC Jam 42 Playertest x86.zip?dl=1
For what it's worth, both work great for me. I tested all current functionality in each version with no issues.
I also forgot to mention before that I am using Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit.

As the screenshot from the Jam Player Alpha 0.1 shows, the Jam-embedded thumbnails are already implemented.
Pasting custom screenshots from clipboard - let alone processing them - is much lower priority, but I don't reject it entirely.
Since my initial desire for screenshots was to identify and jog the memory on what a game was and how it played, I do believe the two images per entry that you already have in place (icon and picture) will more than suffice, especially since I've discovered how easy it is to swap images out for custom ones (literally just replace the current images with same-named ones, or just change the names in the 'entry.jamentry' file to the new image files), and it's not even that much effort to add images to a game that doesn't have any, since that just requires adding two lines in the 'entry.jamentry' file. It may not be super user friendly, but it works easily enough. 👍

Of course, it would be even nicer and faster to allow a user to drag and drop an image onto one of the game's images to replace it.
For e.g., the user drags their custom 96x96 icon from an explorer window and drops it onto the entry's 96x96 icon in the player, then the player prompts if the user wants to replace the current icon, and that's it, nice and easy. And the same could be done for the 240x240 images. I'm not sure if that's asking too much or not though.
 
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Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
I think replacing the existing thumbnails with custom ones might be a bit much, or at the very least not high priority (especially with all the potential cropping involved). When it comes to custom screenshots, I was thinking more along the lines of a gallery of sorts, but I'd like to focus on the core functionality first (replicating/improving current Jam player features, then adding custom templates, then adding custom ratings, then adding custom rankings).
 

ghandpivot

Member
I think you're missing the intent of the "week long" format too.
Oh no, I see it clearly! It's great, I'd be so bummed out if I never had a chance to partake! I don't mind if we switch the length around to better allow everybody in the community to be able to enter every now and then. Hopefully we can keep the 72h jams alive too once or twice a year as they're what I much prefer. The jam is not about winning but I think competing for the #1 spot is part of the fun and also a big motivator when pushing through those 72 hours of development. We all enter on our own terms, I just happen to find more excitement in the whole thing when I can properly push for the very top!
 

Evanski

Raccoon Lord
Forum Staff
Moderator
Oh no, I see it clearly! It's great, I'd be so bummed out if I never had a chance to partake! I don't mind if we switch the length around to better allow everybody in the community to be able to enter every now and then. Hopefully we can keep the 72h jams alive too once or twice a year as they're what I much prefer. The jam is not about winning but I think competing for the #1 spot is part of the fun and also a big motivator when pushing through those 72 hours of development. We all enter on our own terms, I just happen to find more excitement in the whole thing when I can properly push for the very top!
Currently the week long jam is only for this jam, depending on how it goes it might stay only for the jam around this time every year
I much prefer the 72hr jams, 4 day long jams, this week long was just a fun idea so more people could join in during the back to back holiday madness at the end of the year
 
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Micah_DS

Member
I think replacing the existing thumbnails with custom ones might be a bit much, or at the very least not high priority (especially with all the potential cropping involved).
The main thing I'm wanting to do (more quickly/easily) is to add an identifying pic if there isn't one, replacing the non-identifying 'jam jar' pictures.
Sorry, I started typing with that thought, but I admit that I got a bit excited and carried away when talking about replacing existing pictures, which would rarely be useful, if ever, since images provided will likely be good enough identifiers already. Well, unless someone is really rushed in providing their thumbnail and they grab a wall tile or something that doesn't properly identify their game.
When it comes to custom screenshots, I was thinking more along the lines of a gallery of sorts
Yes, my original thinking on the suggestions thread was to have a gallery as well, but the entire purpose of my screenshots suggestion was to provide visual game-identifying information at a glance, to help jog the memory when going back over entries to edit or add to reviews, because just looking at a game title wasn't always enough for me when there were a lot of entries, especially when I had large gaps of time between playing games, so coming back and looking at game titles wasn't always enough to bring things back freshly enough in my mind.
However, after playing the new alpha, I realize the two pictures per entry should provide all the visual information needed, so I no longer see the need for any screenshot galleries. That's all I was trying to say.
But perhaps you broke away from my original intent in the suggestion and are just saying a screenshot gallery might be something to add for another reason? If that's the case, sorry for the misunderstanding and don't mind me.

I was also not meaning to say the drag and drop thumbnail replacement feature should be high priority. I was just thinking it'd be nice to have at some point.
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
For this specific Jam, I want to ensure every single entry will have its thumbnail picture, as I imagine many people won't know about the thumbnails feature yet.
After that, there should hopefully be enough time to work through the highest priority features/issues and properly design and implement the replacement thumbnails feature.

As for the images gallery, I imagine it could come in handy if someone wanted to export their reviews in, say, a HTML format, with various screenshots they made along the way. But that's still a far off perspective.
 

Ralucipe

Member
Hey all -

It's been a very long time since I've logged on to these forums or participated in a GMC Jam in any capacity (you know how life goes sometimes). But lately I've had an itch to play and review some indie Jam games, so I'd love to throw my hat in as a reviewer for this Jam. I'll try to explore the possibility of making video reviews too, as I know I find those really valuable for my own games.

Looking forward to it!
 
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