N
Neo_Kesha
Guest
Yeah, i will for sure replay games again and again to make ranking as accurate as possible.
-
Hey Guest! Ever feel like entering a Game Jam, but the time limit is always too much pressure? We get it... You lead a hectic life and dedicating 3 whole days to make a game just doesn't work for you! So, why not enter the GMC SLOW JAM? Take your time! Kick back and make your game over 4 months! Interested? Then just click here!
GMC Jam Discussion The Zesty GMC Jam 37 Discussion Topic
- Thread starter GameDevDan
- Start date
- Status
ghandpivot
Member
We are still using the system where every game not voted for receives a shared n+1 place, right? So if one votes for their top 5 games, the rest all receive the score of the 6th place?
If not, the people ranking few entries as well as people only playing a few of the games will have the biggest impact on scoring.
If not, the people ranking few entries as well as people only playing a few of the games will have the biggest impact on scoring.
N
Neo_Kesha
Guest
I thought unranked games would receive zero points. Otherwise there wouldn't be much sense of encouraging people to vote for as much as possible amount of games.
Would be actually nice to know what points receive unranked games.
Would be actually nice to know what points receive unranked games.
ghandpivot
Member
Voting for as many games as possible would make sure that points are distributed in the way that each voter thought the games were ranked relative to eachother, meaning that the final results would more accurately reflect how the forum thinks as a whole all the way from top to bottom. It also means that your votes become more impactful, as the difference between your first place and last place grows with each included rank. This would make sense since it takes more work to rank all.
AFAIK we've never done that it's always been just 1/(vote+1) for however many places are voted on. That said, Alice counted the last few so IDK if she did do something like that.
Detective Ghost by d4 studios
Additional Entry
This entry was completed on time but submitted in the wrong place and missed the deadline for creation of the jam zip.
If you're feeling generous, please download it and add it to your games folder.
Additional Entry
This entry was completed on time but submitted in the wrong place and missed the deadline for creation of the jam zip.
If you're feeling generous, please download it and add it to your games folder.
ghandpivot
Member
Maybe it wasn't used for as long as I thought. Looking back at the suggestion topic, we discussed it and implemented it for GMC Jam #3. Quote from that Jam's voting topic:
"For each ranking an entry appears in, it gets a score of 1/(rank + 1), and for each ranking it doesn't appear in, it gets a score of 1/(last_rank + 2), as if it was ranked just after the last entry (normalisation)."
Then for jam #4 it was reverted, although I was unable to quite understand why. The instructions for Jam #4, #5, #6 and #7 all still said "You can rank as many other entries as you like, all the way to the very last entry. In fact, the more entries you rank, the stronger support you will give to the top 3 (thanks to the voting system used).". This is interesting as it isn't correct with the 1/(rank + 1) formula...?
HayManMarc
Member
I remember when I cared about how the votes were all tallied. Those were good times. (Well, "good" might be too strong a word.)
Relic
Member
@GameDevDan Know Dungeon, The box of Schrodinger, Growing Up, You Will Talk and my game - Overdue - cannot be run through the Jam Player.
A common feature of these games are they are all within one extra layer of folder when zipped.
Reviewers, you can still find these games and play them in the zip entries folder.
A common feature of these games are they are all within one extra layer of folder when zipped.
Reviewers, you can still find these games and play them in the zip entries folder.
Josh Chen
Member
Yes, the 5 letter code to get in is hidden around the rooms. Type it by the guard and you should be able to walk past. That's where the real fun begins...
Toque
Member
rc
I thought the code input system was obscure. But I got into it. It was not what I was expecting but enjoyed the mechanic and challenge.
Terminator_Pony
Member
For anyone having trouble playing my entry - Scraps:
Getting started:
Left click on the book. Now move away from the table by clicking on the bottom 20% of the screen with the book closed (a GO icon will appear). The mirror and fridge work in the same way. From there you can navigate the rest of the house. Some pages correlate to specific parts of the house so open/close the book as needed.
Page by page solutions:
Once the book is over, there is one more thing to find...
So. Who are you?
Getting started:
Left click on the book. Now move away from the table by clicking on the bottom 20% of the screen with the book closed (a GO icon will appear). The mirror and fridge work in the same way. From there you can navigate the rest of the house. Some pages correlate to specific parts of the house so open/close the book as needed.
Page by page solutions:
Go outside and open the book.
Go up the stairs to the bedroom. Click on the mirror.
Go down to the kitchen. Click on the fridge. Rearrange the magnets to spell "I LOVE YOU". (This can be done before reaching the page.)
If it doesn't accept: letters are scanned left to right, row by row. Try tidying the magnets.
If it doesn't accept: letters are scanned left to right, row by row. Try tidying the magnets.
Reassemble the page (front or back, doesn't matter). Remember there are two sides to each piece (like real paper) so try flipping the pieces.
Go back to the table you started at and select the letter.
Last edited:
ghandpivot
Member
Will they still show up in the jam player? Or will they go unnoticed?
MiketheScrivener
Member
they show up, just the run button doesnt do anything. tbh when i first saw it i assumed these game just didnt get finished or this was a placeholder or something
HayManMarc
Member
If the game is an extra folder deep, I'm assuming the jam player will run it if you just move the game contents one folder up. (Not verified.)
Mercerenies
Member
Darn! I didn't think about that. Yeah, either moving the contents one folder up or just running the game from Windows Explorer should work. Sorry about that, everyone. My bad
Hopefully enough people will notice these posts and go ahead and review them.
Siolfor the Jackal
Member
Is this because these games(which mine is one of) were the only ones that followed the previous standard of zipping our games already in a folder?
Mercerenies
Member
Did the standard change recently? I feel like I've always done the same thing and the Jam player has generally just worked correctly. Did they change the requirements, perhaps? (And yeah, mine is in that list too, sadly)
Oh dear, I've got so many things to catch up with, and I was kinda Jammed out after yesterday, so I didn't check this topic as much.
@ghandpivot We changed the normalized 1/(rank+1) (the one which adds 1/(last rank+2) to all remaining entries) to plain 1/(rank+1) (the one that gives 0 to unranked entries) around the 4th or 5th Jam on the new forums.
If I recall correctly, it's because people disliked how the top 3 votes get too little voting power? There might have been other reasons, but I don't recall them right now.
At any rate, since the Jam player the great majority of ranks included pretty much all entries, so measures balancing out the short votes lost their relevance.
For the record, the last few Jams that I counted also used plain 1/(rank+1). The voting system debates had also died down, possibly because there are more complete rankings now - and even incomplete ones are usually posted by people who played all games - so the anomalies associated with short rankings aren't as prominent anymore. Hopefully, things will stay that way.
@Relic et al: Indeed, the Jam Player only looks a single layer deep (i.e. Entries, then entry folder, then it looks for executable/readme/afterword and if none is found, it doesn't register it).
When packaging the ZIP, I'd make sure to keep the folder structure appropriate. Also, after having the Jam data generated, I went through each game in the player and made sure it can be opened from there (in particular because I messed it up for some entry in the first Jam using the player, so I learnt my lesson).
(I'd still miss the "READ ME" files every once in a while, but it's harder to realise they are missing when they shouldn't; in case of the executable, you except that it should be there and if it's not, there's something seriously wrong)
@ghandpivot We changed the normalized 1/(rank+1) (the one which adds 1/(last rank+2) to all remaining entries) to plain 1/(rank+1) (the one that gives 0 to unranked entries) around the 4th or 5th Jam on the new forums.
If I recall correctly, it's because people disliked how the top 3 votes get too little voting power? There might have been other reasons, but I don't recall them right now.
At any rate, since the Jam player the great majority of ranks included pretty much all entries, so measures balancing out the short votes lost their relevance.
For the record, the last few Jams that I counted also used plain 1/(rank+1). The voting system debates had also died down, possibly because there are more complete rankings now - and even incomplete ones are usually posted by people who played all games - so the anomalies associated with short rankings aren't as prominent anymore. Hopefully, things will stay that way.
@Relic et al: Indeed, the Jam Player only looks a single layer deep (i.e. Entries, then entry folder, then it looks for executable/readme/afterword and if none is found, it doesn't register it).
When packaging the ZIP, I'd make sure to keep the folder structure appropriate. Also, after having the Jam data generated, I went through each game in the player and made sure it can be opened from there (in particular because I messed it up for some entry in the first Jam using the player, so I learnt my lesson).
(I'd still miss the "READ ME" files every once in a while, but it's harder to realise they are missing when they shouldn't; in case of the executable, you except that it should be there and if it's not, there's something seriously wrong)
ghandpivot
Member
New video for Nejc Podlipnik, Siolfor the Jackal, Mercerenies, The friendly potato, Woodsmoke, Gizmo199, Jacob V & Lipton & GreenWyvern, Micah_DS, Cat, Iamatoast, PancakesYum, Nut4985 (unplayable due to being an installer), Shadow_Lancer & Cowsox. It will take some time for youtube to process.
Toque
Member
Enjoyed the first video.......
Gizmo199
Member
Oh I'm nervous! I didn't add in any tutorials or the like so I'm nervous to see how intuitive it was to learn / play. Thanks for reviewing! Can't wait to watch!
Gizmo199
Member
@ghandpivot Thanks for the review! Just got to watch it! So yeah I felt since I picked the theme and knew about it I was just gonna try and go for a SSB clone type thing with a little twist of just using the revolute physics to swing a weapon around and not really try to make it fit the theme but to just create a solid looking little game. Yes, everything was done within the time frame minus a few sounds (like menu sounds) that I created for projects before but all of the graphics, polish, coding, music, and sound effects (aside from those few) were all done within the time frame (edit: the '3D' ball effect using surfaces was a little thing I came up with years ago but I completely re-programmed how it was done so IDK if that would count as something 'pre-made' but more of a method I come up with fake a 3d ball thing). I do realize I spent (as you kinda pointed out) too much time on the polish and not enough on the game play mechanics. My goal of this jam was to just go full 'juice' and polish so a lot of my time was more invested into that than polishing the game play which I kind of regret now but oh well. haha. I definitely should have thrown in a little 'controls' button in the menu. Also as for the controls I did some research on how SSB keyboard players layout their controls and that one just popped out to me as a more comfortable option but obviously in the future I would set up a way to set your own keyboard controls. If you play with a game pad it is much more natural and traditional to the SSB type of game play. As for the way you die/kill opponent I just set the max HP amount to 350 and then gave it a chance variable the closer you get to 350 of hitting the player completely off the screen. Definitely needed more work and I just got in one of those modes where I played it enough a certain way that it didn't cross my mind because I had gotten used to it. haha. Thanks again for playing! It was great feedback! I will focus my next jam game on mechanics more than polish.
*sidenote: the menu actually didn't take too long to do. Basically I set up a 'objButtonPar' and when the cursor clicks on it I just had it run an 'event_user(0)' and in the individual buttons I just put in what the buttons did in the event user 0. So the button par just reads if the cursor is over it and does all the same shake, zoom and blending on its own. The rest was just turning the image angles and spacing them out so you wouldn't click on two at the same time and putting them on different layers to make some above and some below. The hardest part of the project was trying to get the ai balanced but I just kinda got it to an point I tolerated and for the different modes just turned off the shield or made it take more/less damage than the player. Anyway thanks again!!!
I will focus my next jam game on mechanics more than polish. *sidenote: the menu actually didn't take too long to do. Basically I set up a 'objButtonPar' and when the cursor clicks on it I just had it run an 'event_user(0)' and in the individual buttons I just put in what the buttons did in the event user 0. So the button par just reads if the cursor is over it and does all the same shake, zoom and blending on its own. The rest was just turning the image angles and spacing them out so you wouldn't click on two at the same time and putting them on different layers to make some above and some below. The hardest part of the project was trying to get the ai balanced but I just kinda got it to an point I tolerated and for the different modes just turned off the shield or made it take more/less damage than the player. Anyway thanks again!!!
Last edited:
Mercerenies
Member
It always amazes me how much time people like you have to put into these videos, and just two days after the Jam ended. Thanks so much for the video review!
To answer a few of the questions you raised about Growing Up. Yes, you did miss a decent bit of dialogue by skipping through a lot of things, so there is a bit more content to be had, but ultimately it's a pretty short game. I ended up spending way too much time on the character design and dialogue system and didn't have time for actual content. Lesson learned on the typing minigames: I need to playtest things like that against people who aren't me. And I didn't think at all about the fact that some people here aren't as native English speakers as I am, so that's my mistake. There is actually a FF rank, below F, that can only be attained by having literally every character hate you (based on your playthrough, Luke definitely didn't completely hate you, and Mom may not have been at her minimum either). Alternatively, of course, the ranks go up to AA, which requires you to get every character to love you and find the very merry ending, which you were actually kind of close to finding accidentally. Anyway, thanks again for playing!
EDIT: Oh, and the other thing you said. (spoiler tagging for those who haven't played my game and want to go in blind)
The minigames don't require you to get a perfect score. The top tier of the first game (Dad's meeting) requires a 27/30, the second (backyard games) requires 33/35, and the third (prom dance) requires 30/40. And then (except for the first one) there are other tiers below it. Also, although you didn't encounter it, there is a fourth minigame which can trigger instead of the Dad one. It doesn't count for anything and only exists in case you skip the Dad game (which is meant to act as a tutorial).
Last edited:
GrizzliusMaximus
Member
Do I talk to him or just type it beside him? is it cuqka or akquc or neither? I can't seem to get it
@Cloaked Games How do I get passed this round? it seems impossible. Any hints? I'm really enjoying the puzzle but this one has stumped me for about half an hour
Last edited:
ghandpivot
Member
As you will see in my videos, they are recorded around or way past midnight, with F.lux popping up every now and then to tell me about the diminishing amount of sleep I will get before waking up at 7 am. The benefit of the format is that I can just play the games and talk a little over it, with some finishing words after closing. Then I just drag it onto youtube and it's done.
Last edited:
Siolfor the Jackal
Member
@MiketheScrivener Did you purposely not play/comment on a few games or am I being punished for the zip mishap? ^^'
Siolfor the Jackal
Member
@ghandpivot Thanks for trying my game.
I'm not a fan of premade stuff for jams either, but my options menu stuff is the only thing i really reuse, this is only because people have a variety of setups and one window size rarely accommodates everyone for example. I know personally that some chosen window sizes in other games(and their lack of a fullscreen option) can negatively impact my experience.
Anyway ^^'
After watching you play I really regret not tuning the random selection better... in all my playtesting, I never had the randomisation go so poorly! The minigame you missed was a balance one kind of like in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater.
It was supposed to be more comical but that didn't really come across unfortunately...
I'm not a fan of premade stuff for jams either, but my options menu stuff is the only thing i really reuse, this is only because people have a variety of setups and one window size rarely accommodates everyone for example. I know personally that some chosen window sizes in other games(and their lack of a fullscreen option) can negatively impact my experience.
Anyway ^^'
After watching you play I really regret not tuning the random selection better... in all my playtesting, I never had the randomisation go so poorly! The minigame you missed was a balance one kind of like in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater.
It was supposed to be more comical but that didn't really come across unfortunately...
Kyon
Member
Hi all,
what a game jam. Literally so so wrecked.
We only worked on this on saturday and sunday but man did we work hard...
Would love it if people tried the game, it's called Crash FM.
It's a music / podcast game, in where you try to tell something to your friends while not being able to speak.
tower-guy-games.itch.io
forum.yoyogames.com
Kyon.
what a game jam. Literally so so wrecked.
We only worked on this on saturday and sunday but man did we work hard...
Would love it if people tried the game, it's called Crash FM.
It's a music / podcast game, in where you try to tell something to your friends while not being able to speak.
Crash FM by Bonte Avond, Birthday Worm, MatteoKarkazis, Moon Moon Moon
Try to stop a car crash from happening with nothing but some weird radio stations
tower-guy-games.itch.io
GMC Jam Games - GMC Jam 37 - Games Topic - Enter Here!
Escape From Trivium by Nejc Podlipnik |DOWNLOAD LINK| A "dungeon crawler"/trivia game. Beat enemies in 1v1 trivia games or die trying... Edit: In the end got a little help from my friend "Spartan", who helped me prepare all the questions and answers.
forum.yoyogames.com
Kyon.
MiketheScrivener
Member
I was streaming the games for my friends so i didnt want to start clicking through my computer files on air, ill get back to them, i promise a review!
Josh Chen
Member
Just type it beside him and walk past. We would have made a better system if we had more time, sorry about that, but we do want you to get to try the levels. If you rearrange them into a word it spells "quack".
Toque
Member
Im in a moral pickle. There is so much violence in video games but I some how feel a little guilty for liking a game about toruture........
Was this something you were thinking about when you were making it? Or is it just me? Im not offended at all. I like art that asks questions.
ojhernandez
Member
I might just be getting a bit antsy but I think my game might be one of the ones that don't run in the player so I wanted to highlight it here!
I wasn't necessarily expecting to make the next "Game of the Year" but as my first game jam and first "substantial" game, I'm eager to get some eyes on it and hear feedback!
Itch.io Link:
ojhernandez.itch.io
Forum Post:
forum.yoyogames.com
I wasn't necessarily expecting to make the next "Game of the Year" but as my first game jam and first "substantial" game, I'm eager to get some eyes on it and hear feedback!
Itch.io Link:
Mr. Zoomie's Escape by ojhernandez
A quick and quirky platformer made over a weekend for the 37th GMC Jam!
ojhernandez.itch.io
Forum Post:
GMC Jam Games - GMC Jam 37 - Games Topic - Enter Here!
Games Topic THEME It Knows Something You Don't OPENS Thursday 28th May, 2020 12:00 UTC DEADLINE Monday 1st June, 2020 12:00 UTC Any GMC member can take part in the GMC Jam. You must use GameMaker to create your game. Games must be made between 12:00 UTC on May 28th and 12:00 UTC on June...
forum.yoyogames.com
Siolfor the Jackal
Member
@Toque At first it didn't really cross my mind all that much, but in the past I've made more of an effort to make non-violent games just to see if I could.
Like I said before, at first this was supposed to be more comical(the minigame with the different music is sort of evidence of that original concept), but at some point through the development I lost sight of that and just rolled with it.
On the last day(That's when I added all the background animation for the minigames for some sort of context), I did wonder how people would feel about the content of my game, especially given the current cultural climate... On one hand I sort of regret the concept, but on the other I still feel like it's just silly enough that no one takes it seriously. My biggest personal moral concern is how easily this idea came together. Up until the last day, it was just the minigame overlays with no context. All the art and dialogue was made on the last day, and I only had the vague idea of how they would tie in thematically.
What I did think was interesting though was that I made the protagonist of the story the victim. It's a weird idea to me to control the bad guy here, so I am interested to hear what people think of it. At one brief point I did consider making the win condition to fail on purpose, as a sort of refusal to hurt the guy, but I couldn't think of a fun way to do that that wasn't too obvious and preachy. Mashing buttons and stuff is more fun.
Like I said before, at first this was supposed to be more comical(the minigame with the different music is sort of evidence of that original concept), but at some point through the development I lost sight of that and just rolled with it.
On the last day(That's when I added all the background animation for the minigames for some sort of context), I did wonder how people would feel about the content of my game, especially given the current cultural climate... On one hand I sort of regret the concept, but on the other I still feel like it's just silly enough that no one takes it seriously. My biggest personal moral concern is how easily this idea came together. Up until the last day, it was just the minigame overlays with no context. All the art and dialogue was made on the last day, and I only had the vague idea of how they would tie in thematically.
What I did think was interesting though was that I made the protagonist of the story the victim. It's a weird idea to me to control the bad guy here, so I am interested to hear what people think of it. At one brief point I did consider making the win condition to fail on purpose, as a sort of refusal to hurt the guy, but I couldn't think of a fun way to do that that wasn't too obvious and preachy. Mashing buttons and stuff is more fun.
FrostyCat
Redemption Seeker
It seems that quite a few people weren't able to find the instructions for my entry (Shibboleth), which were in the included README.html file. For those who have tried my entry, were you able to open the README from the Jam Player? Also, I realized on Monday night that I shipped the wrong example screenshot with the instructions, so here is a PDF with the corrected example and plus a second more advanced scenario in case you're interested (Link).
And regarding the games that have their Run buttons disabled --- I've noticed this as well, and this is the first time I've seen this kind of anomaly happen at scale. In fact, the Jam Player's behavioural shifts between Jam sessions are starting to make it hard to predict. For example, the readmeplease flag does nothing anymore (I've turned it on because I didn't have enough time left to have the instructions built-in). Starting with the next Jam, I would propose putting up an unconfigured Jam Player along with the jamdata.json generator script ahead of time, so that we can preview how our own entries would appear in it before submitting and know what to expect.
And regarding the games that have their Run buttons disabled --- I've noticed this as well, and this is the first time I've seen this kind of anomaly happen at scale. In fact, the Jam Player's behavioural shifts between Jam sessions are starting to make it hard to predict. For example, the readmeplease flag does nothing anymore (I've turned it on because I didn't have enough time left to have the instructions built-in). Starting with the next Jam, I would propose putting up an unconfigured Jam Player along with the jamdata.json generator script ahead of time, so that we can preview how our own entries would appear in it before submitting and know what to expect.
N
Neo_Kesha
Guest
Best thing about Jam was that we MADE A GAME. Solid, complete game. Most of the games we tried to make stuck on early phases of development, but we did finish ReStory. This gives us a lot of inspiration and we are going to remake ReStory, without rush and with some reconsideration about gameplay.
So, stay tuned, and maybe you will see our game in it's Ultimate Form
So, stay tuned, and maybe you will see our game in it's Ultimate Form
G
GreenWyvern
Guest
It can't go on the top or bottom rows, because then the puzzle would be unsolvable. It can't go in the center, because then it leads into an immovable blank box. Thus, the only two places it could theoretically go are on the middle left, and middle right. Unfortunately, neither of these positions makes it physically possible to connect the beginning and end, no matter how you try to fit the pieces together. I'm guessing we're not supposed to solve this puzzle, and go the other route? If that's the case, then I don't know why there's an easier way to back out of the puzzle without deleting all your progress, oof! Help us out, @Cloaked Games!
Alright, I finally get what's going on.
Yeah, go on the other route, Grizzlius. Trust me.
Last edited by a moderator:
@FrostyCat For the record, usually I would be the one to compile the ZIP. On the very first Jam where the player was used (which was also the first Jam on the new forums) I had that mishap with a game having its Run button disabled as well. Ever since, I remembered to do a sanity check before sending the ZIP, i.e. going through each entry in the Player and running it with Run button.
This time, the ZIP was compiled by Dan and, if I'm not mistaken, it was his first time doing so, so he didn't have an opportunity to learn this sanity check yet. ^^'
Another matter altogether is that the Jam Player overhaul is indeed overdue, especially since the original Jam Player codebase is gone I don't know where. There has been a number of new features proposed (such as custom rating criteria or automatic ranking by score). I've been trying to get this done on occasions, but never actually finished.
--------------------
So, I figured it might be a good time to ask the community for help, and maybe also get some design decisions gathered. Important points to consider:
1. The codebase (framework, engine...) the Jam Player application would be made in.
Ability to explore the filesystem and run a file from within the application is a must (the executable should be run from its own directory, too; in the first Jam on new forums running from another directory caused issues with some file not being properly read). Loading and displaying images is important as well.
From the UI framworks, I'm most familiar with .NET + Windows Presentation Foundation, and that's what I'd choose if I was the main programmer to develop the application. The question is, how many other people are familiar with it. At any rate, over the recent years the .NET development has became widely available, so the development costs shouldn't be an issue.
Another alternative that comes to mind would be Electron. I have some familiarity with JavaScript/TypeScript, but I wouldn't be able to prepare the groundwork for the application UI on my own, not in reasonable time.
Many people here should be familiar with GameMaker (...and actually GameMaker 2.3 makes data-driven operations so much more bearable). Running executables from within GM might be tricky, or at least require an extension, I suppose...?
2. The underlying architecture and formats
There's some room for improvement, clearly.
As it is now, the Jam games info is tightly coupled with their rating and reviews, which makes fixing the info way too much of a hassle. On the other hand, if games information were separate from player configuration and rating/reviews, it'd be matter of copy-pasting a single file. This would allow easier adding games post-ZIP, too (to be fair, though, the need for adding games post-ZIP wasn't as prominent before as it is this Jam, as evident by extra Games Topic posts; it might have changed because there are more newcomers than usual).
Also, another thing to consider is packaging the games so that the Jam player interprets it correctly. On one of my previous attempts, I even made the GMC Jam entry packager, but sadly didn't finish the Player afterwards (my apologies to you, FrostyCat, because you actually used it and attached the Jam entry info, and then it was unused anyway). This, along with smarter special files recognition and maybe better tools for compiling ZIP, should alleviate the problems with missing/unhighlighted README files or - like in this case - disabled Run buttons.
3. The feature set and UX
There have been several features suggested over time. The most prominent I remember:
- defining custom ranking criteria
- defining custom export template
- automatically sorting the entries by numeric rating
- entries thumbnails
Also, one minor but helpful feature - additional button for opening the entry directory.
Having features suggested is one thing, but they also need to be accessible somewhere from the UI (well, thumbnails aren't that hard to include, probably), and it all needs to be implemented in a nicely usable way.
For example, what's the point of custom export templates if they use some tricky domain language that no-one but author can write in properly.
--------------------
So yeah, there are quite a few things to consider here. I wonder if maybe we could make a separate thread on that to discuss the Jam Player overhaul.
That is, if there are other people willing to help implementing the Jam Player and have skills needed to contribute. The thing is, if I were to be the only one implementing it, it'll probably never get done - having to make all the design decisions and adding all these features is just too much for the limited free time I have and not-as-limited ways I want to spend it.
Thoughts?
This time, the ZIP was compiled by Dan and, if I'm not mistaken, it was his first time doing so, so he didn't have an opportunity to learn this sanity check yet. ^^'
Another matter altogether is that the Jam Player overhaul is indeed overdue, especially since the original Jam Player codebase is gone I don't know where. There has been a number of new features proposed (such as custom rating criteria or automatic ranking by score). I've been trying to get this done on occasions, but never actually finished.
--------------------
So, I figured it might be a good time to ask the community for help, and maybe also get some design decisions gathered. Important points to consider:
1. The codebase (framework, engine...) the Jam Player application would be made in.
Ability to explore the filesystem and run a file from within the application is a must (the executable should be run from its own directory, too; in the first Jam on new forums running from another directory caused issues with some file not being properly read). Loading and displaying images is important as well.
From the UI framworks, I'm most familiar with .NET + Windows Presentation Foundation, and that's what I'd choose if I was the main programmer to develop the application. The question is, how many other people are familiar with it. At any rate, over the recent years the .NET development has became widely available, so the development costs shouldn't be an issue.
Another alternative that comes to mind would be Electron. I have some familiarity with JavaScript/TypeScript, but I wouldn't be able to prepare the groundwork for the application UI on my own, not in reasonable time.
Many people here should be familiar with GameMaker (...and actually GameMaker 2.3 makes data-driven operations so much more bearable). Running executables from within GM might be tricky, or at least require an extension, I suppose...?
2. The underlying architecture and formats
There's some room for improvement, clearly.
As it is now, the Jam games info is tightly coupled with their rating and reviews, which makes fixing the info way too much of a hassle. On the other hand, if games information were separate from player configuration and rating/reviews, it'd be matter of copy-pasting a single file. This would allow easier adding games post-ZIP, too (to be fair, though, the need for adding games post-ZIP wasn't as prominent before as it is this Jam, as evident by extra Games Topic posts; it might have changed because there are more newcomers than usual).
Also, another thing to consider is packaging the games so that the Jam player interprets it correctly. On one of my previous attempts, I even made the GMC Jam entry packager, but sadly didn't finish the Player afterwards (my apologies to you, FrostyCat, because you actually used it and attached the Jam entry info, and then it was unused anyway). This, along with smarter special files recognition and maybe better tools for compiling ZIP, should alleviate the problems with missing/unhighlighted README files or - like in this case - disabled Run buttons.
3. The feature set and UX
There have been several features suggested over time. The most prominent I remember:
- defining custom ranking criteria
- defining custom export template
- automatically sorting the entries by numeric rating
- entries thumbnails
Also, one minor but helpful feature - additional button for opening the entry directory.
Having features suggested is one thing, but they also need to be accessible somewhere from the UI (well, thumbnails aren't that hard to include, probably), and it all needs to be implemented in a nicely usable way.
For example, what's the point of custom export templates if they use some tricky domain language that no-one but author can write in properly.
--------------------
So yeah, there are quite a few things to consider here. I wonder if maybe we could make a separate thread on that to discuss the Jam Player overhaul.
That is, if there are other people willing to help implementing the Jam Player and have skills needed to contribute. The thing is, if I were to be the only one implementing it, it'll probably never get done - having to make all the design decisions and adding all these features is just too much for the limited free time I have and not-as-limited ways I want to spend it.
Thoughts?
Pixel-Team
Master of Pixel-Fu
Thanks for the feedback. Yes, the movement was my biggest pain point, and I barely made it over the finish line. I did learn a lot this first jam, and I promise, my next one will be better.
Cheers!
Toque
Member
Thats cool. I think this is what jams are for. Trying new things. Kind of edgy things. I was just curious what your thought process was. Sometimes in a jam pace things just turn out how they turn out. Im not giving you a hard time. I like that it made me think. I mean there is so much violence in games this is pretty mild. Very unique. Good job.
Cloaked Games
Member
Yeah, @GrizzliusMaximus and @GreenWyvern, do explore the other path first.
I should've made it more clear to the player that they can (and should) backtrack in that place to be able to pass. Maybe just make it more obvious that it is impossible to solve in an ordinary way... Not certain. Actually considering the way the story worked out, I might just remove that puzzle entirely...
I'm actually glad to hear you weren't able to find the solution on accident though--I wasn't sure about that, and I wanted it to be a proper knowledge check, where you can't pass until you really know how to do it.
Another problem I realized now is I didn't actually make it possible to go back from that puzzle if you can't solve it. That's actually a bug and I will fix it in the post-jam version.
I should've made it more clear to the player that they can (and should) backtrack in that place to be able to pass. Maybe just make it more obvious that it is impossible to solve in an ordinary way... Not certain. Actually considering the way the story worked out, I might just remove that puzzle entirely...
I'm actually glad to hear you weren't able to find the solution on accident though--I wasn't sure about that, and I wanted it to be a proper knowledge check, where you can't pass until you really know how to do it.
Another problem I realized now is I didn't actually make it possible to go back from that puzzle if you can't solve it. That's actually a bug and I will fix it in the post-jam version.
Last edited:
GrizzliusMaximus
Member
I believe this is the most important goal one should set when making a Jam game. A smart way to do this is to practice MVP (minimum viable product). Make sure that by day 1, there is already something playable (which I didn't do
) then expand on it in the following days.
Apologies for the problems with the Jam ZIP! Every entry that was in on time has its EXE in there though, so if the run button doesn't work for a game remember you can just crack open the folder and play it manually (5 secs extra work but your fellow jam competitors will really appreciate you making the effort).
My suggestion would be we make any new jam player in GameMaker. That way the whole community can contribute to it if they want (whereas in other languages only a handful of more advanced members would be able to help with it). I know it can be done with a "launch EXE" extension - have done it before for this compilation of my jam games. Admittedly I somewhat hard-coded the actual list of games but GMS2's file/directory functions should be good enough to automatically generate the list of games.
I admit that GameMaker has a large base of potential developers here. One big challenge I see here is that other we'd need to code (or find a free extension for) the standard controls - *especially* the textbox control - which other UI codebases/frameworks have out of the box, along with dozens of well-known shortcuts, keyboard-based controls etc.
Also, I don't think dozens of contributors are necessary - we need several, but sufficiently advanced (I assume that the repository with the Jam Player codebase would be generally shared for future generations, still).
The question becomes how many advanced GM users we can find compared to advanced developers in other languages/frameworks, and whether the latter numbers are so scarce that recreating all these tiny little UI conveniences in GameMaker is preferable.
Also, I don't think dozens of contributors are necessary - we need several, but sufficiently advanced (I assume that the repository with the Jam Player codebase would be generally shared for future generations, still).
The question becomes how many advanced GM users we can find compared to advanced developers in other languages/frameworks, and whether the latter numbers are so scarce that recreating all these tiny little UI conveniences in GameMaker is preferable.
Gizmo199
Member
@Toque and @Pat Ferguson thank you for the kind reviews! There is a lot I wish I had focused more of my time and attention on aside from the polish like controls.
Toque
Member
get Rv
the controls felt off. I think you would have to spend a lot of testing and tweaking. But still solid enough for some fun.
Gizmo199
Member
Yeah I just looked through some ssb forums of the way people have their keyboard controls and picked one that stood out but after thinking about it more I realize these are people that play ssb regularly and do certain controls for efficiency instead of necessarily comfortability. Should have used my intuition of what felt right instead of trying to just look for an easy solution. Haha. But that's the best part of jams, to learn!
Cameron
Member
@Alice and @GameDevDan I would be willing to program the Jam player in C# and windows forms or WPF via .NET. I wouldn't be too interested in programming in GameMaker studio though, I'm looking to get more experience with other languages (primarily C#) and have been doing side projects in .NET and C# lately. This would actually be a perfect task for me and of course I'd be willing to do the work for free.
I could setup a remote repository and touch base with Alice with her in a supervisory capacity so she would have to devote very little time herself other than testing, user feedback, and discussion of features. This would allow her to have the keys to the car and watch over the development trajectory of the project while determining whether or not it's on course for completion by the next Jam and she could make an executive decision to re-assign the work if necessary.
Ultimately, the code base could be open source on completion or at least be available for future maintainers.
If you aren't able to find someone to step in to the role I'm making myself available. Like I said, it's the perfect job for where I'm at right now.
Feel free to message me privately if you want to continue the discussion and I can discuss my experience level and/or programming knowledge if need be.
I could setup a remote repository and touch base with Alice with her in a supervisory capacity so she would have to devote very little time herself other than testing, user feedback, and discussion of features. This would allow her to have the keys to the car and watch over the development trajectory of the project while determining whether or not it's on course for completion by the next Jam and she could make an executive decision to re-assign the work if necessary.
Ultimately, the code base could be open source on completion or at least be available for future maintainers.
If you aren't able to find someone to step in to the role I'm making myself available. Like I said, it's the perfect job for where I'm at right now.
Feel free to message me privately if you want to continue the discussion and I can discuss my experience level and/or programming knowledge if need be.
Last edited:
GrizzliusMaximus
Member
@ZendSeeker I'm stuck in the tutorial. I can't drop an item. Im using my keyboard and have no access to a controller sadly
D
dosto
Guest
It's the shift key, not the "up" one. Had the same confusion.
- Status