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Because the whole point of a game jam is that it is a creative challenge with a deadline. Everyone else in the jam has followed these rules, so it's not fair to allow games that have had longer. 

You published it 45 days ago, with devlogs. Devlogs about the game that you say you didn't make until the jam started... You even submitted it to jams in April  😂 come on man, all this info is public and very easy to find.

Thank you! It's an impressive intro for sure, but yeah nobody reads descriptions unfortunately 🫠

Hey, there are people as young as 13 joining this jam - please can you put [NSFW] in front of the game's name to make it clear that younger participants shouldn't play? Thank you!

Doing God's work finding submissions to disqualify 🫡 I'll give this a go later but wanted to thank you!

Clearly wasn't made for the jam. Disqualified.

Clearly wasn't made for the jam. Disqualified.

This game clearly wasn't made during the jam. I've disqualified it.

Uploads are locked during the rating period. You can change your game page - the thumbnail, description, etc , but not the game itself!

Do not delete your game build. It is not possible to get it back, and you can't upload a new one.

Your team needs to add you as a collaborator in the admin section of the game page 😊

You haven't submitted this to the jam 😅 reach out in one of the ways in the original post and I'll send you a late submission link!

Hey! You left a comment on the bullet hell jam page but it seems to have been deleted -  you're still okay to submit, there's a post in the community with instructions to follow so I can generate a late submission link for you 😊

DM me (_thechief) a link to the game on Discord, or shoot me an email at dom@wayfarer-games.com and I'll help you get your game added to the jam :)

Update: the jam is over! Didn't manage to submit? DM me (_thechief) on Discord, or shoot me an email at dom@wayfarer-games.com and I'll help you get your game added to the jam. 

I've extended the jam by an hour - take a second to breathe, fix your stuff, get your builds working 😁

The only thing we're looking for specifically is lots of projectile bullets, beyond that we don't really mind 😁

We're coming up to the halfway point now, if you haven't already you should upload a build to itch and make sure it works!

A few people have been asking about patterns and design, so I figured I'd make a big post about it here 😁

What's the point of all these bullets?

Enemy bullets serve a very specific purpose. They are there to make the player dodge!

You can think of your bullets like dangerous terrain that the player has to navigate. You're making the player move - preferably in interesting ways. Here are a few tips:

1. Visibility is key: Players need to be able to see the bullets in order to dodge them. This seems obvious, but it's easy to get carried away with fancy effects that obscure the actual danger. Make sure your bullets are bright and easy to see against the background, and try to make sure smaller bullets are drawn on top of bigger ones, and faster bullets are drawn on top of slower ones.
2. Give the player a chance: Even the most chaotic bullet patterns should have gaps for the player to weave through. This doesn't mean every pattern needs a giant safe zone, but it's important to give the player a sense of agency. If they die instantly, they won't feel like they had a chance to succeed.
3. Understand the rhythm: Bullet hell is all about rhythm. Think of the patterns you create as a kind of deadly dance. The player's movements should feel like a response to the patterns you create. Vary the speed, density, and direction of your bullets to create interesting and challenging rhythms.
4. Where are the bullets not? Sometimes it's helpful to think about where the bullets aren't. This can be a great way to create safe paths for the player to follow. For example, a ring of bullets with a gap in it can be a really effective way to guide the player's movement.

Play around with your bullet spawners!

Your bullet spawners are your most powerful tools for creating interesting patterns. Experiment with different configurations to see what kind of effects you can create. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Rotating spawners: A ring of bullets with a single gap that rotates over time can be a very effective way to create a moving safe path for the player.
• Oscillating spawners: Spawners that move back and forth can create interesting patterns that are constantly shifting and changing.
• Aimed shots: Spawners that shoot bullets directly at the player are a much more dynamic type of pattern. They force the player to move, there are no safe spots with an aimed shot!
• Randomized spawners: A little bit of randomness can go a long way in creating unpredictable and challenging patterns. Try randomizing the direction, speed, or timing of your bullets to keep the player on their toes. However, with great power comes great responsibility! Randomness is easy to overuse, you still want your patterns to be predictable. Try keeping your randomness within bounds - e.g. instead of moving your spawner randomly across the whole screen, move it randomly within a circle. That stops the player from being able to memorise where the bullets are coming from, but it lets them be a bit more consistent with positioning.
• Overlapping: Once you've mastered the basics of bullet spawning, you can start to experiment with overlapping different patterns. This is where things can get really interesting, it's what most of the best bullet patterns do! Big walls of bullets are spectacular, but often leave a safe space that the player can sit in. Adding some aimed shots to that will keep the player on their toes!

Further reading and resources:

• Bulletfury: If you're using Unity, I've made my bullet spawning tool free to use for the jam! It's a powerful pattern creator, with a ton of options and a LOT of optimisation. It'll work well no matter what machine it runs on. I'm around on Discord if you've got questions! https://wayfarergames.itch.io/bulletfury
• Sparen's Danmaku Design Studio: This is a great resource for learning about the theory and practice of bullet hell design. Check it out here: https://sparen.github.io/ph3tutorials/ddsga2.html 
• Boghog's Shmup Workshop: A wonderful resource that goes in depth about shmup design. Boghog really knows what he's talking about: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLj_fo4j9ZtOlW8jUPFG-zlONynlI0ycnu

Don't be afraid to experiment!

The best way to learn about bullet hell design is to experiment and have fun. Try out different ideas, see what works, and there are a bunch of people on Discord who will be happy to try your game out, or provide feedback on screenshots and videos 😁

I hope this guide has been helpful. Now get out there and start making some awesome bullet patterns!

your gameplay video is 2 years old, and your file is 4mb... I'm going to go ahead and disqualify this submission. 

Wasn't made during the jam, is completely unrelated, disqualified. 

how... how did you think I'd let this stay in the jam

Hey, this game was made before the jam started - I've disqualified it, as the rules clearly state that the majority of the game must be made during the jam.

Purely for fun :)

Yeah that would work, but I'd prefer the fancy endless loop, I think it would fit better 😂 restarting would reset the music track too, which would feel a bit jarring, less smooth. I think I know how I'd do it tbh, it's just a little bit more complicated. 

A pure manifestation of isolation is definitely what I was going for, thank you 😁

Yeah there's a glide animation but no actual gliding (you just fall at normal speed) because I intended to have some platforming challenges in there too. Unfortunately time got the better of me and I had a massive eight day gap where I did nothing on the game!

Oh, looping back to the start point would be a nice idea - I kinda left it so you could explore it without any of the text or shades to really nail that feeling of isolation, but it would've been cool for it to loop right back to the beginning. The camera controller would've struggled I think 🤔 it might be fairly difficult to do a smooth loop with my nice floaty camera!

Yeah it definitely needs more interaction, I just completely ran out of time unfortunately 🫠 

Thanks! I would rate in basically the same way as you to be honest 😂 I also prefer games where lots is happening, I usually make action arcade stuff. This was a nice change of pace as a project though, and it's basically a product of my only working on it for like 12 hours! I appreciate the feedback 😊

Thank you! That's exactly what I was going for so I'm glad you felt that way 😁

The words are supposed to stop appearing actually. I had a toggle and went back and forth, but ultimately thought it fit the overall game and theme better to have the thoughts disappear! A bit pretentious I know 😉 but I quite enjoyed having to decide things like that!

Cheers 😁

Thank you! 😁

I played the web version because I'm on a mac, and I couldn't figure out what to do, sorry! I spent a good five minutes clicking buttons, wandering around, trying to interact with something, and nothing seemed to happen at all. I managed to pick up a post it note at one point, but then nothing else happened, so I've had to give up.

The art is nice though! And from the "how does your game fit the theme" description, it fits the theme really well :)

I think you might need to check the box for "this file will be played in the browser" :)

That way it should run straight on itch without people having to download a file, which should make it easier for people to play.

I also really don't think you're allowed to use the music you've used - I recognise a lot of it (F-77 to start is a banger), and you need a licences to use it in your own games. It might be free to download, but the MDK stuff at least is just to listen to!

As far as the game goes... I just got a green "you failed" screen immediately. I couldn't really work out what was going on, sorry!

A nice little clicker game that ran well for me. The frantic gameplay was quite fun, I didn't expect to be playing many games with such a fast-paced take on the theme in this jam 😂 definitely more my sort of thing.

I would have loved to see the "fling" use physics, so the distractions slid a little after you let go. It wasn't particularly satisfying to flick them away unfortunately.

I also thought there was a pretty massive difficulty spike after a minute or so, which I couldn't really get over, sorry! I don't know if there was some technique I was missing, but I just could not seem to flick them away quickly enough.

This would work really well on mobile I think 🤔 the art style is interesting, but the title cards at the beginning were basically unreadable sorry! I think you need to pay a bit more attention to how words appear on the background you're using 🙂

Congrats on submitting something! Stealth games aren't really my thing, so take all of my comments with a big pinch of salt, but I didn't really feel like I had much impact. If the nurses and staff chased me, I didn't really notice. It kinda felt like I could just walk around and not get hit by anything?

I also have to complain about the controls - holding right click to move is a huge pain on a trackpad, why isn't it left click? 🫠 That single issue kinda spoiled the game for me, and I didn't play very much of it because my hand ended up hurting a bit.

The atmosphere is really cool though, it feels like you're trapped and need to escape. It's almost horror-esque, good job on managing that in such a short period of time!

This is a really unique take on the theme, and it controls quite nicely :) I can't say I had a lot of fun with the game because I really just don't get on with puzzle platformers, but I think you achieved what you set out to do pretty well. 

I have a couple of minor nitpicks - it was pretty easy to make the puzzles unsolvable. I think that's my biggest issue to be honest, there were so many times I had to just jump off the edge to restart the room because there was no way for me to recover. Also, while the music works well enough and I think fits the vibe you're going for, it does start to get a little bit repetitive after a while.

It's cool to see a leaderboard in a jam game, always makes them more replayable :D I didn't really see much opportunity for speedrun strats, it feels like playing for time is just "know the puzzle", and the ones I played seemed pretty straightforward to me.

Overall, it's a nice little game. A unique take on the theme that works really well, with no major "bugs" and only a couple of minor flaws in the design. It also looks great! Good job 😁

Your game is voted on by other jammers, and we ask that you tell people you have used ai. That's the only effect it will have on your score.

We discourage it for a few reasons:

• The larger models are trained on copyrighted code and images, which can have legal repercussions since generative AI can and will produce near identical data from its training set. This is such a major issue that the companies that produce the models are seeking exemptions from existing copyright law.
• This is a game creation competition, and a friendly one at that. There are no prizes, this is a fun event that challenges your creativity and game-making ability. Your creativity and game-making ability, not an AI's. What's the point if an AI is doing half of it anyway?
• There are other practical issues with generated art, but it sounds like that's not what you want to use.
• Also, typing speed is not a blocker for most game development 😉

At the end of the day, we can't police it. It's up to you, but like I said you should clarify that you have used AI if you do.

sure - the only requirement is that the majority of the game is made during the jam. However, do be aware that there'll be a theme announced at the start of the jam. It is optional, but most people who play and rate your game will judge you based on how well you follow it :)