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Judging/Contest Details

A topic by George 2.0 created Nov 27, 2018 Views: 555 Replies: 4
Viewing posts 1 to 4
(+1)

Hello,

Regarding the judging...  the criteria listed is ::

  • Overall, Gameplay, Graphics, Audio, Innovation and Theme Interpretation

... would it be possible for you to please share a copy of the judge(s) scoresheet?  For instance, what are the percentages for each category?

Also, with regards to the [Theme Interpretation] judging category, am I missing something, or of the 44 submissions only like 4-6 deal with the [Hybrid] theme.?.  Are the ppl submitting just going to take a loss in the  [Theme Interpretation] judging category.?.

Also, who will be judging (just participants?.. sponsors?..) & how will the voting be weighed / can you vote for more than one?  If you have a team, does everyone in the team get a vote?...  or just one vote for the whole team?  Will there be multiple rounds?  How long will the judging / round(s) last?  Can you make patch(es) during the judging?  Will there be only one winner?...  1st, 2nd, 3rd, Honorable Mention.?.  Do the winners receive anything?...  (bragging rights, t-shirt, pizza?)

Also, does the submission have to be open source?...  or are we able to just put binaries on a publically accessible GitHub?

If you submit an App, does it have to be in the store?...  or can ppl side-load the apk for instance?

Thanks,

George 2.0

Submitted

Most people also competed in IGMC 2018, so just submitting an entry to both.  Very large game jams and great exposure.  Also, hybrid is a theme that can mean almost anything.  I have self made music and actual music in my game, you could call that a hybrid of types.  Also, my final boss has wings and sea creature parts, hybrid.  I have sentient technology.

Jam Host (2 edits)

Hi George,

Great questions - and my apologies for the delayed response...

> Also, does the submission have to be open source?...  or are we able to just put binaries on a publically accessible GitHub?

The code for all of the entries must be published in a public GitHub repository, but you can license it however you wish. If there are any 3rd party (or your own) libraries / assets that you don't want to add, that's fine. I'd recommend leaving a note in the README.md file that descrives the dependencies / omissions.

> If you submit an App, does it have to be in the store?...  or can ppl side-load the apk for instance?

Nope. As long as someone is able to play / download the game via the itch.io page, you're good.

> Also, who will be judging (just participants?.. sponsors?..) & how will the voting be weighed / can you vote for more than one?  If you have a team, does everyone in the team get a vote?...  or just one vote for the whole team?  Will there be multiple rounds?  How long will the judging / round(s) last?  Can you make patch(es) during the judging?  Will there be only one winner?...  1st, 2nd, 3rd, Honorable Mention.?.  Do the winners receive anything?...  (bragging rights, t-shirt, pizza?)

Everyone who submitted a game is eligible to vote. Each game will be rated on a 1-5 scale across the following categories: Overall, Gameplay, Graphics, Audio, Innovation and Theme Interpretation. Everyone on the team can vote. No multiple rounds. Voting ends on Dec 22nd at 13:37 PT. No patches allowed during the judging period to the itch.io page*, but you're welcome to push changes to the repository (as the code isn't being judged). There will be winners across all categories. There are no official prizes for the Game Off.

* if there's a bug that seriously affects people being able to play the entries that is a "quick fix", I've permitted those in the past. Just leave a note of what was changed and why in the itch.io page.

> Also, with regards to the [Theme Interpretation] judging category, am I missing something, or of the 44 submissions only like 4-6 deal with the [Hybrid] theme.?.  Are the ppl submitting just going to take a loss in the  [Theme Interpretation] judging category.?.

That's quite possible. The entry pages should have a sentence or two from the creators about how they interpreted the theme. 

Cheers,
  Lee

Submitted(+2)

Are the entries only judged by votes from participants or will the judges independently check out the games and pick their favourites?

I'm thinking making a game that's not playable in the browser is a bit of a handicap if votes is all they are being judged on. My guess is the effort/risk of installing some random binary from the site is severely reducing the number of votes for download only games. A quick poll of some random games and most of the download only ones have 0-5 votes but play in browser games have 15 or more in lots of cases - even games with less enticing screen shots because it only takes 10 seconds to see the actual game running.

Cheers
Daniel

Submitted (1 edit)

If it's anything like last year, only participants do the actual voting. But they did have "Staff Picks" last year as well, so there's that possibility.

You're right to an extent that browser playable games often get the most votes, simply for ease of use. I made my entry browser playable this year for that reason, though last year I did eventually get a decent number of votes (19). From what I can tell, it all just takes a lot of time for people to go through all of these games. I try to rate as many as possible, regardless of my personal biases or opinions on how the game may look, but even still there's no way I can rate every single entry. What I've learned is that being active in rating other games and leaving comments is very important, as is posting about your game wherever you can (like this forum, or the Discord channel). 

In any case, I'll be checking out your game tonight. I used to play Lemmings as a kid, so this looks very interesting!