The first GoedWare Game Jam is over. Everyone who was able to make a game within the 7-day deadline submitted it. We had more than 15 entries. Not bad for a first event! 

We really enjoyed organizing this event and we will do so again in the future. So watch out for the second GoedWare Game Jam (#2)! We hope you will join us again

First, thanks to everyone for participating and forwarding your games! Without you there would be no Game Jam. We hope you had fun creating, testing and playing your games. I know we did. 

And now for the results the winners in the various categories are listed below:

#Overall winner

The overall winner of the first GoedWare Game Jam is: Funk Duck by  drdrub, gluten male & zdiasio99. This game won in almost all categories, so it can truly be called the OVERALL WINNER! Congratulations!

#Runner-up

The runner-up  is: The quest of the extremely tiny hat. The game had solid rankings in all categories and finished third overall, but the host of the jam was number two and that game did not count as a valid entry, so jael137 got its well deserved runner-up position. Well done!

#Gameplay

The winner in what can be called the most important individual category for a game is: Funk Duck. The highest gameplay score with a lot of ratings also. Nice job! It was fun to play.

#Graphics

We all love eye candy and the winner in this category was the host, but a very good number two and therefore the winner is once again:  Funk Duck. The funk style had everyone funked 😊.

#Audio

Our ears loved this one: Funk Duck. Funky music that made a real funk ambiance for the game. And the quack sound brought a smile on the faces of the participants

#Devlog

We all join Game Jams to learn to make even better games that give the player a lot of fun and emotions playing it. This Jam we learned the most of Funk Duck.This devlog gives us a nice sneak peek into their development process. Go and read it :😊!

#Jury ranking

#1 

The jury, like the participants, thought Funk Duck was the best.

#2

Extreme Runner by Cedric.V  finished in second place with the jury. 

#Graphics

The game was difficult, but the jury liked the animations, art and lighting effects in Escape the Castle by CyborgAtlas

#Audio

Funk Duck also won this category among the jury. They loved the funk.

*Some of the prices did go to #2 and even #3 or #4 when some prizes shifted to the next ranking.

This was the first Game Jam organized by GoedWare ( LinkedIn | Website | Discord ).  Our goal was to let you practice coding, create and finish a game in 7 days and also learn from the experience, expand your skills and above all have fun and enjoy making your own game and playing other participants' games.

It is always difficult to find a good theme. It should give you a push in the right direction for a game idea, but it shouldn't be too limiting either. We think we found that in the following theme: 

"EXTREMES"

You can think of extremely hot, extremely cold, extreme sports, extremely fast, extremely slow, extremely difficult, extremely easy, extremely funny, extremely big, extremely small and much more... Be creative!

Good luck to you all and have fun at this Game Jam!!

• Anyone, regardless of experience, is welcome to participate!
• An itch.io account to be able to join the jam and submit your entry.
• You can use any engine or framework you like! For example: Unity, Godot, Unreal, Gamemaker etc. You can even make your own if you want. But some of our prizes are Assets for the Unity Engine (you can choose a gift card instead).
• You will have to create a Devlog where you give some insights in your game development progress or inform the other participants how you solved a specific game problem or implemented a game mechanic. In this way we all learn something from each other's experiences.
  •  This can be a blog, a video, your daily schedule of the jam, some text or a short story telling us how you made the game, what difficulties you had during the jam and how you solved them. Or an explanation of some of your key game mechanics. How did you come up with them or how did you implement them. Or what you think are important learning milestones for us. It does not have to be much. Every information you can share will be helpful for us to learn to make better games that are more fun for the players.
  •  You can easily add your log to your Itch.io Game Project page or provide a link in the submission where we can read your log.
• You can not edit your submission after the deadline! So be wise and submit your game a few hours before the deadline to be able to tackle any last minute issues.
• Teams are allowed, but we recommend keeping the teams up to 4 members, after that it becomes hard to manage a team in 7 days for a game. (Prizes are only for the whole team, not the individual members)
• If you have the time and can manage it, multiple entries for the Game Jam are allowed.
• Music must be royalty / copyright free and properly credited. 
• You can use fonts from the internet, as long as you have the correct license for it.
• You can use assets you own. For example assets from the Unity Asset Store or Unreal Marketplace.
• Please only use assets you have permission to use, and avoid infringing upon any copyright or trademark.
• No NSFW games.  Games must not contain nudity, or hateful language or visuals.
• Participants who try to manipulate voting will be removed.

All entries will be judged by other participants of the jam, so that includes you (hopefully)!

The categories the games are rated in are:

• Gameplay: How fun is it to play the game
• Graphics: How nice are the look and feel and art-style of the game
• Audio: Do your ears love the sound effects and music and do they fit the game and theme
• Theme: Does the game fit into the theme
• Devlog: How insightful and educational was the log of the developer(s)

There will also be a Judge/Jury Ranking: a rating by our own panel of judges. They will make a separate ranking from the participating games based on their own tastes, preferences and gaming enjoyment as to who will receive a prize. They will take into account any double or unfair voting in the normal rating. To balance uneven or unfair votes.

The theme will be announced when the jam starts.

After the jam ends, a 1 week rating period starts, in which people can play and rate all of the submitted games.

Don't forget to leave feedback on any game you rate! It's more helpful than just a number, and it helps them find your game :).

Note: You need at least 7 ratings to be considered for winning in any of the categories. So make sure you play a lot of games so your game will have a higher chance of getting rated!

*The voting is open, but we reserve the right to take any submissions down that are clearly vote brigaded.

** The number of needed ratings to be considered a winning will be adjusted according to the number of participants.

Yes, this Game Jam will have prizes for the winners :-). These prizes are made available by our sponsor and organizer GoedWare.

Let's start by saying that if you press that join button and upload a game before the deadline, you are already a winner!  Having fun while creating and finishing your game project is an achievement in itself!  That experience is more valuable than money, but we do have some real prizes for the winners also ;-)

#Overall winner

The overall winner will receive a $100 gift card*. 

* Participants will receive an Amazon gift card for the Amazon website that applies to their country.

#Runner-up 

The overall Runner-up will receive a $25 gift card or will get a voucher code for Easy Character Movement from the Unity Asset Store.

#Gameplay

The winner in this category will receive a $50 gift card or will get a voucher code for UModeler - Model your World from the Unity Asset Store.

#Graphics

The winner in this category will be sent a gift link they can use to pick up the Royalty-free RPG Game Development Assets Bundle. 

#Audio

The winner in this category will get a key for Mixcraft 9 Recording Studio from Acoustica.

#Theme

The winner in this category will get Steam keys for all these Hidden Gems Games. 

#Devlog

The most insightful, informative & educational Devlog will be sent a gift link they can use to pick up all 25  Zenva e-learning courses to learn to code and make games.

#Jury ranking

#1: The winner will get a $50 gift card.

#2: The runner-up will get a $25 gift card.

#Graphics: The most stunning art will get a key for the Pro Studio Graphics Bundle.

#Audio: The best audio will get a key for Mixcraft 8 Home Studio from Acoustica.

* Jury ranking prizes will stack with the public prizes. Except for the audio winner. If this winner is the same as in the public score, the #2 in het public score will get this key).

Discord

All the winners get a fancy Discord server role.

* Because the organizers already know the theme in advance, we will merely be participators. If one of us gets voted to be winner of a category or the overall winner, prizes will be awarded to the next person instead.

** The prizes may change a little bit before the Game Jam starts, but will mostly contain the content as it is shown now. Once the Game Jam has started the prizes will not change anymore!

In my experience, here is what you need to do if you want to win one of the top spots:

• Make your game easy to understand for new players. This is a super common trap a lot of game jam games fall into.  Start thinking about your tutorial or how you want to teach your mechanics right from the beginning!
• Usually it's a good idea to make your game not too hard to win. People spend roughly five to fifteen minutes on each game. In most cases they won't have enough time to reach a super high level of mastery. Keep that in mind when balancing the difficulty.
• Quality over quantity. Keep your game super simple! This is even more important in this jam as simplicity is one of the main ranking factors, but even besides that, every bit of extra polish can really make your game stand out in a short jam like this.
• Take risk. The winning games are usually those who were brave enough to try something completely new and crazy (while also following the other three tips above). 

Obviously there are exceptions to all rules but still, I hope it helps. :)

Some resources to help you started.

• Freesound.org: https://freesound.org | License: https://freesound.org/help/faq/#wait-this-is-all-free
• 8bit Sound Generator: https://www.bfxr.net/ | License: You have full rights to all sounds made with bfxr, and are free to use them for any purposes, commercial or otherwise.
• Kenny Assets: https://kenney.nl/assets | License: CC0 1.0 Universal
• Color Scheme Generator: http://colormind.io/
• Color Scheme Designer: https://paletton.com/
• Open Game Art: https://opengameart.org | License: https://opengameart.org/content/faq#q-how-to-credit
• Piskel,  a free online editor for animated sprites & pixel art:  https://www.piskelapp.com/
• Mixamo, animations: https://www.mixamo.com/
• Tree It, free tree creation tool: http://www.evolved-software.com/treeit/treeit 
• WOWIE Asset Pack (by Jonas Tyroller): https://jonas-tyroller.itch.io/wowie-pack
• LabChirp, a powerful and versatile sound effect generator: https://labbed.itch.io/labchirp

Question: What is the theme? 
Answer: The theme will be announced when the jam begins.

Question: Does my game have to be a certain format?
Answer: No, but remember that not all users have Windows/Mac/Linux devices. Browser based is a good idea to get as many people playing your game as possible and try to make at least a Windows version.

Question: What assets can I use? 
Answer: The vast majority of code must be written during the jam, but you can use whatever art and audio assets you have the legal right to use.

Question: Can I submit a game that I already started on?  
Answer: No, it is required that all participants make the entirety of the game in the time provided.

Question: Is there a Discord I can join? 
Answer: Yes, click here to join.

•  Anything you make during the GoedWare Game Jam is your property. GoedWare claims no rights or ownership of your game. 
•  Any game submitted to the GoedWare  Game Jam may show up in a GoedWare YouTube video, Social Media or website without your express permission.