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Uploadtime

A topic by julescatrina created Mar 17, 2025 Views: 284 Replies: 7
Viewing posts 1 to 3

Hi guys, i was just wondering why we can see the time of upload/update from some games whereas we cannot the this from other games. 

For example on our submissionpage we see "Submitted by (Name) - 1 hour 10 minutes before deadline" beneath our title. And we can also see this on other submissionpages. But there are also some games which do not have this timestamp. Was their upload AFTER the deadline? would it disqualify them for the Voting? If yes, how do you track this? Or are all games, which were uploaded after the deadline automatically declined? 

In the rules it states that the deadline is non-negotiable, so i was just wondering, if there is any form of Tracking which games were actually uploaded on time. 

Thanks!

Submitted(+1)

I only know of multiple Instances where teams were allowed to upload after the deadline because of some issues. I don't know, how this affects rates though.

Cheers,

Tidali of CrowfoxCreatives 

I have to say, that i feel a bit mad about the acceptance of late submissions...technical errors can happen, but there is nothing in the rules that states that there is an emergency contact for this case, plus some of the late submissions were able too update their game, whereas most regular submitters were not. It feels a bit unfair, cause in other gamejams or events the deadline is actually the deadline, if you missed it (no matter the cause) you are unlucky...

Feels some kind of unfair.

(+1)

Hi julescatrina, thank you for your message. Many of the teams in our Jam were first-time participants, especially student teams. As a result, there were several logistical and technical challenges, including failed uploads and other issues. Some more experienced teams also provided valid reasons, such as technical malfunctions or accidental uploads of incorrect builds, and we allowed them to resubmit their entries.

One of the main reasons for resubmissions was that some teams simply overlooked the requirement that the games had to be browser-compatible. These teams were given the opportunity to adjust their builds accordingly and resubmit them.

Unfortunately, some of these messages ended up in our spam folder, which led to delayed responses. Since this was our first Jam and many teams were devastated, we decided to allow projects that reached out to the community or our regularly communicated contact address (xr@br.de) shortly after the deadline and provided reasonable explanations to still participate in the Jam and receive feedback from the community.

One team of students that submitted their entry very late was also accepted into the community (so that they can get valuable feedback) but was excluded from prize eligibility.

We’re sorry if this approach caused any confusion. We will review our process again for possible next Jams.

Submitted(+2)

Hi Jule, as a late submitter and first time game jammer (with result place 105) let me explain our case, decide for yourself:

We are a team of game engineering (mainly more with the study goal how to create an egine from scratch) students, and uploaded our build before the deadline. However we missed itchs requirement of individual files having to be less than 200mb (we thought it was 500mb). Our more optimized build took some time and finished a bit after the deadline. We couldn't adjust our page, so even though there was a build, itch wouldn't display it and we couldn't update it to the one with less size. My team rage quitted at that point, i reached out to BR and got a late submission link after an hour or so and was able to publish the game nontheless. 

With the comments i believe we got some valuable feedback for this and future projects. Our project isn't ideal (nor really in a playable state), we know that. However at least we were able to collect that experience thanks to BR-Teams support <3

Submitted(+1)

As one of the 6 “late submitters” from top-20, I sense some need to explain.

On our side it was literally one missing tab in code which prevented from completing the game if you used “Undo” button even once. (but not from playing). If the organizers said that late submission would disqualify from jury voting then we’d just leave it be with that bug, players could play for 15-ish minutes without even noticing anything. Judging by the discussion board, some other submitters were less lucky and had some problems with uploading files or even filling the form in the last minute.

A lot of bigger gamejams are rather forgiving in this matter: GMTK gamejam always gives +1 hour for everyone to late-submit the game without any penalty, and Ludum Dare even allows to fix critical bugs/broken builds at any point. Of course those gamejams don’t have any money on the line, just wanted to give some examples of unstrict deadlines. We are all humans, after all :)

And I’ve seen a topic in this jam about late submission that didn’t have any major reason to be late apart from just being late, and organizers decided it was unfair for it to qualify for the prize.

But. I 100% agree that stuff like this should be written in the rules in the future. Just as simple as “we accept late submisisons first hour after the jam ends if we decide that the reason is strong enough, write at this email address” (or, as GMTK does, just state “we could extend the deadline for 1 hour more in case people need it” and then just always extend it). It’s not ideal, but I don’t think that sticking to “super strict deadline” is good for organizers either, the bitterness of something breaking right around sumbittion time is as bad and will leave a bad memory of the event for such people…

Also I must say that submitting the game 30-60 minutes later will never change the game drastically. Good game will stay good, mediocre game won’t become good. In that 1 hour you physically can change only stuff that will transfer the game from “unintentionally broken” to “playable”.

I understand that all this won’t change the fact that this was all a bit unfair in current gamejam, but I wanted to add another point of view to “late submission” topic in general.

(+1)

Thank you for your reply!And sey, metioning the option/possibility of late entries due to technical failure o.e. is definitly something one should bring up in the rules next time. Although the fact, that many of them were able to update their game during Votingtime was also part of the felt Unfairness. We uploaded one hour before and thought that we could update throughout the Votingtime. But that did not work for us. when we looked into "Latest Submissions" there were updates from games which were late entries. If there is any chace to fix this, please do so in the future. 

Thanks!

(+1)

Thanks for your feedback! We really appreciate it and take it to heart. Your points about late entries and updates during the voting phase are totally valid. We’ll make sure to clarify the rules for future jams and look into how we can prevent technical inconsistencies.