Story is an important aspect of games and I'm glad it was included. It's definitely one that's hard to incorporate in a short time frame, and a game doesn't have to have a story to be good. But if most games have little to no story and are getting low ratings in the story category, then that's going to be reflected in the average while still allowing games with stories to shine in that category. Even if a game with no story gets nothing but 1 star ratings in the story category, there are 7 categories, so it can still have a high overall rating if people rate it highly in the other categories.

But what about those that did do a story since it was part of the criteria? I can understand wanting to ask for that before hand but once it's over we kinda have to stick by the rules.

If a game doesn't have a story, I give it one star for Story which is the lowest rating. If a game doesn't have music, I give it one star for Music. If a game doesn't have sound or voice effects separate from music, one star for Sound. This doesn't reflect the scores I give for other aspects of the game.

The point of having separate categories is so not every game is judged on one single thing, no game is expected to be the best at everything. Doing well in one category and poorly in another is not a bad thing, this helps you to see your strengths and weaknesses. You can then decide if you want to focus on areas you may feel need improvement or if you'd rather concentrate on what you're already good at to become even better.

There isn't intended to be an 'overall' rating and for one game to come out on top over everything else. Here are the results of last year's jam: https://itch.io/jam/gamedevtv-jam-2022/results They're separated by category the same as this year. The game which is #1 in story is #409 in mechanics. The game which is #1 in sound is #430 in fun. These numbers are relevant to the people who made these games, but they aren't meant to be directly compared in a single package.