itch.io

Hey everyone, same as many other folks on here, I'm tentatively offering to help out someone who needs help with writing and design for their jam game. I'm decently experienced, having worked on a number of games before and I write quite fast, though writing is my only real talent. I can also give feedback on art, gameplay and whatever else, though.

I will be having my diploma thesis defense during the jam window, but I am confident that I will be able to work around the timing without much issue.  

Feel free to answer to this topic if you are interested; I don't plan on working by myself and will only officially enter the jam with a team. Further details will be inevitably discussed over time.

Please don't feel responsible - this was a stance that we had been rethinking over the last few days irregardless; Your question just came during a time where it was most fitting for us to set our decision in stone. 

We also hope that the other participant won't feel too bad about the change and we encouraged them to attempt to create something either way.

Hey there!

Sorry for any confusion that may have been caused by this situation on your side, allow me to update you on our decision after some amount of deliberation.

To put it simply: We were planning to let the other person's game slide as a one-off thing, not thinking that it would really matter much. However, after further discussion on the topic given this question, we have decided to return to our previous stance of fully banning any usage of AI from this jam and will be informing the other person of this change shortly.

While we are all for encouraging creativity, we have also begun considering that we would be willingly giving a platform to something we do not personally agree with, which would only invite more of the same to pop up in the future. Therefore, at the risk of sounding mean: We will be snipping this issue before it has time to grow by rectifying our previous lapse of judgement.

We apologize if this is not the answer you were hoping for, but please consider submitting a game that you can make purely with your own skills, or teaming up with someone instead of using AI. It would help bring the community together and potentially help you make more games in the future!

Hey there!

This was one of the more interesting questions asked here, so I consulted the other judges and we've come to a pretty unanimous consensus.

We want to let people get creative with what they want to make, and if you look back at the entries of the other jams, many are only questionably fetishy in nature. Similarly, we only specify that pregnancy has to play "a central role" to the games submitted, and we even tell people to give a warning if there is anything overtly NSFW in the games they make.

Therefore, you are free to make your celebration of pregnancy as you want - we will not wag our fingers at you if you don't include any NSFW/fetish-oriented content. Though, I should mention that your game may still be perceived as fetishy by members of the community - that's just part of the clientele, so to say.

Hope this helps, and good luck with the jam!

Hi!

Not entirely sure why that may be - I just tested the link myself and it seems to work fine. Maybe it is a browser issue on your part? Try joining via mobile too!

Hey there!

Yes, teaming up with other people is absolutely permitted and actually expected - you can ask around here, but we also have a game jam channel on the Preggopixel's Games Discord server. You will probably have most luck there!

A link to the server can be found on the Jam's main page - the bottom link under "Community Support"!

Hope this helps!

Hey there!

We have actually just updated the jam's main page with a link to our Discord server, PreggoPixel's Games - it was supposed to be there earlier, but it seems we forgot to add it in this year.

You can find the link under the "Community Support" section of the main page now, thanks for pointing out that it wasn't there before!

Hey there, sorry for the slightly long silence - needed to wait for the other judges to be around to give their opinion.

In the end, our decision is actually fairly simple: We can't really expect people to make 100% of a game's assets themselves, so using pre-made assets is fine as long as they are from freely accessible sources which are credited! Basically, as long as the assets aren't from a paid pack or especially made for you, it is perfectly fine to use them - anyone else could do the same, that's our logic.

Hope this helped clear up the confusion!

Hi there!

The page for the 4th Preggo Jam is already up, actually - you can find it under this link: https://itch.io/jam/preggo-game-jam-4

The jam itself will start at the same time as last year, but the page for it has already been made.

Rating games is something reserved for us four judges (Preggo, Kiwi, Ava and me). You can give written feedback on the page that opens when you click on the submission or on the game's page itself, you just can't rate the games on a numerical scale.

We permit people to put up WIP builds and to share their progress with the community freely - people have been doing so in the dedicated channel on our Discord server, for example. If you want to post a WIP build, you can also update it before the submission deadline as you wish - the evaluation will be based on what we have before us after that deadline passes, after all.

Alternatively to posting on our discord, you can also put up a WIP build and then make devlog updates or, if you want to, do so in the discussions here.

Hello,

I just wanted to write this here so you understand the situation and what may happen next. We removed your game from our jam's submissions twice as your game does not fit our jam's theme or rules! Because you have resubmitted it for a third time, we have reported your submission to Itch.io moderation. If you keep the submission up, this could lead to your account getting banned.

Also, you have submitted your game to an adults only (18+) game jam when you are 12. That means that we need to get in touch with your school to report this, so please be ready for that if you decide to keep your game in our jam's submissions.

We hope that this comment has been helpful and wish you the best!

Hello, we wanted to get back to you regarding this after some deliberation.

We have decided that we will allow translations using tools made specifically for such purposes, like DeepL and others. Additonally, just so we can be sure, we will also require you to submit an untranslated version of your game so we can be sure you didn't let AI write it for you. We hope that this won't be too big of an issue for you!

Proper tagging will be required for all jam submissions - that alone should help a good bit. 

We will also ask for people to give their games that little... I forgot the name, but the brief description that Itch displays below the thumbnail, so we could also ask people to write that it's mpreg in there?

Hey there, we gave this some thought and decided that, as long as the assets are not AI-created as you said, they should be fine!

We wouldn't suggest using only pre-made assets, but we will not penalize you for not making 100% of your assets yourself.

My apologies, I misclicked before. Here you go: A one-day link for you, so feel free to come on in when you want to.

Hello! 

If you are interested in getting in contact with our community at large, I could also send you an invite to our discord server (7.5K members with a temporary, dedicated jam chat). You don't need to of course, but the offer stands if you'd like - just tell me and I'll generate an invite link for you!

Hello everyone, as the reveal of the theme and the beginning of the jam draw closer, I wanted to remind everyone here to pose their final pre-jam questions so that we have as little confusion as possible. While you can of course post further questions during the development time as well, we would like to clear up as much as possible beforehand as to not take away your precious dev time!

Feel free to create new topics or, in the case of smaller questions, ask away in here as well!

I bring good news (and hopefully will not get stoned by the people here for being the messenger this time):

After further discussion with the jury as well as input from members of the community, we have decided to repeal the ban on mpreg content, meaning that you will be able to upload games containing it without having to worry about being disqualified. We do however make clear that, while we will act as objectively as humanly possible in our role as judges, the fact that most of us do not have a preference for mpreg may appear in our feedback to games containing it. If the first year of the jam is anything to go by however, then this impact should be comparably minimal.

The rules displayed on the jam's main page will be amended once Preggo is awake and back at his PC, as he is the only person capable of editing that particular page. 

Thank you for bearing with us during the decision making and only beating me up very gently when I was the bearer of bad news. We would also like to apologize for the rocky back and forth on this particular topic - trust me, we are as glad that this is settled as you are.

I sincerely apologize if this decision has caused you any emotional discomfort or has instilled in you the belief that we wish to in any way be exclusionary to non-binary or trans people, as this is not the case. We take matters of respect and representation seriously within the community. 

On the upside: As this is simply a matter of judge preference (and only some judges do not trust themselves to stay neutral), there is always the chance that next year's jury will have a different view on the matter. We are still very much in the experimental phase of hosting these jams where we try to see which compositions of jury, rules and themes will work best together.

Once again, I apologize for any troubles caused and hope to see you again next year.

Hello, apologies for the late reply - I wanted to get the opinion of all the judges for this, and we are online at very different times.

The answer is that mpreg, while falling into the preg category, will not be allowed. This is largely due to the fact that a majority of the community we built, and by extension the judges, are not into mpreg and as such we couldn't say that we rated games containing it fairly and equally to games without mpreg.  While we do not want to limit creativity and do not bash people for having this preference, allowing it wouldn't feel right since we would knowingly set up people for disappointment caused by something out of their grasp.

I hope this answer, while probably disappointing, clarifies our reasoning at least. We still hope you have a fun time with the jam!

It's a little funny - you need to actually take your mouse cursor and move it across the belly while holding down left click. It's not really stated anywhere, I just happened to find it while going through previous status updates here.

Of course, here you go:

https://discord.gg/eHqfH7T

The link should be valid for 6 hours - I wanted to give some leeway because Itch.io didn't ping me about this reply.

Hmm, those are all logical arguments - I'll show these to the other judges and we'll see about maybe updating the rules with a few of these. I'll reply again once that is done, so just sit tight.

If you release it for general use before the jam starts, then we technically cannot count it as being jam-specific work, so in that case it would be permitted. Would it be cheating? Sure, but we wouldn't be able to do anything about it without doing a general ban on usage of any outside code or asset, meaning that we'd probably have to do a flat ban on RPG maker games, RenPy and much more.

So again, if you make a plugin before the jam that gives you an advantage: That won't fly, because only you can access it. If you make a plugin ahead of time and release it to others: That's fine, because you're not gaining an advantage to others in regard to programming.

For the time being I can only fully answer one of these questions, that being the first one:

1. Plugins are permitted, but only when they are clearly disclosed in the credits. Usage of plugins will also be considered during rating, and non-disclosure of used plugins can and WILL be held against people.

I will discuss the remaining questions with the other current judges, as they are valid concerns due to the small number of judges. I cannot assure that all judges will do their duty as I cannot see the future, but we will discuss these issues further before the jam begins.

Well, it's... questionable? Technically you're making the game with the option of profitting from it, so... I dunno? I'd be safe and change something about the character so it's "Legally distinct" and all that, but we personally won't bite your head off if you do use pre-existing characters.

https://discord.gg/HZZ48zA

Here you go - the link will expire in an hour. If anyone else wants to join later, I can generate a new one.

Hey there - there is no dedicated Discord server for JUST the jam, but it is being hosted by the owner and moderators of the "PreggoPixel's Games" Discord server. If you are already in, you should see a dedicated chat for the jam topic; If you are not, I can send a temporary invite link in here, of course.

Yeah, I think making a GDD is fine, but only if you don't prep artwork beforehand - that'd be too much, if you ask me.

Hey there, just tried this yesterday and gotta say that I'm a big fan, even if I'm usually not super into vore. 

I'll join Green in saying that the EXP feels a little wack at the moment, though balancing is never easy when it comes to games, and I have to say that the progression system is looking quite good already, so you're like 70% of the way there already!
It definitely took me a second to get used to the controls, but I really appreciated that you gave us the possibility to remap the controls, even if the UI buttons stay the same (that's a detail, really). Once I had stuff the way I prefer, getting my head around the controls wasn't really hard, though I was a bit confused by the fact that pressing yourself into walls lets you jump higher sometimes.

Anyway, I do wish that belly rubbing were mentioned somewhere, since I went through the levels without ever realizing it was a thing, so I played the vore version of "Waiting for Godot" a lot.
Overall, I also really liked the amount of customization you gave us (God how I love when vore games have some WG) and the art is lovely, down to the sprites themselves. 

Now, besides just giving general feedback and praise, I wanted to ask if you need any help at all with writing, be that dialogue, story planning (if you want one, anyway) or any such thing. I've got experience in writing for games of many varieties and do not ask for money when it comes to helping out on things like these. I don't want to bloat this message too much and it's kinda awkward for me to extend an offer this way, but if you're at all interested I'd love to discuss things further with you.

Hey there - I helped write one of the routes of the original game and wanted to offer my help with planning/writing whatever you may be reworking the game into! We were originally offered the game as well, but we weren't sure if we could handle reworking it with the other workloads we had and have at the time, but I will be more than happy to help you in whatever way I can, if you'd like.

Hey there, just wanted to comment on this as both a teaser and an explanation of sorts.

Some of your suggestions (Like bosses and side quests/smaller mysteries) are already planned for later releases, while suggestions for combat balancing like stat upgrades and melee/upgraded ranged options are not that difficult to implement.

Here, I do want to note that we plan to have more opportunities to gain money like the ore merchant that is in the current version, which I think a lot of people overlooked or forgot about.

The only thing I can assure you will not be in the game is the ally mechanic, or at least they will not be an active combat participant. This is due to the coding in place - it would not be impossible, but it would require a pretty extensive rework of what is already in game.

This isn't the place to be asking about that, but I'll tell you nonetheless:

Lacto is currently being handled by a seperate team of devs who, for various reasons, have only recently gotten back to working on the game, but have been making decent progress ever since.

They post regular updates on our Discord server but I don't think that most of that gets all the way to Itch, so I'm not surprised that people here don't know about that.

Hello!

Apologies for the only somewhat related comment, but I'm not really sure how to message people on here. I sent you a note on DA just now, just wanted to put a thing here as well to make it more likely that you'll see this.

I'm a writer in the community with some pretty extensive experience and wanted to ask if you'd be interested in working together - for free, of course. I don't like charging people for my help. I just think that I could help you make your stuff even better than it already is.

Don't feel pressured into answering or anything, I just figured I'd make the offer in case you're interested. 

Apologies for the late reply, I was gone all day.

It's a tad hard to describe what it looks like, but it is completely static apart from the edges, which are... flowing? They have this wavy quality to them, if that makes any sense? I kept an eye on the UI and nothing seemed to change, the only idea I have is that it may be something with the light meter?

The thing that really messes with my head is that I cannot fathom what it's tied to - I thought it was lighting, but the oval appears and disappears when I leave the camera idling and step away from my PC, so it's probably not entirely that either?

It is for sure some kind of overlay, as it is affected by the cat's eye (When I press Z, the reticle stays white but the oval turns into a light shade of gray), so maybe it is something with Godot itself? It could be anything, which is the fascinating part.

I'm really not sure what this is caused by, but I hope that it may fix itself with a new version. If push comes to shove I'll just download it on my laptop instead, but it'd be a shame to not experience this game as it was meant to be played.

To add info to this: I am able to enter cat's eye with this and it shows me the reticle, so it seems to be some kind of visual overlay that is messing up. It's only happening to me as some of my friends can play without issue, but I cannot fathom why this happens.

I thought it was because my monitor is extremely large, but going into windowed mode and adjusting the window size to sizes comparably to the monitors of my friends didn't change anything either - it seems like there is something that the game doesn't like about my PC or my graphics drivers. I am using AMD, so not sure if that would mess with this or not, but it's nevertheless pretty strange and frustrating.

After trying to ascertain why it is happening, it seems that maybe it's something related to looking at lights, like a lense flare messing up? Not sure what else it could be, but the most surefire way to avoid it is to look straight up for some reason.

Hey, apologies if this sounds a tad weird, but I am having a very strange and rather extreme visual issue. See, every time I look... somewhere (Not sure if it's triggered by a certain direction or a certain object), a giant, pure-white oval covers the entirety of my screen.
The game goes on as normal, I can move, open the menu and everything, but there is just a white oval that is blocking my entire view. I have re-downloaded the game, with no change in sight. I have disabled and enabled every option in the settings, but nothing seemed to affect it at all.
If I had to guess what causes it, it seems like you put some kind of cat-eye lens effect in, which is (for some reason) messing up on my end. I'm not sure if this is purely an issue with my PC or if the download is being weird, but I figured I'd bring it up in case it happens to anyone else.