itch.io

Totally. Being able to submit your game, no matter the quality, is a HUGE achievement.

Only around 15% of people who join a jam actually submit a game. So no matter your rank, if you've submitted a game, you've already done better than the vast majority of people who signed up. (And hopefully you had fun and learned some new things along the way.)

I understand being suspicious, I've played the top 10 games, and most people would be blown away if they found out that they were made in 48 hours.

But GDevelop jams allow users to pilfer work from their previous projects, example games, and even use purchased or publicly available assets on their games, all to try and create the coolest thing they can within the allotted time period.

With that much freedom, and the instruction to "start from a starter", which come with the controls and basic mechanics for the genre of game you want to make, I'm not surprised by the quality of the games that people made.

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We do disqualify games if they pilfer too much work from one of their previously existing projects/a game example, or if we find out that they were creating assets/working on a project for this jam before the start time, but the games needing to align with the jam's theme usually prevents people from doing that. (Since they could spend a bunch of time working on something that completely doesn't align with the theme, and would have to toss it all out.)

22nd place in a jam where over 650 people signed up, is great! 🎉

You can upload your game to itch now that the voting period is over, but you've already been disqualified from the jam.

The version on itch is required, because itch locks the game file, and prevents any updates or changes to games during the voting period.

That helps us know that the game people are playing and voting on, is the same game that a developer submitted at the end of the creation period. Without that lock, a developer could fix bugs/make changes after the jam deadline passed, and then would get rated on that better version of their game.

So we have to be very strict about this rule.
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I know it's hard when you get disqualified for a misunderstanding, but I hope you're still proud of your work, and think of the jam positively.

For your very first game jam, you did incredibly well, and ranked 10th in a jam where over 650 people signed up.

I'm sorry, but your game page here on itch has no game, you only have a link to the game on gd.games.

You needed to upload your game to both itch and gd.games.

The winners will be visible on the jam page, immediately after the voting period timer ends.

We'll start showcasing the winners on our socials/through emails early this week.

Winners will have to email us with the email address associated with their GDevelop/gd.games account to get their prizes.

After the community voting period has ended, and after we've checked the validity of the top 10 games in the jam,  social media posts and an email will be sent out to everyone to showcase the winners of our 4th Weekend Jam. 🎉

WINNERS: Please reach out to the following email address to claim your prize.

Every member a winning team MUST email the above address from the email address that is linked to their GDevelop/gd.games account.

Please don't think of it as snitching.

Most people who joined the jam want to be able to have a fun and fair experience, so helping us moderate the jam by reporting games/people that are breaking the rules, or making the jam experience worse, is helping us make the jam closer to what people signed up for.

Thank you.

(There is a "report" button under comments, and above games inside of their jam page, that actually goes straight to the moderators, and not to itch. So if you report it through that button, you can report it to us without needing to make a public post for it. 👍)

We can see you pasting the same comment on games repeatedly, and that they're being sent with less than 1 minute between each comment.

There is no way that you're playing the games between comments, and your comments don't reflect the games that you're sending them to.

This behavior may get your game removed from the jam, stop it.

Looking at the submission feed, it says they updated their game page with screenshots and a cover image. That's why it says it was updated.

Submissions are locked during the voting period, so if they tried to update their game files, it would have kicked them from the jam automatically. So no worries.

Hey. 👋 Please don't forget to upload your game to gd.games.

And add the genre tag Weekend jam 4 to it.

The genre tag will be taken down after the voting period, so you won't be able to select it after the voting period ends.

Well thank you for watching them.

Without people watching them, there wouldn't be any reason to make them. 👍

Oh! I misread it. I thought "Thx" was "Fix". 😅

I thought they were trying to tell me there was an issue with one of the tutorials that needed to get fixed. lol.

You're welcome Colourless flame.

Which tutorials?

There are no judge ratings for this jam, it'll be left up to community voting.

We have however changed the wording of the post to reflect our new policy on this. So if you see people spamming the comment sections, please feel free to report them, and we'll look into it. 👍

Yes. For this weekend jam, it's all based on community votes.

We do the judge voting for the BIG jams that happen twice per year, that usually have prize money involved.

We're slowly picking through the games and moderating them.

If a game like that landed in the top 10, they would just get banned before we give out the prizes. 😅

Try playing and reviewing some other games, and after you've played and rated their game, ask them to rate yours.

When you leave a comment on their jam page, your game will be shown under your comment, so they'll be able to quickly jump over to your game

I'm not entirely sure, but I assume it would automatically get all 0s in the different categories, and be in last place. 🤔

As long as you don't touch your game file on itch, you can edit everything else about your game page. (The cover, screenshots, descriptions, etc.)

We've seen rate for rate spamming ruin the scoring of jams in the past, and we'd like to see a fair and honest jam here.

It's alright to ask someone to play your game if you've played, rated, and gave feedback on their game. But blanket "rate for rate" callouts, can really mess with ratings, as people try to collect as many ratings as they can without playing/having their own game played.

If we find people posting "rate for rate" posts here in the community tab, they will be removed. And if we have too many posts like that, we may have to close to the community tab entirely.

If we find somebody spamming "play my game" or "rate my game" in comments on games in this jam, we will first issue them a warning, and then we may disqualify them if they continue to spam reviews. (Especially if they're posting comments at a speed, or with copy/paste messages, that suggests that they aren't playing the games that they're commenting on.)

In your project settings, when you create a page on itch, there are 3 options for donation, payment, or no payment.

If you select "no payment", you shouldn't have any money related issues.

Yes. You can use premade assets from older projects.

As long as you start from one of the starter projects.

No. The starter project section is shown in the theme announcement video.

When you click to create a new project, they are the projects at the top, with the prototype artstyle.

Sorry, but you are not allowed to make assets specifically for the jam, prior to the start date of the jam.

If you don't think you can make music that meets your standards within the 48 hour limit of the jam, then you're probably already overscoping the work you plan on doing during the 48 hours.

I suggest you either think about the shortest possible loop you can make that would work for a game, and practice by making a few different songs at that size before the jam begins, or looking for premade music from other people.

I hope that helps. 👍

Glad you enjoyed it! 👍

I fixed some of the audio issues and a couple of bugs that people found.

But I still have some things we want to add/change.

Thanks! Glad you had a chance to play it.

ArtManOil did a great job on the art and music. 😌

I had some stuff to do internally once the jam ended though. 😅(Still got more we wanted to change/fix up, so it'll be something to pick at for the next month in my free time.)

Nope. But there might be some elves.

Thanks for playing it, and working your way through the voting queue to get to rate it. 😅

Glad you enjoyed it!

We've been collecting feedback, and we'll update the game after the voting period end. We had the assets needed for a boss fight and some other features, but we didn't get them in to the game in time. (People have been suggesting an infinite mode, and I think we'll add that as a "new game+" option for people who already beat the game. 🤔)

I've watched the video, so don't worry about holding onto the mp4. Thanks though. 👍

Yeah, I meant to come back and rebalance the combat, but ran out of time.

That'll definitely be at the top of my list when we come back to work on it, along with adding the boss fight.

Somebody else suggested an infinite mode, and I think that's a great idea, maybe as a new game+ sort of thing. 👍

Thanks! I'm really glad you enjoyed it. 👍

I was scrambling a bit as the end to add in tool tips and stuff, but didn't get enough in before the deadline.

When we come back to it, I'll add proper tooltips that explain the things you hover over, and add some helpful juice in places to try and make things more obvious. The upgrade action during combat increases all of the units stats, so I could also add some particles that represent each stat, and have them burst out of the unit when it's upgraded. 🤔

Awesome idea for the future. 👀

Maybe we could stick in a leaderboard or highscore mode too.

Thanks! We're really happy with it, so we're glad people enjoy it. 😌

Yeah. That's me. 👍

With 10k games submitted to the jam, that could take a while.😅

Yeah, definitely too easy. 😅 I meant to go back and add more/stronger units for the enemies, but ran out of time.

After the voting phase we'll release a new version with rebalancing. t👍

Thanks! We were really happy with the design we came up with, and we'll definitely come back later and polish it up, and include a better tutorial. 😅