IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: I have the flu and laryngitis so bad that I can't even work from home. Since no one else was ever prepped to MC the stream, I am pushing the stream back to Monday, Oct 9 (6-7) I apologize for any inconvenience. The games will get played, and the judges will look at them all closely, it's just going to take a bit longer than planned.

GAME JAM STREAM: Will be held during Game Design II class on Wednesday 6 - 7 in 105. You may come by in person if you are on campus. Otherwise, I will be trying to use Discord to stream the games as Zoom streams games at 3fps typically. However, I will be using Zoom as a backup and to record the stream for later viewing. 

OUR GAMES:

1. Dharmic Junkpunk Help liberate all thinking machines
2. You Are Eliza You are a therapy agency's online help attendant
3. Cian's Gambit: A Seafaring Monster Hunting TTRPG (no image)

Collecting the pellets was hard! Nice game! And really good layout on your itch page here. Thanks for being part of otter jam! Hope you learned a lot. 

Lovely game! Looks and plays nicely. Great pixel art. I loved the screen shaking effect on the bird boss.

Was there any sound? I didn't seem to hear anything.

Congratulations on your victory in the unofficial otter jam!

Cool horror game! Love the classic tank controls.

I did find it hard to avoid the monster once it found me, it tended to be stuck on top of me. The audio chosen works really well, and while the visuals are fine I do wish the scene was even darker and murkier!

Thank you for participating in Otter Jam!

Thanks for your submission to Otter Jam!

This game works nicely and I love the sound design on the souls. They seem to hang out at the bottom of the screen a lot. The background music is a bit distracting- shouldn't it scary, or at least more ambient? Either way, there is a lot you could do with this basic design in terms of adding story or mechanics etc. Thank you again for your participation.

WOW this is very charming, and a complete package. But I got stuck on level 11, wah. I'll see if I can come back to it and beat it later. It's kind of like Mario meets Tetris, and is a creative take on very familiar controls.

The controls make my fingers itch because so many games use both WASD and the arrow keys. I got confused and messed up my moves. But once you get the hang of it, it's a really fun puzzle game. I've added some screenshots since you guys don't have any here.

Thank you for participating in Otter Jam! Hope you learned a lot!

First of all, thank you for your Otter Jam submission and congrats!

This game features positively exquisite art. The treatment of color, contrast, and most of all, storytelling and mood are all amazing. The quality of the illustrations really drew me into the story. Every single one is beautiful and striking. As a player, you really feel like you have an impact on this story. Surprisingly unpredictable and mature.

Some of the English is a little awkward, but it would not be difficult for any native speaker to clean it up. The story always makes sense regardless. 

Thank you for sharing your incredible art with us. I am not sure how many artists are on the team compared to writers, but everyone did an amazing job. Even more so for a week-long jam. Hope to see you again in the Fall for an "official" Otter Jam!

Please take a the next few days to play all the games and vote! As the winner is decided by the vote- YOU make a difference! 

Also a little bit of trolling is fine. But for the next OFFICIAL jam, you better not ;) 

I noticed too late people asking for an extension on the deadline.

I edited the deadline so you have until Monday to submit late games. 

it’s my understanding that “trolling” is taking place during this jam. Escort yourselves out you naughty hooligans 

Hello everyone- 

Super excited to play all your games. I will definitely be sharing them with my game design I class. Very inconvenient time for me to lose power for (so far) 7 days 

When Jam is over I’m definitely sending out a poll to find out where participants are coming from. I know we have people from all over the world. For being an unofficial jam without the normal level of supervision I bring to it, this Otter Jam is arguably the most successful one so far and I appreciate the participation in my little grass roots jam. :) 

Happy to have you at otter jam! Good luck! 

I haven’t been able to participate because my power has been out since last Thursday! AH WELL! Plenty of others are making this jam work for them. Happy to see it. 

all: You can work in teams 👍

No theme this time. “Don’t work too hard” that’s the only real rule of this jam :) 

If you submit an existing project that’s been in development, only submit the level/iteration you make during the jam week. 

Of course! 

Thank you for being involved in Otter Jam again Pat!

Thank you Amir!

Otter Jam Fall 2022: Final Results

Congrats to all! I still am in the process of trying to correct the actual Results page. But these are the correct results!

1 FIRST PLACE: The Last Ranger

2 SECOND PLACE: Written in the Stars

3 THIRD PLACE: Wanderlust

Hope the jam is going well for everyone! I noticed the Jam page was getting badly out of date, so here are some updates:

- Twitch channel is cancelled, only using Discord for now

-The Game stream will take place on Wednesday, November 2nd, during CST421 Game Design II over Discord (instead of on Monday, Halloween Night- please enjoy a break from development while celebrating!). All submissions will be played, and winners announced after that.

- Prizes for the Jam will be Otter Jam T-Shirts and Stickers, for first, second and third place. The winning team will also receive a surprise painting created by the jam's host, Katie Green!

Drum roll please...

FIRST PLACE: BIO-LOGICAL 

Judges like: Creative & fun, very complete, strong exploration of theme 

SECOND PLACE: Underweald 

Judges liked: Spooky & beautiful atmosphere, strong visuals, completeness

THIRD PLACE: Submarine Pirates

Judges liked: Engaging and complex gameplay mechanics, strong game design 

Honorable mention: Exploring The Unknown 

Judges liked: Fun and well balanced gameplay, educational premise

THANK YOU AND CONGRATS TO ALL! Judging was close this year, as every game had lots of merit. 

Special shout out to Otter Be Ready, the only game to feature a sea creature as the player character!

Be sure to check out feedback from judges and fellow participants on the submissions page.

Next, fill out this quick form to provide data for this and the next Otter Jam. And perhaps we will see you at Otter Jam 2022.2- for the upcoming Fall semester.

Join us

6:15pm - 8pm today during Game Design I CST 321 (a CSUMB communication design course) on the Otter Jam 2022 discord.

Students will be streaming Otter Jam submissions and providing feedback to developers! Hope to see you there!

Submissions are now closed. Winners will be announced this Friday, April 22.

Additionally, this Tuesday (tomorrow) from 6-8pm PDT, Game Design I (CST 321) will be streaming all of the game jam games being played live during our virtual class session! See the Discord for more info.

Because the lab was locked this morning, I have added many more hours to the game jam!

The new deadline is Monday April 18, 5pm (it used to be Monday 12am)

While I encourage you to submit your game well before this new deadline, this will give you more time to build and export your game.

Keep in mind the winners will not be revealed until the upcoming Friday!

Update to the prizes! Even non-CSUMB students can win the t-shirts and stickers! 

Otter Jam 2022 Judges

Katie Green

Katie Green is the primary instructor for the CD game design concentration at CSUMB and the organizer of Otter Jam. She makes paintings, games, posters, 3D models, and more.

CSUMB contact page for Katie

Katie Green's Website

Pat Iampietro

Pat Iampietro is the Marine Geospatial Technology Officer at CSUMB's Marine Science program. In other words, he works with drones mapping the ocean floor and related research.

CSUMB contact page for Pat

Wes Modes

Wes Modes is a Californian artist focused on social practice, sculpture, performance and new media work. He currently teaches various art and programming courses at CSUMB and UCSC.

CSUMB contact page for Wes

Wes Mode's Website

Tamara Duplantis

Tamara “Tammy” Duplantis is a Louisiana-born computational media artist, experimental musician, homebrew Game Boy developer, and teacher of the arts. Under the name Tambalaya, she crafts unique games and music out of glitchy Game Boy cartridges and hand-me-down toy Casios.

UCSC Contact page for Tamara

Tamara's Twitter

Schedule 

SATURDAY APRIL 16

9am: Lab 105 in BIT is open for teams to use (powerful computers with Creative Cloud, Unity & Maya on them are in this lab!)
12pm: Katie Green visits and brings the gift of Pizza lunch. Possible appearance of judge Tammy
Post Lunch: Live play testing session
10pm: Lab 105 closes

SUNDAY APRIL 17

9am: Lab 105 in BIT is open
5pm: Virtual closing ceremonies over Discord hosted by Katie Green
10pm: Lab 105 closes
11:59am: Games submissions DUE to Otter Jam 2022!

This is also Easter Sunday.

MONDAY APRIL 18

5pm: Games submissions DUE to Otter Jam 2020!

FRIDAY APRIL 22

Judging finishes
Winners announced & Prizes distributed

The new due date for all jam submissions is April 18 at midnight. The original due date was incorrect, only allowing 24 hours. 

Keep in mind you can start work on the jam now, you just need to say when you began the project in the description of the game for judging purposes.

Personally, I am very anti-crunch culture. Otter Jam is meant to be a community event for learning and working together. It should not be a cause for lost sleep! Take care of yourself, even when working hard on games.

Thanks for your post and portfolio! Audio is so important for games, I hope you can find a good collaborator for Otter Jam.

You may work on Otter Jam projects before the Jam dates, or submit an existing project so long as it works with the theme "whats at the bottom of the trench?" You must specify the context of the project for judges so your work can be judged fairly against others. Is this a project you've been working on for a year, or a month? So long as you describe the context of your project honestly, both weekend-long projects and longer term projects are allowed to be submitted to Otter Jam. Thanks for your question, hope that answered it.

Thank you, CSUMB Game Developers Club!

No problem. The art is really cute!